As captured January 17, 2025

author: nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> 2025-01-17 05:46:29 -0800
committer: nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> 2025-01-17 05:46:29 -0800
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-
-*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF THE LADY HESTER STANHOPE, AS RELATED BY HERSELF IN CONVERSATIONS WITH HER PHYSICIAN, VOL. 2 (OF 3) ***
-
-
- [Illustration: LADY HESTER STANHOPE IN HER SALOON
-                London, Henry Colburn, 1845]
-
-
-
-
-                                MEMOIRS
-
-                                 OF THE
-
-                         LADY HESTER STANHOPE,
-
-                         AS RELATED BY HERSELF
-
-                       IN CONVERSATIONS WITH HER
-
-                               PHYSICIAN;
-
-                               COMPRISING
-
-                     HER OPINIONS AND ANECDOTES OF
-
-                  SOME OF THE MOST REMARKABLE PERSONS
-
-                              OF HER TIME.
-
-
-All such writings and discourses as touch no man will mend no
-man.――TYERS’S _Rhapsody on Pope_.
-
-
-                            Second Edition.
-
-                           IN THREE VOLUMES.
-
-                                VOL. II.
-
-
-                                LONDON:
-                       HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
-                       GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
-
-
-                                 1846.
-
-
-
-
-                       FREDERICK SHOBERL, JUNIOR,
-              PRINTER TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT,
-                 51, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET, LONDON.
-
-
-
-
-                                CONTENTS
-
-                                   OF
-
-                           THE SECOND VOLUME.
-
-
-                               CHAPTER I.
-
-Lady Hester Stanhope’s descent――The Author’s first introduction to
-her――Her reasons for quitting England――Anecdotes of her childhood
-and womanhood――Her motives for going to live with Mr. Pitt――Mr.
-Pitt’s opinion of Tom Paine――Lady Hester noticed by George
-III.――Anecdote of Sir A. H.――Of Lord G.――Of Lord A.――Impertinent
-questioners――Anecdote of the Marquis * * *――Mr. Pitt’s confidence in
-Lady Hester’s discretion――and in her devotion to him――His opinion of
-her cleverness, and of her military and diplomatic abilities――Her
-tirade against doctors――Her reflections on prudery――Anecdote of
-General Moore――Of the Duc de Blacas, &c.                            1
-
-
-                              CHAPTER II.
-
-Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s Memoirs――The three duchesses――Anecdote of
-Mr. Rice――How Prime Ministers are employed on first taking
-office――The Grenville make――P―――― of W―――― at Stowe――Mr. Pitt and
-Mr. Sheridan―― Duke of H―――― ――Mr. Pitt’s disinterestedness
-exemplified――His life wasted in the service of his country――Mr.
-Rose――Mr. Long――Mr.―――― ――Grounds at Walmer laid out by Lady
-Hester――Mr. Pitt’s deportment in retirement――His physiognomy――How he
-got into debt――Lord Carrington; why made a peer――Extent of Mr.
-Dundas’s influence over Mr. Pitt――Mr. Pitt averse to ceremony――Mr.
-Pitt and his sister Harriet――His dislike to the Bourbons――Lady
-Hester’s activity at Walmer――Lord Chatham’s indolence――Mr. Pitt’s
-opinion of Sir Arthur Wellesley                                    45
-
-
-                              CHAPTER III.
-
-Duchess of Gontaut――Duc de Berry――Anecdotes of Lord H.――Sir Gore
-Ouseley――Prince of Wales――The other princes――The Queen’s
-severity――Men and women of George the Third’s time――The Herveys――
-Lady Liverpool’s high breeding――Lady Hester’s declining health     76
-
-
-                              CHAPTER IV.
-
-Conscription in Syria――Inviolability of consular houses――Panic
-and flight of the people of Sayda――Protection afforded by Lady
-Hester――Story of a boy――Mustafa the barber――Cruelty to mothers
-of Conscripts――Conscription in the villages――Lady Hester’s
-dream――Inhabitants of Sayda mulcted――Lady Hester’s opinion
-of negresses――Severity necessary in Turkey――Case of Monsieur
-Danna――Captain Y.――Mustafa Pasha’s cruelty                        101
-
-
-                               CHAPTER V.
-
-Rainy season――Lady Hester’s despondency――Her Turkish costume――
-Turkish servants――Terror inspired by Lady Hester in her servants――
-Visit of Messieurs Poujolat and Boutés――Lady Hester’s inability to
-entertain strangers――Her dejected spirits and bad health          127
-
-
-                              CHAPTER VI.
-
-The Delphic priestess――Abdallah Pasha’s ingratitude――His
-cowardice―― Lady Hester’s spies――Her emaciation――History of
-General Loustaunau                                                154
-
-
-                              CHAPTER VII.
-
-Lady Hester like the first Lord Chatham――Her recollections of
-Chevening――Her definition of insults――Her deliberate affronts――Her
-warlike propensities――Earl C―――― Marquis of Abercorn――Logmagi――
-Osman Chaôosh――Letter from Colonel Campbell――George the Third’s
-flattering compliment to Lady Hester――Her Majesty Queen Victoria――
-Lord M.――Prophecy of a _welly_――Lady Hester’s poignant affliction――
-Her intractability――Her noble and disinterested benevolence       181
-
-
-                             CHAPTER VIII.
-
-Lady Hester’s system of astrology――Sympathies and antipathies――
-People’s _nijems_ or stars――Mesmerism explained――Lord Suffolk――
-Lady Hester’s own star――Letter to the Queen――Letter to Mr. Speaker
-Abercrombie――Messieurs Beck and Moore――Letter to Colonel
-Campbell――The Ides of March――Lady Hester’s reflections on the
-Queen’s conduct to her――Letter to Sir Edward Sugden――What peers
-are――Junius’s Letters――Spies employed by the first Lord Chatham――
-Mr. Pitt’s opinion of the Duke of Wellington――Lady Hester’s letter
-to his Grace, &c.                                                 223
-
-                              CHAPTER IX.
-
-Lady Hester in an alcove in her garden――Lucky days observed by
-her――Consuls’ rights――Mischief caused by Sir F. B.’s neglect in
-answering Lady Hester’s Letters――Rashes common in Syria――Visit of
-an unknown Englishman――Story of Hanah Messâad――Lady Hester’s love
-of truth――Report of her death――Michael Tutungi――Visit from the
-Chevalier Guys――His reception at Dayr el Mkhallas――Punishment of
-the shepherd, Câasem――Holyday of the Korbàn Byràm――Fatôom’s
-_accouchement_――Lady Hester’s aversion to consular interference――
-Evenings at Jôon――Old Pierre――Saady                               276
-
-
-                               CHAPTER X.
-
-Visit of Mr. Vesey Forster and Mr. Knox――Lady S. N.’s pension and
-Mr. H.――Lady Hester undeservedly censured by English travellers――
-Mr. Anson and Mr. Strangways――Mr. B. and Mr. C.――Captain
-Pechell――Captain Yorke――Colonel Howard Vyse――Lord B.              314
-
-
-
-
-                                MEMOIRS
-
-                                   OF
-
-                         LADY HESTER STANHOPE.
-
-
-
-
-                               CHAPTER I.
-
-Lady Hester Stanhope’s descent――The Author’s first introduction to
-her――Her reasons for quitting England――Anecdotes of her childhood and
-womanhood――Her motives for going to live with Mr. Pitt――Mr. Pitt’s
-opinion of Tom Paine――Lady Hester noticed by George III.――Anecdote of
-Sir A. H.――Of Lord G.――Of Lord A.――Impertinent questioners――Anecdote
-of the Marquis * * *――Mr. Pitt’s confidence in Lady Hester’s
-discretion――and in her devotion to him――His opinion of her cleverness,
-and of her military and diplomatic abilities――Her tirade against
-doctors――Her reflections on prudery――Anecdote of General Moore――Of the
-Duc de Blacas, &c.
-
-
-It probably will be known to most readers that Lady Hester Stanhope
-was the daughter of Charles Earl of Stanhope by Hester, his first
-wife, sister to Mr. William Pitt, and daughter of the first Earl of
-Chatham. He had issue by this first wife three daughters――Hester,
-Griselda, and Lucy. The earl married a second wife, by whom he had
-three sons: the present earl; Charles, killed at Corunna; and James,
-who died at Caen Wood, the villa of his father-in-law, the Earl of
-Mansfield.
-
-I became acquainted with Lady Hester Stanhope by accident. The chance
-that introduced me to her was as follows:――I was going to Oxford to
-take my degree; and, having missed the coach at the inn, I was obliged
-to hurry after it on foot, for the want of a hackney-coach, as far as
-Oxford-road turnpike, where I overtook it, and mounted the box in a
-violent perspiration. The day was bitterly cold, and, before night, I
-found myself attacked with a very severe catarrh. The merriment of a
-college life left me little time to pay attention to it; and, after
-about fifteen days, I returned with a troublesome cough, to London,
-where I took to my bed.
-
-Mr. H. Cline, jun., (the son of the celebrated surgeon) being my
-friend, and hearing of my indisposition, came to inquire after my
-health very frequently. One day, sitting by my bedside, he asked me if
-I should like to go abroad. I told him it had been the earliest wish
-of my life. He said, Lady Hester Stanhope (the niece of Mr. Pitt) had
-applied to his father for a doctor, and that, if I liked, he would
-propose me, giving me to understand from his father that, although the
-salary would be small, I should, if my services proved agreeable to
-Lady Hester, be ultimately provided for. I thanked him, and said, that
-to travel with such a distinguished woman would please me exceedingly.
-The following day he intimated that his father had already spoken
-about me, and that her ladyship would see me. In about four days I was
-introduced to her, and she closed with me immediately, inviting me to
-dine with her that evening. Afterwards, I saw her several times, and
-subsequently joined her at Portsmouth, whence, after waiting a
-fortnight, we sailed in the Jason, the Hon. Captain King, for
-Gibraltar.
-
-The reasons which Lady Hester assigned for leaving England were
-grounded chiefly on the narrowness of her income. Mr. Pitt’s written
-request, on his deathbed, that she might have £1500 a year, had been
-complied with only in part, owing to the ill offices of certain
-persons at that time in the privy-council, and she received clear,
-after deductions for the property-tax were made, no more that
-£1200. At first, after Mr. Pitt’s death, she established herself
-in Montague Square, with her two brothers, and she there continued
-to see much company. “But,” she would say, “a poor gentlewoman,
-doctor, is the worst thing in the world. Not being able to keep
-a carriage, how was I to go out? If I used a hackney-coach, some
-spiteful person would be sure to mention it:――‘Who do you think I saw
-yesterday in a hackney-coach? I wonder where she could be driving
-alone down those narrow streets?’ If I walked with a footman behind
-me, there are so many women of the town now who flaunt about with a
-smart footman, that I ran the hazard of being taken for one of them;
-and, if I went alone, either there would be some good-natured friend
-who would hint that Lady Hester did not walk out alone for nothing; or
-else I should be met in the street by some gentleman of my
-acquaintance, who would say, ‘God bless me, Lady Hester! where are you
-going alone?――do let me accompany you:’ and then it would be said,
-‘Did you see Lady Hester crossing Hanover Square with such a one? he
-looked monstrous foolish: I wonder where they had been.’ So that, from
-one thing to another, I was obliged to stop at home entirely: and this
-it was that hurt my health so much, until Lord Temple, at last,
-remarked it. For he said to me one day, ‘How comes it that a person
-like you, who used to be always on horseback, never rides
-out?’――‘Because I have no horse.’――‘Oh! if that is all, you shall have
-one to-morrow.’――‘Thank you, my lord; but, if I have a horse, I must
-have two; and, if I have two, I must have a groom; and, as I do not
-choose to borrow, if you please, we will say no more about it.’――‘Oh!
-but I will send my horses, and come and ride out with you every day.’
-However, I told him no: for how could a man who goes to the House
-every day, and attends committees in a morning, be able to be riding
-every day with me? And I know what it is to lend and borrow horses and
-carriages. When I used to desire my carriage to go and fetch any
-friend, my coachman was sure to say, ‘My lady, the horses want
-shoeing;’ or the footman would come in with a long face, ‘My lady,
-John would like to go and see his sister to-day, if you please:’ there
-was always some excuse. All this considered, I made up my mind to
-remain at home.”
-
-For some time did Lady Hester remain in Montague Square: but her
-brother and General Moore, having fallen at the battle of Corunna, I
-believe she grew entirely disgusted with London; and, breaking up her
-little establishment, she went down into Wales, and resided in a small
-cottage at Builth, somewhere near Brecon, in a room not more than a
-dozen feet square. Here she amused herself in curing the poor, in her
-dairy, and in other rustic occupations: until, not finding herself so
-far removed from her English acquaintances but that they were always
-coming across her and breaking-in upon her solitude, she resolved on
-going abroad, up the Mediterranean.
-
-Arrived at Gibraltar, she was lodged at the governor’s, in the
-convent, where she remained some time; and then embarked for Malta in
-the Cerberus, Captain Whitby, who afterwards distinguished himself in
-Captain Hoste’s victory up the Adriatic. At Malta, she lived, at
-first, in the house of Mr. Fernandez: afterwards, General Oakes
-offered Lady Hester the palace of St. Antonio, where we resided during
-the remainder of her stay.
-
-We departed for Zante in the month of June or July, 1810. From
-Zante, we passed over to Patras, where she bade adieu to English
-customs for the rest of our pilgrimage. Traversing Greece, we visited
-Constantinople, and, from Constantinople, sailed for Egypt. At Rhodes
-we were shipwrecked, and I there lost my journals, among which were
-many curious anecdotes that would have thrown much light on her
-ladyship’s life. I shall relate what I have since gathered, without
-observing any order, but always, as far as I could recollect, using her
-very expressions; and, in many instances, there will be found whole
-conversations, where her manner would be recognized by those who were
-acquainted with it. I shall sometimes preface them with observations of
-my own.
-
-Speaking of her sisters, Lady Hester would say: “My sister Lucy was
-prettier than I was, and Griselda more clever; but I had, from
-childhood, a cheerfulness and sense of feeling that always made me a
-favourite with my father. She exemplified this by an anecdote of the
-second Lady Stanhope, her stepmother, referring to the time when her
-father, in one of his republican fits, put down his carriages and
-horses.
-
-“Poor Lady Stanhope,” she said, “was quite unhappy about it; but,
-when the whole family was looking glum and sulky, I thought of a
-way to set all right again. I got myself a pair of stilts, and out
-I stumped down a dirty lane, where my father, who was always spying
-about through his glass, could see me. So, when I came home, he said
-to me, ‘Why, little girl, what have you been about? Where was it I
-saw you going upon a pair of――the devil knows what?――eh, girl?’――‘Oh!
-papa, I thought, as you had laid down your horses, I would take a walk
-through the mud on stilts; for you know, papa, I don’t mind mud or
-anything――’tis poor Lady Stanhope who feels these things; for she has
-always been accustomed to her carriage, and her health is not very
-good.’――‘What’s that you say, little girl?’ said my father, turning
-his eyes away from me; and, after a pause, ‘Well, little girl, what
-would you say if I bought a carriage again for Lady Stanhope?’――‘Why,
-papa, I would say it was very kind of you.’――‘Well, well,’ he
-observed, ‘we will see; but, damn it! no armorial bearings.’ So,
-some time afterwards, down came a new carriage and new horses
-from London; and thus, by a little innocent frolic, I made all parties
-happy again?”[1]
-
-Lady Hester continued. “Lucy’s disposition was sweet, and her temper
-excellent: she was like a Madonna. Griselda was otherwise, and always
-for making her authority felt. But I, even when I was only a girl,
-obtained and exercised, I can’t tell how, a sort of command over them.
-They never came to me, when I was in my room, without sending first to
-know whether I would see them.
-
-“Mr. Pitt never liked Griselda; and, when he found she was jealous of
-me, he disliked her still more. She stood no better in the opinion of
-my father, who bore with Lucy――ah! just in this way――he would say to
-her, to get rid of her, ‘Now papa is going to study, so you may go to
-your room:’ then, when the door was shut, he would turn to me, ‘Now, we
-must talk a little philosophy;’ and then, with his two legs stuck
-upon the sides of the grate, he would begin――‘Well, well,’ he would
-cry, after I had talked a little, ‘that is not bad reasoning, but the
-basis is bad.’
-
-“My father always checked any propensity to finery in dress. If any of
-us happened to look better than usual in a particular hat or frock, he
-was sure to have it put away the next day, and to have something coarse
-substituted in its place.
-
-“When I was young, I was always the first to promote my sister’s
-enjoyments. Whether in dancing, or in riding on horseback, or at a
-feast, or in anything that was to make them happy, I always had
-something to do or propose that increased their pleasure. In like
-manner, afterwards, in guiding them in politics, in giving them advice
-for their conduct in private life, in forwarding them in the world, I
-was a means of much good to them. It was always Hester, and Hester,
-and Hester; in short, I appeared to be the favourite of them all; and
-yet now, see how they treat me!
-
-“I was always, as I am now, full of activity, from my infancy. At two
-years old, I made a little hat. You know there was a kind of straw hat
-with the crown taken out, and in its stead a piece of satin was put
-in, all puffed up. Well! I made myself a hat like that; and it was
-thought such a thing for a child of two years old to do, that my
-grandpapa had a little paper box made for it, and had it ticketed
-with the day of the month and my age.
-
-“Just before the French revolution broke out, the ambassador from
-Paris to the English Court was the Comte d’Adhémar. That nobleman had
-some influence on my fate as far as regarded my wish to go abroad,
-which, however, I was not able to gratify until many years afterwards.
-I was but seven or eight years old when I saw him; and when he came
-by invitation to pay a visit to my papa at Chevening, there was such
-a fuss with the fine footmen with feathers in their hats, and the
-count’s bows and French manners, and I know not what, that, a short
-time afterwards, when I was sent to Hastings with the governess and
-my sisters, nothing would satisfy me but I must go and see what sort
-of a place France was. So I got into a boat one day unobserved, that
-was floating close to the beach, let loose the rope myself, and off I
-went. Yes, doctor, I literally pushed a boat off, and meant to go, as I
-thought, to France. Did you ever hear of such a mad scheme?
-
-“But I was tired of all those around me, who, to all my questions,
-invariably answered, ‘My dear, that is not proper for you to
-know,――or, you must not talk about such things until you get older;
-and the like. So I held my tongue, but I made up for it, by treasuring
-up everything I heard and saw. Isn’t it extraordinary that I should
-have such a memory? I can recall every circumstance that ever occurred
-to me during my life――everything worth retaining, that I wished to
-remember. I could tell what people said, how they sat, the colour of
-their hair, of their eyes, and all about them, at any time, for the
-last forty years and more. At Hastings, for example, I can tell the
-name of the two smugglers, Tate and Everett, who attended at the
-bathing-machine, and the name of the apothecary, Dr. Satterly,
-although I have never heard a word about those persons from that day
-to this.
-
-“How well I recollect what I was made to suffer when I was young! and
-that’s the reason why I have sworn eternal warfare against Swiss and
-French governesses. Nature forms us in a certain manner, both inwardly
-and outwardly, and it is in vain to attempt to alter it. One governess
-at Chevening had our backs pinched in by boards, that were drawn tight
-with all the force the maid could use; and, as for me, they would have
-squeezed me to the size of a puny miss――a thing impossible! My instep,
-by nature so high, that a little kitten could walk under the sole of
-my foot, they used to bend down in order to flatten it, although that
-is one of the things that shows my high breeding.
-
-“Nature, doctor, makes us one way, and man is always trying to fashion
-us another. Why, there was Mahon, when he was eight or nine years old,
-that never could be taught to understand how two and two make four.
-If he was asked, he would say, four and four make three, or ten, or
-something: he was shown with money, and with beans, and in every
-possible way, but all to no purpose. The fact was, that that
-particular faculty was not yet developed: but now, there is no better
-calculator anywhere. The most difficult sums he will do on his
-fingers; and he is besides a very great mathematician. There was a son
-of Lord Darnley’s, a little boy, who was only big enough to lie under
-the table, or play on the sofa, and yet he could make calculations
-with I don’t know how many figures――things that they have to do in the
-Treasury. Now, if that boy had gone on in the same way, he would by
-this time have been Chancellor of the Exchequer. But I hear nothing of
-him, and I don’t know what has become of him; so I suppose he has not
-turned out anything extraordinary.
-
-“But nature was entirely out of the question with us: we were left to
-the governesses. Lady Stanhope got up at ten o’clock, went out, and
-then returned to be dressed, if in London, by the hair-dresser; and
-there were only two in London, both of them Frenchmen, who could dress
-her. Then she went out to dinner, and from dinner to the Opera, and
-from the Opera to parties, seldom returning until just before
-daylight. Lord Stanhope was engaged in his philosophical pursuits: and
-thus we children saw neither the one nor the other. Lucy used to say
-that, if she had met her step-mother in the streets, she should not
-have known her. Why, my father once followed to our own door in London
-a woman who happened to drop her glove, which he picked up. It was our
-governess; but, as he had never seen her in the house, he did not know
-her in the street.
-
-“He slept with twelve blankets on his bed, with no nightcap, and his
-window open: how you would have laughed had you seen him! He used to
-get out of bed, and put on a thin dressing-gown, with a pair of silk
-breeches that he had worn overnight, with slippers, and no stockings:
-and then he would sit in a part of the room which had no carpet, and
-take his tea with a bit of brown bread.
-
-“He married two wives; the first a Pitt, the second a Grenville; so
-that I am in two ways related to the Grenvilles.”
-
-Lady Hester continued: “As I grew up, Lady Stanhope used to chuck me
-under the chin, and cry, ‘Why the kurl (girl) is like a soap ball; one
-can’t pinch her cheek:’ and I really used to think there was something
-very strange about me. Soon after Horne Tooke took notice of me, and
-pronounced flatteringly on my talents. And when Mr. Pitt followed, and
-kindly said, ‘Why I believe there is nothing to find fault with,
-either in her looks or her understanding,’ I began to know myself. Mr.
-Elliott, (who married Miss Pitt) used to say to me, dear man! in his
-_bontonné_ manner, ‘You must not be surprised, my love, if you make a
-great noise in the world.’
-
-“Sir Sydney Smith said of me, after he had known me fifteen years, and
-when my looks were much changed by illness, ‘When I see you now, I
-recall to my recollection what you were when you first _came out_. You
-entered the room in your pale shirt, exciting our admiration by your
-magnificent and majestic figure. The roses and lilies were blended in
-your face, and the ineffable smiles of your countenance diffused
-happiness around you.’
-
-“The Duke of Cumberland used to say to me――‘You and Amelia (Princess
-Amelia) are two of the most spanking wenches I ever saw; but, if
-(alluding to my ill-health) you go on in this way, I do not know what
-the devil you will make of it.’”
-
-When mentioning this, her ladyship added: “Doctor, at twenty, my
-complexion was like alabaster; and, at five paces’ distance, the
-sharpest eye could not discover my pearl necklace from my skin: my
-lips were of such a beautiful carnation, that, without vanity, I can
-assure you very few women had the like. A dark blue shade under the
-eyes, and the blue veins that were observable through the transparent
-skin, heightened the brilliancy of my features. Nor were the roses
-wanting in my cheeks; and to all this was added a permanency in my
-looks that fatigue of no sort could impair.”
-
-I am now writing when disappointments and sickness have undermined her
-health, and when she has reached her 54th year. Her complexion had now
-assumed a yellow tint, but her hands were still exceedingly fair, and
-she had the very common though pardonable fault of often contriving to
-show them. There were moments when her countenance had still something
-very beautiful about it. Her mouth manifested an extraordinary degree
-of sweetness, and her eyes much mildness.
-
-She never would have her likeness taken, when in the bloom of her
-beauty, and it is not probable it can be ever done now. There is a
-sort of resemblance between her and Mr. Pitt, (if I may judge from his
-portraits.) She has told me also, that she was like the late Duchess
-of Cumberland. Her head, seen in front, presented a perfect oval, of
-which the eyes would cover a line drawn through the centre. Her
-eyebrows were arched and fine, I mean slender; her eyes blue,
-approaching to gray; her nose, somewhat large, and the distance from
-the mouth to the chin rather too long. Her cheeks had a remarkably
-fine contour, as they rounded off towards the neck; so that Mr.
-Brummell, as has been related, once said to her in a party, “For God’s
-sake, do take off those earrings, and let us see what is beneath
-them.” Her figure was tall (I think not far from six feet), rather
-largely proportioned, and was once very plump, as I have heard her
-say. Her mien was majestic; her address eminently graceful; in her
-conversation, when she pleased, she was enchanting; when she meant it,
-dignified; at all times, eloquent. She was excellent at mimickry, and
-upon all ranks of life. She had more wit and repartee, perhaps, than
-falls to the lot of most women. Her knowledge of human nature was most
-profound, and she could turn that knowledge to account to its utmost
-extent, and in the minutest trifles. She was courageous, morally and
-physically so; undaunted, and proud as Lucifer.
-
-She never read in any book more than a few pages, and there were few
-works that she praised when she looked them over. History she
-despised, considering it all a farce: because, she said, she had seen
-so many histories of her time, which she found to be lies from
-beginning to end, that she could not believe in one. She had a great
-facility of expression, and, on some occasions, introduced old
-proverbs with wonderful appositeness. Conversation never flagged in
-her company. But to return to Lady Hester’s own account of herself.
-
-“I can recollect, when I was ten or twelve years old, going to
-Hastings’s trial. My garter, somehow, came off, and was picked up by
-Lord Grey, then a young man. At this hour, as if it were before me in
-a picture, I can see his handsome but very pale face, his broad
-forehead; his corbeau coat, with cut-steel buttons; his white satin
-waistcoat and breeches, and the buckles in his shoes. He saw from whom
-the garter fell, but, observing my confusion, did not wish to increase
-it, and with infinite delicacy gave the garter to the person who sat
-there to serve tea and coffee.
-
-“The first person I ever danced with was Sir Gilbert Heathcote.
-
-“When I was young, I was never what you call handsome, but brilliant.
-My teeth were brilliant, my complexion brilliant, my language――ah!
-there it was――something striking and original, that caught everybody’s
-attention. I remember, when I was living with Mr. Pitt, that, one
-morning after a party, he said to me, ‘Really, Hester, Lord Hertford’
-(the father of the late lord, and a man of high pretensions for his
-courtly manners) ‘paid you so many compliments about your looks last
-night, that you might well be proud of them.’――‘Not at all,’ answered
-I: ‘he is deceived, if he thinks I am handsome, for I know I am not.
-If you were to take every feature in my face, and put them, one by
-one, on the table, there is not a single one would bear examination.
-The only thing is that, put together and lighted up, they look well
-enough. It is homogeneous ugliness, and nothing more.’
-
-“Mr. Pitt used to say to me, ‘Hester, what sort of a being are you? We
-shall see, some day, wings spring out of your shoulders; for there are
-moments when you hardly seem to walk the earth.’ There was a man who
-had known me well for fifteen years, and he told me, one day, that he
-had tried a long time to make me out, but he did not know whether I
-was a devil or an angel. There have been men who have been intimate
-with me, and to whom, in point of passion, I was no more than that
-milk-jug” (pointing to one on the table); “and there have been others
-who would go through fire for me. But all this depends on the star of
-a person.
-
-“Mr. Pitt declared that it was impossible for him to say whether I was
-most happy in the vortex of pleasure, in absolute solitude, or in the
-midst of politics; for he had seen me in all three; and, with all his
-penetration, he did not know where I seemed most at home. Bouverie
-used to say to me, when I lived at Chevening, ‘I know you like this
-kind of life; it seems to suit you.’ And so it did: but why did I quit
-home? Because of my brothers and sisters, and for my father’s sake. I
-foresaw that my sisters would be reduced to poverty if I did not
-assist them; and, though people said to me, ‘Let their husbands get on
-by themselves; they are capable of making their own way,’ I saw they
-could not, and I set about providing for them. As for my father, he
-thought that, in joining those democrats, he always kept aloof from
-treason. But he did not know how many desperate characters there were,
-who, like C――――, for example, only waited for a revolution, and were
-always plotting mischief. I thought, therefore, it was better to be
-where I should have Mr. Pitt by my side to help me, should he get into
-great difficulty. Why, they almost took Joyce out of bed in my
-father’s house; and when my father went to town, there were those who
-watched him; and the mob attacked his house, so that he was obliged to
-make his escape by the leads, and slip out the back way. Joyce was
-getting up in the morning, and was just blowing his nose, as people do
-the moment before they come down to breakfast, when a single knock
-came to the door, and in bolted two officers with a warrant, and took
-him off without even my father’s knowledge. Then, were not Lord
-Thanet, Ferguson, and some more of them thrown into gaol? and I said,
-‘If my father has not a prop somewhere, he will share the same fate;’
-and this was one of the reasons why I went to live with Mr. Pitt. Mr.
-Pitt used to say that Tom Paine was quite in the right; but then he
-would add, ‘What am I to do? If the country is overrun with all these
-men, full of vice and folly, I cannot exterminate them. It would be
-very well, to be sure, if everybody had sense enough to act as they
-ought; but, as things are, if I were to encourage Tom Paine’s
-opinions, we should have a bloody revolution; and, after all, matters
-would return pretty much as they were.’ But I always asked, ‘What do
-these men want? They will destroy what we have got, without giving us
-anything else in its place. Let them give us something good before
-they rob us of what we have. As for systems of equality, everybody is
-not a Tom Paine. Tom Paine was a clever man, and not one of your
-hugger-mugger people, who have one day one set of ideas, and another
-set the next, and never know what they mean.’
-
-“I am an aristocrat, and I make a boast of it. We shall see what will
-come of people’s conundrums about equality. I hate a pack of dirty
-Jacobins, that only want to get people out of a good place to get into
-it themselves. Horne Tooke always liked me, with all my aristocratical
-principles, because he said he knew what I meant.
-
-“No, doctor, Bouverie was right: I liked the country. At the back of
-the inn, on Sevenoaks common, stood a house, which, for a residence
-for myself, I should prefer to any one I have ever yet seen. It was a
-perfectly elegant, light, and commodious building, with an oval
-drawing-room, and two boudoirs in the corners, with a window to each
-on the conservatory. When I visited there, it was inhabited by three
-old maids, one of whom was my friend. What good ale and nice luncheons
-I have had there many a time! What good cheese, what excellent apples
-and pears, and what rounds of boiled beef?”
-
-The next day these personal recollections were renewed.
-
-“I remember, when Colonel Shadwell commanded the district, that, one
-day, in a pelting shower of rain, he was riding up Madamscourt Hill,
-as I was crossing at the bottom, going home towards Chevening with my
-handsome groom, Tom, a boy who was the natural son of a baronet. I saw
-Colonel Shadwell’s groom’s horse about a couple of hundred yards from
-me, and, struck with its beauty, I turned up the hill, resolving to
-pass them, and get a look at it. I accordingly quickened my pace, and,
-in going by, gave a good look at the horse, then at the groom, then at
-the master, who was on a sorry nag. The colonel eyed me as I passed;
-and I, taking advantage of a low part in the hedge, put my horse to
-it, leaped over, and disappeared in an instant. The colonel found out
-who I was, and afterwards made such a fuss at the mess about my
-equestrian powers, that nothing could be like it. I was the toast
-there every day.
-
-“Nobody ever saw much of me until Lord Romney’s review. I was obliged
-to play a trick on my father to get there. I pretended, the day
-before, that I wanted to pay a visit to the Miss Crumps” (or some such
-name), “and then went from their house to Lord Romney’s. Though all
-the gentry of Kent were there, my father never knew, or was supposed
-not to have known, that I had been there. The king took great notice
-of me. I dined with him――that is, what was called dining with him, but
-at an adjoining table. Lord and Lady Romney served the king and queen,
-and gentlemen waited on us: Upton changed my plate, and he did it very
-well. Doctor, dining with royalty, as Lord Melbourne does now, was not
-so common formerly; I never dined with the king but twice――once at
-Lord Romney’s at an adjoining table, and once afterwards at his own
-table: oh! what wry faces there were among some of the courtiers! Mr.
-Pitt was very much pleased at the reception I met with: the king took
-great notice of me, and, I believe, always after liked me personally.
-Whenever I was talking to the dukes, he was sure to come towards us.
-‘Where is she?’ he would cry; ‘where is she? I hear them laugh, and
-where they are laughing I must go too:’ then, as he came nearer, he
-would observe, ‘if you have anything to finish, I won’t come yet――I’ll
-come in a quarter of an hour.’ When he was going away from Lord
-Romney’s, he wanted to put me bodkin between himself and the queen;
-and when the queen had got into the carriage, he said to her, ‘My
-dear, Lady Hester is going to ride bodkin with us; I am going to take
-her away from Democracy Hall:’ but the old queen observed, in rather a
-prim manner, that I ‘had not got my maid with me, and that it would be
-inconvenient for me to go at such a short notice:’ so I remained.
-
-“It was at that review that I was talking to some officers, and
-something led to my saying, ‘I can’t bear men who are governed by
-their wives, as Sir A. H*** is; a woman of sense, even if she did
-govern her husband, would not let it be seen: it is odious, in my
-opinion:’ and I went on in this strain, whilst poor Sir A. himself,
-whom I did not know, but had only heard spoken of, was standing by all
-the time. I saw a dreadful consternation in the bystanders, but I went
-on. At last some one――taking commiseration on him, I suppose――said,
-‘Lady Hester, will you allow me to introduce Sir A. H*** to you, who
-is desirous of making your acquaintance.’ Sir A. very politely thanked
-me for the advice I had given him; and I answered something about the
-regard my brother had for him, and there the matter ended.
-
-“When first I went to live with Mr. Pitt, one day he and I were taking
-a walk in the park, when we were met by Lord Guildford, having Lady
-―――― and Lady ――――, two old demireps, under his arm. Mr. Pitt and I
-passed them, and Mr. Pitt pulled off his hat: Lord G. turned his head
-away, without acknowledging his bow. The fact was, he thought Mr. Pitt
-was escorting some mistress he had got. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘there goes
-Falstaff with the merry wives of Windsor.’ ‘Yes,’ rejoined Mr. Pitt,
-‘and I think, whatever he may take you to be, he need not be so prim,
-with those two painted and patched ladies under his arm.’
-
-“The same thing happened with Lord A.; and, when Mr. Pitt soon after
-came into office, Lord A. called on Mr. Pitt, who, being busy, sent
-him to me. Lord A. began with a vast variety of compliments about
-ancient attachments, and his recollection, when a boy, of having
-played with me: so I cut him short by telling him his memory then must
-have sadly failed him the other day, when he passed me and Mr. Pitt in
-his curricle with Lady ――――. After many, ‘Really, I supposed,’ and
-‘Upon my honours,――Sense of propriety on account of Lady ――――, and not
-knowing who I was’――I laughed heartily at him, and he went away. When
-he was gone, Mr. Pitt came to me, and said, ‘I don’t often ask
-questions about your visitors, but I should really like to know what
-excuse Lord A. could offer for his primosity[2] to us, when he was
-riding with such a Jezebel as Lady ――――.’
-
-“Yet it might have been very natural for Mr. Pitt to do so.[3] How
-many people used to come and ask me impertinent questions, in order to
-get out his state secrets: but I very soon set them down. ‘What, you
-are come to give me a lesson of impertinence,’ I used to say, laughing
-in their faces. One day, one of them, of rather a first-rate class,
-began with――‘Now, my dear Lady Hester, you know our long friendship,
-and the esteem I have for you――now do just tell me, who is to go out
-ambassador to Russia?’ So I was resolved to try him; and, with a very
-serious air, I said, ‘Why, if I had to choose, there are only three
-persons whom I think fit for the situation――Mr. Tom Grenville, Lord
-Malmesbury,’ and I forget who was the third: ‘but you know,’ I added,
-‘Lord Malmesbury’s health will not allow him to go to so cold a
-climate, and Mr., the other, is something and something, so that he is
-out of the question.’ Next morning, doctor, there appeared in ‘The
-Oracle,’ a paper, observe, that Mr. Pitt never read――‘We understand
-that Lord M. and Mr. T. G. are selected as the two persons best
-qualified for the embassy to Russia: but, owing to his lordship’s ill
-health, the choice will most likely fall on Mr. T. G.’
-
-“I was highly amused the following days, to hear the congratulations
-that were paid to Mr. Grenville: but, when the real choice came to be
-known, which was neither one nor the other, oh! how black the
-inquisitive friend of mine looked; and what reproaches he made me for
-having, as he called it, deceived him! But I did not deceive him: I
-only told him what was true, that, if I had the choice, I should
-choose such and such persons.
-
-“There are, necessarily, hundreds of reasons for ministers’ actions,
-that people in general know nothing about. When the Marquis ―――― was
-sent to India it was on condition that he did not take ―――― ―――― with
-him: for Mr. Pitt said, ‘It is all very well if he chooses to go
-alone, but he shan’t take ―――― ―――― with him; for――who knows?――she may
-be, all the time, carrying on intrigues with the French government,
-and that would not suit my purpose.’
-
-“There might be some apparent levity in my manner, both as regarded
-affairs of the cabinet and my own; but I always knew what I was doing.
-When Mr. Pitt was reproached for allowing me such unreserved liberty
-of action in state matters and in affairs where his friends advised
-him to question me on the motives of my conduct, he always
-answered――‘I let her do as she pleases; for, if she were resolved to
-cheat the devil, she could do it.’ And so I could, doctor; and that is
-the reason why thick-headed people, who could never dive into the
-motives of what I did, have often misinterpreted my conduct, when it
-has proceeded from the purest intentions. And, in the same way, when
-some persons said to Lady Suffolk, ‘Look at Lady Hester, talking and
-riding with Bouverie and the Prince’s friends; she must mind what she
-is about’――Lady Suffolk remarked, ‘There is nothing to fear in that
-quarter; she never will let any body do a bit more than she intends:
-what she does is with _connoissance de cause_.’ And she was right;
-nobody could ever accuse me of folly: even those actions which might
-seem folly to a common observer, were wisdom. Everything with me,
-through life, has been premeditatedly done.
-
-“Mr. Pitt paid me the greatest compliment I ever received from any
-living being. He was speaking of C******, and lamenting he was so
-false, and so little to be trusted; and I said, ‘But perhaps he is
-only so in appearance, and is sacrificing ostensibly his own opinions,
-in order to support your reputation?’――‘I have lived,’ replied Mr.
-Pitt, ‘twenty-five years in the midst of men of all sorts, and I never
-yet found but one human being capable of such a sacrifice.’――‘Who can
-that be?’ said I. ‘Is it the Duke of Richmond? is it such a one?’ and
-I named two others, when he interrupted me――‘No,――it is _you_.’
-
-“I was not insensible to praise from such a man; and when, before
-Horne Tooke and some other clever people, he told me I was fit to sit
-between Augustus and Mæcenas, I suppose I must believe it. And he did
-not think so lightly of my lectures as you do: for one day he said to
-me, ‘We are going to establish a new hospital, and you, Hester, are to
-have the management of it: it is to be an hospital for the diseases of
-the mind; for nobody knows so well as you how to cure them.’ I should
-never have done if I were to repeat the many attestations of his good
-opinion of me: but it was no merit of mine if I deserved it: I was
-born so. There was a man one day at table with Mr. Pitt, an old friend
-of his――Canning told me the story――who, speaking of me, observed that
-he supposed I should soon marry, and, after some conversation on the
-subject, concluded by saying, ‘I suppose she waits till she can get a
-man as clever as herself.’ ‘Then,’ answered Mr. Pitt, ‘she will never
-marry at all.’
-
-“In like manner, in the troublesome times of his political career, Mr.
-Pitt would say, ‘I have plenty of good diplomatists, but they are none
-of them military men: and I have plenty of good officers, but not one
-of them is worth sixpence in the cabinet. If you were a man, Hester, I
-would send you on the Continent with 60,000 men, and give you _carte
-blanche_; and I am sure that not one of my plans would fail, and not
-one soldier would go with his shoes unblacked; meaning, that my
-attention would embrace every duty that belongs to a general and a
-corporal――and so it would, doctor.”
-
-After musing a little while, Lady Hester Stanhope went on. “Did you
-ever read the life of General Moore that I have seen advertised,
-written by his brother? I wonder which brother it was. If it was the
-surgeon, he was hard-headed, with great knowledge of men, but dry,
-and with nothing pleasing about him. His wife was a charming woman,
-brought up by some great person, and with very good manners.
-
-“As for tutors, and doctors, and such people, if, now-a-days, mylords
-and myladies walk arm-in-arm with them, they did not do so in my time.
-I recollect an old dowager, to whom I used sometimes to be taken to
-spend the morning. She was left with a large jointure, and a fine
-house for the time being, and used to invite the boys and the girls of
-my age, I mean the age I was then, with their tutors and governesses,
-to come and see her. ‘How do you do, Dr. Mackenzie? Lord John, I see,
-is all the better for his medicine: the duchess is happy in having
-found a man of such excellent talents, which are almost too great to
-be confined to the sphere of one family.’――‘Such is the nature of our
-compact, my Lady, nor could I on any account violate the regulations
-which so good a family has imposed upon me.’――‘It’s very cold, Dr.
-Mackenzie: I think I increased my rheumatic pains at the Opera on
-Saturday night.’――‘Did you ever try Dover’s Powders, my lady?’ He does
-not, you see, tell her to use Dover’s Powders; he only says, did you
-ever try them? ‘Lord John――Lord John, you must take care, and not eat
-too much of that strawberry preserve.’
-
-“‘How do you do, Mr. K.?――how do you do, Lord Henry? I hope the
-marchioness is well? She looked divinely last night. Did you see her
-when she was dressed, Mr. K.?’――‘You will pardon me, my lady,’ answers
-the tutor, ‘I did indeed see her; but it would be presumptuous in me
-to speak of such matters. I happened to take her a map,’ (mind,
-doctor, he does not say a map of what) ‘and, certainly, I did cast my
-eyes on her dress, which was, no doubt, in the best taste, as
-everything the Marchioness does is.’ Observe, here is no mention of
-her looks or person. Doctors and tutors never presumed formerly to
-talk about the complexion, and skin, and beauty, of those in whose
-families they lived or found practice. Why, haven’t I told you, over
-and over again, how Dr. W―――― lost his practice from having said that
-a patient of his, who died, was one of the most beautiful corpses he
-had ever seen, and that he had stood contemplating her for a quarter
-of an hour: she was a person of rank, and it ruined him. Even his son,
-who was a doctor too, and had nothing to do with it, never could get
-on afterwards.
-
-“Then would come in some young lady with her governess, and then
-another; and the old dowager would take us all off to some show, and
-make the person who exhibited it stare again with the number of young
-nobility she brought with her. From the exhibition, which was some
-monster, or some giant, or some something, she would take us to eat
-ices, and then we were all sent home, with the tutors and governesses
-in a stew, lest we should be too late for a master, or for a God knows
-what.
-
-“I have known many apothecaries cleverer than doctors themselves.
-There was Chilvers, and Hewson, and half-a-dozen names that I forget:
-and there was an apothecary at Bath that Mr. Pitt thought more of than
-of his physician. Why, I have seen Sir H―――― obliged to give way to an
-apothecary in a very high family. ‘We will just call him in, and see
-what he says:’ and the moment he had written his prescription and was
-gone out of the house, the family would consult the apothecary, who
-perhaps knew twice as much of the constitution of the patient. ‘You
-know, my lord, it is not the liver that is affected, whatever Sir
-H―――― pretends to think: it is the spleen; for, did not we try the
-very same medicine that he has prescribed for above a week? and it did
-your lordship no good. You may just as well, and better, throw his
-draught away:’ and sure enough it was done. Sir Richard Jebb the same.
-
-“Do you think,” continued she, “that the first physician in London is
-on terms of intimacy with the mylords he prescribes for? he
-prescribes, takes his guinea, and is off: or, if he is asked to sit
-down a little, it is only to pick his brains about whether somebody is
-likely to live or not: but I am not, and never was, so mean: I always
-liked people should know their relative situations. Ah! Dr. Turton, or
-some such man as that, would be perhaps asked now and then to dinner,
-or to take a walk round the grounds. A doctor’s business is to examine
-the _grandes affaires_, talk to the nurse, and see that his blister
-has been well dressed, and not to talk politics, say such a woman is
-handsome, and chatter about what does not concern him.”
-
-Whilst Lady Hester was going on with her strictures on the poor
-doctors, a favourite theme with her, I produced from the back of a
-cupboard a miniature print of General Moore, which had been lying at
-Abra, neglected for some years. She took it from my hand, and, looking
-at it a little time, she observed that it was an excellent likeness of
-what he was when he became a weather-beaten soldier: “Before that,”
-said she, “those cheeks were filled out and ruddy, like Mr. Close’s at
-Malta.”
-
-After a pause, Lady Hester Stanhope continued: “Poor Charles! My
-brother Charles one day was disputing with James about his handsome
-Colonel, and James, on his side, was talking of somebody’s leg being
-handsome, saying he was right, for it had been modelled, and nobody’s
-could be equal to it; when Charles turned to me, and asked with great
-earnestness if I did not think General Moore was the better made man
-of the two, I answered, ‘He is certainly very handsome.’――‘Oh! but,’
-said Charles, ‘Hester, if you were only to see him when he is bathing,
-his body is as perfect as his face.’ I never even smiled, although
-inwardly I could not help smiling at his naïveté.
-
-“I consider it a mark of vulgarity and of the association of bad ideas
-in people’s minds when they make a handle of such equivoques in an
-ill-natured way, as you recollect Mr. T. did when he was at
-Alexandria. People of good breeding do not even smile, when, perhaps,
-low persons would suppose they might show a great deal of affected
-primosity. Only imagine the Duc de Blacas to be announced;――what would
-my old servant, poor William Wiggins, have done? He would never have
-got out the word.” Here Lady Hester set up laughing most heartily, and
-then she laughed, and laughed again. I think I never saw anything make
-her relax from her composure so much.
-
-“As for what people in England say or have said about me, I don’t care
-that for them,” (snapping her fingers); “and whatever vulgar-minded
-people say or think of me has no more effect than if they were to spit
-at the sun. It only falls on their own nose, and all the harm they do
-is to themselves. They may spit at a marble wall as they may at me,
-but it will not hang. They are like the flies upon an artillery-horse’s
-tail――there they ride, and ride, and buz about, and then there comes a
-great explosion; bom! and off they fly. I hate affectation of all
-kinds. I never could bear those ridiculous women who cannot step over
-a straw without expecting the man who is walking with them to offer
-his hand. I always said to the men, when they offered me their hand,
-‘No, no; I have got legs of my own, don’t trouble yourselves.’ Nobody
-pays so little attention to what are called punctilios as I do; but if
-any one piques me on my rank, and what is due to me, that’s another
-thing: I can then show them who I am.”
-
-October 16.――These conversations filled up the mornings and evenings
-until the 16th of October, when I went to Mar Elias for a day. Whilst
-there, a peasant arrived with an ass-load of musk grapes and
-_mukseysy_ grapes that Lady Hester had sent. An ass-load in those
-happy countries is but a proof of the abundance that reigns there. A
-bushel-basket of oranges or lemons, a bunch of fifty or sixty bananas,
-ten or twelve melons at a time, were presents of frequent occurrence.
-
-October 18.――I returned to Jôon, and employed myself busily in fitting
-up the cottage intended for our dwelling. The nearer the time
-approached for bringing my family close to her premises, the more
-Lady Hester seemed to regret having consented to the arrangement.
-Petty jealousies, inconsistent with a great mind, were always
-tormenting her. Of this a remarkable and somewhat ludicrous instance
-occurred during the latter part of the month of September. Most
-persons are probably aware that Mahometans have a religious horror of
-bells, and, in countries under their domination, have never allowed of
-their introduction even into Christian churches. It is not uncommon,
-by way of contempt, to designate Europe as the land of bells. This
-pious abhorrence penetrates the arcana of private life; and, in a
-Turkish house, no such thing as a bell for calling the servants is
-ever to be seen. A clap of the hands, repeated three times, is the
-usual summons; and, as the doors are seldom shut, the sound can be
-easily heard throughout every part of the dwelling.
-
-Lady Hester, however, retained her European habits in this one
-particular; and perhaps there never existed a more vehement or
-constant bell-ringer. The bells hung for her use were of great size;
-so that the words _Gerass el Syt_, or my lady’s bell, echoing from one
-mouth to another when she rang, made the most indolent start on their
-legs; until, at last, as nobody but herself in the whole territory
-possessed house-bells, the peasantry and menials imagined that the use
-of them was some special privilege granted to her by the Sublime
-Porte on account of her exalted rank, and she probably found it to her
-advantage not to disturb this very convenient supposition.
-
-On taking up our residence at Mar Elias, there were two bells put by
-in a closet, which were replaced for the use of my family, with
-bell-ropes to the saloon and dining-room, none of us ever suspecting
-that they could, by any human ingenuity, be considered otherwise than
-as most necessary appendages to a room: but we calculated without our
-host. This assumption of the dignity of bells was held to be an act of
-_læsa majestas_; and the report of our proceedings was carried from
-one person to another, until, at last, it reached Lady Hester’s ears,
-endorsed with much wonder on the part of her maids how a doctor’s wife
-could presume to set herself on an equality with a _meleky_ (queen).
-Lady Hester, however, saw the absurdity of affecting any claim to
-distinction in such a matter, and, therefore, vexed and mortified
-although it appears she was, she never said a word to me on the
-subject. But, one morning in September, when we were all assembled at
-breakfast, on pulling the bell-rope no sound responded, and, examining
-into the cause, we discovered that the strings had been cut by a
-knife, and the bells forcibly wrenched from their places. Much
-conjecture was formed as to who could have done all this mischief.
-The maids were questioned; the porter, the milkman, the errand-boy,
-the man-servant, every body, in short, in and about the place, but
-nobody knew anything of the matter. Understanding Arabic, I soon found
-there was some mystery in the business; and answers, more and more
-evasive, from the porter, the harder he was pressed, led to a
-presumption, amounting almost to a certainty, that her ladyship’s
-grand emissary, Osman Chaôosh, had arrived late at night, armed with
-pincers, hammer, etcetera, and, before daylight, had carried off the
-bells to Lady Hester’s residence. I concealed my conjecture from my
-family, wishing to cause no fresh source of irritation; and, having
-occasion to write that day to Lady Hester, I merely added, as a
-postscript, “The two bells have been stolen during the night, and I
-can find no certain clue to the thief. For, although I have discovered
-that Osman el Chaôosh has been here secretly, I cannot think it likely
-that any one of your servants would presume to do such a thing without
-your orders; nor can I believe that your ladyship would instruct any
-one to do that clandestinely which a message from yourself to me would
-have effected so easily.”
-
-When I saw Lady Hester a day or two afterwards, she never alluded to
-the bells, nor did I; and nothing was ever mentioned about them for
-two or three months, until, one day, she, being in a good humour,
-said, “Doctor, it was I who ordered Osman to take away the bells. The
-people in this country must never suppose there is any one connected
-with my establishment who puts himself on an equality with me, no
-matter in what. The Turks know of only one Pasha in a district; the
-person next to him is a nobody in his presence, not daring even to sit
-down or to speak, unless told to do so. If I had let those bells hang
-much longer, the sound of my own would not have been attended to. As
-it is, half of my servants have become disobedient from seeing how my
-will is disputed by you and your family, who have always a hundred
-reasons for not doing what I wish to be done; and, as I said in my
-letter to Eugenia, I can’t submit to render an account of my actions;
-for, if I was not called upon to do so by Mr. Pitt, I am sure I shan’t
-by other people; so let us say no more about it.” Of course, I
-complied with her whims; or rather, I should say, admitted the good
-sense of her observations: for I knew very well that she never did
-anything without a kind or substantial motive. So, after that, the
-exclamation of _Gerass el Syt_ recovered its magical effect.
-
-October 23.――I escorted my family to their new residence, which was
-called the Tamarisk Pavilion, from a tamarisk-tree that grew from the
-terrace. They were all delighted with it, and happiness seemed
-restored to its inmates.
-
-October 25.――The very day on which my family came up, Lady Hester took
-to her bed from illness, and never quitted it until March in the
-following year. She had now laboured under pulmonary catarrh for six
-or seven years, which, subsiding in the summer months, returned every
-winter, with increased violence, and at this time presented some very
-formidable symptoms.
-
-November 9.――About six o’clock, just as I had dined, a servant came to
-say that her ladyship wished to see me. On going into her bed-room,
-which, as usual, was but faintly lighted, I ran my head against a long
-packthread, which crossed from the wall, where it was tied, to her
-bed, and was held in her hand. “Take care, doctor,” said she; “these
-stupid beasts can’t understand what I want: but you must help me. I
-want to pull out a tooth. I have tied a string to it and to the wall:
-and you, with a stick or something, must give it a good blow, so as to
-jerk my tooth out.”
-
-Knowing her disposition, I said, “Very well, and that I would do as
-she wished. But, if you like,” added I, “to have it extracted
-_secundem artem_, I fancy I can do it for you.”――“Oh! doctor, have you
-nerve enough? and, besides, I don’t like those crooked instruments:
-but, however, go and get them.” I had seen in the medicine-chest a
-dentist’s instrument, and, returning with it, I performed the
-operation; with the result of which she was so much pleased, that she
-insisted upon having another tooth out. The relief was so
-instantaneous, that the second tooth was no sooner gone than she
-commenced talking as usual.
-
-The cough with which Lady Hester had been so long indisposed
-occasionally assumed symptoms of water in the chest. Sudden starts
-from a lying posture, with a sense of suffocation, which, for a
-moment, as she described it, was like the gripe of a hand across her
-throat, made me very uneasy about her. Her strong propensity to
-bleeding, to which she had resorted four or five times a year for the
-last twenty years, had brought on a state of complete emaciation, and
-what little blood was left in her body seemed to have no circulation
-in the extremities, where her veins, on a deadly white skin, showed
-themselves tumefied and knotty.
-
-It was difficult to reason with her on medical subjects, especially in
-her own case. She had peculiar systems, drawn from the doctrine of
-people’s stars. She designated her own cough as an asthma, and had,
-for some time, doctored herself much in her own way. Such is the balmy
-state of the air in Syria, that, had she trusted to its efficacy
-alone, and lived with habits of life like other people, nothing
-serious was to be dreaded from her illness. But she never breathed the
-external air, except what she got by opening the windows, and took no
-exercise but for about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour daily,
-when, on quitting her bed-room to go to the saloon, she made two or
-three turns in the garden to see her flowers and shrubs, which seemed
-to be the greatest enjoyment she had.
-
-She prescribed almost entirely for herself, and only left me the
-duties of an apothecary; or, if she adopted any of my suggestions, it
-was never at the moment, but always some days afterwards, when it
-seemed to her that she was acting, not on my advice, but on the
-suggestions of her own judgment. She was accustomed to say, if any
-doubts were expressed of the propriety of what she was going to do, “I
-suppose I am grown a fool in my old age. When princes and statesmen
-have relied on my judgment, I am not going to give it up at this time
-of life.”
-
-But it was not for herself alone that she thus obstinately prescribed;
-she insisted also upon doing the same for everybody else, morally as
-well as medically. One of the prominent features in her character was
-the inclination she had to give advice to all persons indiscriminately
-about their conduct, their interests, and their complaints: and, in
-this latter respect, she prescribed for everybody. I was not exempt,
-and I dreaded her knowing anything about the most trifling
-indisposition that affected me. Greatly addicted to empiricism, she
-would propose the most strange remedies; and, fond of the use of
-medicine herself, she would be out of humour if others showed an
-aversion to it. There was no surer way of securing her good graces
-than to put one’s self under her management for some feigned
-complaint, and then to attribute the cure to her skill. Hundreds of
-knaves have got presents out of her in this way. For they had but to
-say that, during their illness, they had lost an employment, or spent
-their ready money, no matter what――they were sure to be remunerated
-tenfold above their pretended losses. Let it however be said to her
-honour, that, among the number she succoured in real sickness, many
-owned with gratitude the good she had done: and no surer proof of this
-can be given than the universal sorrow that pervaded half the
-population of Sayda, when, in the course of this her illness, she was
-reported to be past recovery.
-
-It was in compliance with this foible of hers that, when I returned to
-Dar Jôon, after being laid up with a bad leg, she would insist on my
-wearing a laced cloth boot, which she ordered to be made, unknown to
-me; on my washing the œdematous leg in wine with laurel leaves steeped
-in it; and on sitting always, when with her, with my leg resting on a
-cushion placed on a stool. Her tyranny in such matters was very
-irksome; for it was clothed in terms of so much feeling and regard,
-and of such commiseration for one’s overrated sufferings, that, to
-escape the accusation of ingratitude and bad breeding, it was
-impossible to avoid entire acquiescence in every one of her kind
-commands.
-
-She was ever complaining that she could get nothing to eat, nothing to
-support a great frame like hers: yet she seldom remained one half
-hour, from sunrise to sunset, or from sunset to sunrise (except during
-sleep), without taking nourishment of some kind. I never knew any
-human being who took food so frequently: but, from that very
-frequency, it might be doubted whether she had a relish for anything.
-And may not this, in some measure, account for her frequent
-ill-humour? for nothing sours people’s temper more than an overloaded
-stomach, and nothing promotes cheerfulness more than a light one.
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-      [1] In accordance with his republican principles, Lord
-          Stanhope caused his armorial bearings to be defaced
-          from his plate, carriages, &c. Nothing was spared
-          but the iron gate before the entrance to the house.
-          Even the tapestry given to the great Lord Stanhope
-          by the king of Spain, with which one of the rooms
-          in Chevening was ornamented, he caused to be taken
-          down and put into a corner, calling it all damned
-          aristocratical. He likewise sold all the Spanish
-          plate, which Lady Hester said weighed (if I recollect
-          rightly) six hundred weight.
-
-      [2] A friend has suggested that _primosity_ is not in
-          Johnson’s Dictionary; it was however a word of
-          frequent recurrence in Lady Hester’s vocabulary; and
-          it scarcely, I think, need be said, that it means
-          prudery:
-
-                    “What is prudery? ’Tis a beldam,
-                     Seen with wit and beauty seldom.”
-                                              POPE.
-
-      [3] “In 1800, Mr. Pitt, for the third time, contemplated
-          renewing his attempts to make peace with France, and
-          he offered the mission again to Lord Malmesbury.
-          Lord Grenville wished to appoint his brother,
-          Mr. Thomas Grenville; and Lord Malmesbury, whose
-          deafness and infirmity had much increased, readily
-          consented.”――_Diaries and Correspondence of the Earl
-          of Malmesbury._
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER II.
-
-Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s Memoirs――The three duchesses――Anecdote of Mr.
-Rice――How Prime Ministers are employed on first taking office――The
-Grenville make――P―――― of W―――― at Stowe――Mr. Pitt and Mr. Sheridan――
-Duke of H―――― ――Mr. Pitt’s disinterestedness exemplified――His life
-wasted in the service of his country――Mr. Rose――Mr. Long――Mr.――――
-――Grounds at Walmer laid out by Lady Hester――Mr. Pitt’s deportment in
-retirement――His physiognomy――How he got into debt――Lord Carrington;
-why made a peer――Extent of Mr. Dundas’s influence over Mr. Pitt――Mr.
-Pitt averse to ceremony――Mr. Pitt and his sister Harriet――His dislike
-to the Bourbons――Lady Hester’s activity at Walmer――Lord Chatham’s
-indolence――Mr. Pitt’s opinion of Sir Arthur Wellesley.
-
-
-On leaving Marseilles, in 1837, I ordered Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s
-Memoirs to be sent after me to Syria, thinking that, as relating to
-Mr. Pitt’s times, and to people and politics with whom and in which
-both he and she had mixed so largely, these memoirs could not fail to
-amuse her. I received them soon after my arrival at Jôon, and many
-rainy days were passed in reading them. They served to beguile the
-melancholy hours of her sickness, and recalled the agreeable
-recollections of her more splendid, if not more happy, hours. She
-would say on such occasions, “Doctor, read a little of your book to
-me.” This was always her expression, when I had brought any
-publication to her: and, ordering a pipe, lying at her length in bed,
-and smoking whilst I read, she would make her comments as I went on.
-
-“Let me hear about the duchesses,” she would say. After a page or two
-she interrupted me. “See what the Duchess of Rutland and the Duchess
-of Gordon were: look at the difference. I acknowledge it proceeds all
-from temperament, just as your dull disposition does, which to me is
-as bad as a heavy weight or a nightmare. I never knew, among the whole
-of my acquaintance in England, any one like you but Mr. Polhill of
-Crofton” (or some such place): “he was always mopish, just as you are.
-I remember too what a heavy, dull business the Duchess of R.’s parties
-were――the room so stuffed with people that one could not move, and all
-so heavy――a great deal of high breeding and _bon ton_; but there was,
-somehow, nothing to enliven you. Now and then some incident would turn
-up to break the spell. One evening, I recollect very well, everybody
-was suffering with the heat: there we were, with nothing but heads to
-be seen like bottles in a basket. I got out of the room, upon the
-landing-place. There I found Lady Sefton, Lady Heathcote, and some of
-your high-flyers, and somebody was saying to me, ‘Lady Hester
-something,’ when, half way up the staircase, the Duke of Cumberland
-was trying to make his way. He cried out, ‘Where’s Lady Hester?
-where’s my aide-de-camp? Come and help me; for I am so blind I can’t
-get on alone. Why, this is h――l and d――――n!’――‘Here I am, sir.’――‘Give
-me your hand, there’s a good little soul. Do help me into this h――l;
-for it’s quite as hot.’ Then came Bradford; and, whilst he was
-speaking to me, and complaining of the intolerable heat and crush, out
-roared the Duke of Cumberland, ‘Where is she gone to?’――and up went
-his glass, peeping about to the right and left――‘where is she gone
-to?’ There was some life in him, doctor.
-
-“Now, at the Duchess of Gordon’s, there were people of the same
-fashion, and the crowd was just as great; but then she was so lively,
-and everybody was so animated, and seemed to know so well what they
-were about――quite another thing.
-
-“As for the Duchess of D.’s, there they were――all that set――all
-yawning, and wanting the evening to be spent, that they might be
-getting to the business they were after.”
-
-It may be mentioned that Lady Hester was always very severe on the
-Duchess of D. and her friends, whenever her name or theirs was
-mentioned. She said she was full of affected sensibility, but that
-there was always a great deal of wickedness about her eyes.
-
-The mention of the Duchess of Rutland’s name also led to an amusing
-anecdote. Lady Hester was speaking of the grand _fête_ given by the
-duchess when her son came of age. The arrangements were entrusted to a
-person named Rice, and to some great confectioner. Mr. Rice had been
-_maître d’hôtel_, or in some such capacity, in Mr. Pitt’s family.
-
-“Rice told me,” said Lady Hester, “that when he and the other man were
-preparing for the _fête_, he never lay down for ten nights, but got
-what sleep he could in an arm-chair. The duchess gave him three
-hundred guineas. One day she looked at him over her shoulder; and when
-one of the beaux about her said, ‘What are you looking after, duchess?
-You have forgotten something in the drawing-room?’――‘No, no,’ said
-she, pointing to Rice, ‘I was only thinking that those eyes are too
-good for a kitchen.’ And then one talked of the eyes, and the eyes,
-and another of the eyes and the eyes, until poor Rice quite blushed.
-He had very pretty eyes, doctor.”
-
-But the anecdote I was going to relate was this. Most simple persons,
-like myself, imagine that prime ministers of such a country as
-England, when promoted to so elevated a station, are only moved by the
-noble ambition of their country’s good, and, from the first moment to
-the last, are ever pondering on the important measures that may best
-promote it. No such thing. Let us hear what Lady Hester Stanhope
-herself had to say on this subject.
-
-“The very first thing Mr. Pitt did,” said she, “after coming into
-office the second time, was to provide for Mr. Rice. We were just got
-to Downing Street, and everything was in disorder. I was in the
-drawing-room: Mr. Pitt, I believe, had dined out. When he came home,
-‘Hester,’ said he, ‘we must think of our dear, good friend Rice. I
-have desired the list to be brought to me to-morrow morning, and we
-will see what suits him.’――‘I think we had better see now,’ I replied.
-‘Oh, no! it is too late now.’――‘Not at all,’ I rejoined; and I rang
-the bell, and desired the servant to go to the Treasury, and bring me
-the list.
-
-“On examining it, I found three places for which he was eligible. I
-then sent for Rice. ‘Rice,’ said I, ‘here are three places to be
-filled up. One is a place in the Treasury, where you may fag on, and,
-by the time you are forty-five or fifty, you may be master of twenty
-or twenty-five thousand pounds. There is another will bring you into
-contact with poor younger sons of nobility: you will be invited out,
-get tickets for the Opera, and may make yourself a fine gentleman. The
-third is in the Customs: there you must fag a great deal, but you will
-make a great deal of money: it is a searcher’s place.’
-
-“Rice, after considering awhile, said――‘As for the Treasury, that will
-not suit me, my lady; for I must go on plodding to the end of my life.
-The second place your ladyship mentioned will throw me out of my
-sphere: I am not fit for fine folks; and, if you please, I had rather
-take the third.’ So, the very next morning, I got all his papers
-signed by everybody except Mr. Long, and they made some excuses that
-he was not come, or was gone, or something; but I would hear of no
-delay, and desired them to find him.
-
-“Rice went on swimmingly, doctor, for a long time, and made one
-morning a seizure that brought for his share £500. But I had given him
-some very long instructions, and he was not like you, for he listened
-to my advice. Sometimes, when I was teaching him how he was to act, he
-would say, ‘My lady, I believe that is enough for this time: I don’t
-think my poor head will contain more; but I’ll come again.’ I told him
-he was to learn the specific gravity of bodies, that when they told
-him (for example) it was pepper, he might know by the volume that it
-was not gunpowder or cochineal.
-
-“When the Grenville administration wanted to introduce new regulations
-into the Customs, and diminish their profits, I wrote such a petition
-for them, that Lord Grenville read it over and over, and cried
-out――‘There is only one person could write this, and we must give up
-the point.’ He sent the Duke of Buckingham to me to find out if it was
-I, and the duke said, to smooth the matter――‘Lady Hester, you know, if
-you want any favour, you have only to ask for it.’――‘Indeed,’ said I,
-‘I shall ask no favour of your _broad-bottomed_ gentry; what I want I
-shall take by force.’――‘Now, Hester,’ cried the duke, ‘you are too
-bad; you are almost indelicate.’
-
-“Oh, I made a man laugh so once when speaking of an officer, who, I
-said, would not do for an hussar, as he wanted a little more of the
-Grenville make about him.”
-
-After a pause, as if reflecting, Lady Hester resumed――“Is there
-nothing in the book about the G********’s getting the Prince down to
-Stowe? They received him with extraordinary magnificence, and the most
-noble treatment possible: they fancied they were going to do wonders.
-But I said to them――‘Do you think all this makes the impression you
-wish in the Prince’s breast? You suppose, no doubt, that you gratify
-him highly with such a splendid reception: you are much mistaken. From
-this time forward he will be jealous of you, and will hate you as
-long as he thinks you can rival him.’ The event proved how justly I
-knew his character.
-
-“There they were, shut up: and when they told me they had got their
-conditions in black and white, I told them how it would be. I said he
-would take them in; for what was a paper to a man like him? I wrote
-them such a letter, doctor, that they all thought it was Mr.
-Pitt’s――Mr. Pitt’s best style, too――until I swore he never knew a word
-about it. They fancied they had got all the loaves and fishes. One was
-to be Prime Minister, one First Lord of the Admiralty, and so on: but
-their ambition destroyed them. What have they been since Mr. Pitt’s
-death? Nothing at all. Who ever hears now of the Duke of
-B*********?”[4]
-
-I turned over the pages, and next read Wraxall’s account of Mr.
-Sheridan, which Lady Hester said was very much to the purpose. “Mr.
-Pitt,” she added, “always thought well of him, and never disliked my
-talking with him. Oh! how Sheridan used to make me laugh, when he
-pretended to marry Mr. Pitt to different women!”
-
-I came to the passage where Sir Nathaniel finds fault with Mr. Pitt’s
-having refused Sheridan’s generous offer of co-operating with him in
-suppressing the mutiny at the Nore. “Why,” interrupted Lady Hester,
-“what could Mr. Pitt do? He was afraid, doctor; he did not know how
-sincere such people might be in their offers: they might be only
-coming over to his side to get the secrets of the cabinet, and then
-turn king’s evidence. It required a great deal of caution to know how
-to deal with such clever men.”
-
-Where Sir Nathaniel relates the history of the Burrell family, she
-spoke highly of all the daughters, but especially of Mrs. Bennett, and
-considered that the author was wrong in saying that all but Mrs.
-Bennett were not handsome.
-
-Of the D. of H. she observed, that he never lived with the duchess. He
-was in love with Lady ――――, and used to disguise himself as a
-one-legged soldier――as a beggar――assuming a hundred masquerades,
-sleeping in outhouses, &c. He would have married her, but he could
-not, for he had got one wife already. That was the woman F. M****
-married. “Oh, doctor, there was a man!” (meaning the Duke of H――――)
-“perfect from top to toe, with not a single flaw in his person.”
-
-Lady Hester was so delighted with Sir Nathaniel’s Memoirs that she
-said, more than once, “How I wish I had known that man! I would have
-made him a duke. What an excellent judgment he has, and how well he
-knew everybody! But how was I to find out all those people, when the
-stupid and interested set that surrounded Mr. Pitt kept them all in
-the background.”
-
-November 11.――This evening I remained with Lady Hester about three
-hours. She was better, but complained of great pain in the left
-hypochondrium, and could not lie easy on either side, or on her back.
-Yet, notwithstanding her ailments, talking was necessary for her; and
-from the incidental mention of Mr. Pitt’s name, she went on about him
-for some time.
-
-“Nobody ever knew or estimated Mr. Pitt’s character rightly. His views
-were abused and confounded with the narrow projects of men who never
-could comprehend them; his fidelity to his master was never
-understood. Never was there such a disinterested man; he invariably
-refused every bribe, and declined every present that was offered to
-him. Those which came to him from abroad he left to rot in the Custom
-House; and some of his servants, after quitting his service, knowing
-he never inquired about them any more, went and claimed things of this
-sort: for Mr. Pitt would read the letter, and think no more about it.
-I could name those, who have pictures hanging in their rooms――pictures
-by Flemish masters, of great value――procured in this way.
-
-“Mr. Pitt used to say of Lord Carrington, when he saw him unable to
-eat his dinner in comfort, because he had a letter to write to his
-steward about some estate or another――‘_voilà l’embarras de
-richesses_:’ but when he heard of some generous action done by a
-wealthy man――‘There’s the pleasure of being rich,’ he would cry. He
-did not pretend to despise wealth, but he was not a slave to it, as
-will be seen by the following anecdotes:――
-
-“At one time a person was empowered by his city friends to settle on
-him £10,000 a year, in order to render him independent of the favour
-of the king and of everybody, upon condition (as they expressed it)
-that he would stand forth to save his country. The offer was made
-through me, and I said I would deliver the message, but was afraid the
-answer would not be such as they wished. Mr. Pitt in fact refused it,
-saying he was much flattered by their approval of his conduct, but
-that he could accept nothing of the sort.
-
-“Yet these people,” added Lady Hester, “were not, as you might at
-first suppose, disinterested in their offer: I judged them to be
-otherwise. For if it had been to the man, and not to some hopes of
-gain they had by him, would they not, after his death, have searched
-out those he esteemed as angels, and have honoured his memory by
-enriching those he loved so much? (alluding to herself and brothers.)
-But no――they thought if Mr. Pitt retired from public affairs, the
-country and its commerce would go to ruin, and they, as great city
-men, would be the losers; whereas, by a few thousand pounds given away
-handsomely, if they got him to take an active part in the government,
-they would in turn put vast riches into their own purses, and make a
-handsome profit out of their patriotism.” She added, “There are no
-public philanthropists in the city.”
-
-“I recollect once a hackney-coach drawing up to the door, out of which
-got four men: doctor, they had a gold box with them as big as that”
-(and she held her hands nearly a foot apart to show the size of it),
-“containing £100,000 in bank-notes. They had found out the time when
-he was alone, and made him an offer of it. It was all interest that
-guided them, but they pretended it was patriotism:――rich merchants,
-who were to get a pretty penny by the job. He very politely thanked
-them, and returned the present.
-
-“I was once in the city at an Irish linen warehouse――very rich people,
-but such a nasty place――so dark! You know those narrow streets. They
-offered to buy Hollwood for him, pay his debts, and make him
-independent of the king, if he would contrive to take office; for he
-was out at the time. I mentioned it to him, as I thought it my duty to
-do so; but he would not listen to any such proposal.
-
-“When I think of the ingratitude of the English nation to Mr. Pitt,
-for all his personal sacrifices and disinterestedness, for his life
-wasted in the service of his country!”――Here Lady Hester’s emotions
-got the better of her, and she burst into tears: she sobbed as she
-spoke. “People little knew what he had to do. Up at eight in the
-morning, with people enough to see for a week, obliged to talk all the
-time he was at breakfast, and receiving first one, then another, until
-four o’clock; then eating a mutton-chop, hurrying off to the House,
-and there badgered and compelled to speak and waste his lungs until
-two or three in the morning!――who could stand it? After this, heated
-as he was, and having eaten nothing, in a manner of speaking, all day,
-he would sup with Dundas, Huskisson, Rose, Mr. Long, and such persons,
-and then go to bed to get three or four hours’ sleep, and to renew the
-same thing the next day, and the next, and the next.
-
-“Poor old Rose! he had a good heart. I am afraid he took it ill that I
-did not write to him. Mr. Long used to slide in and slide out, and
-slide here and slide there――nobody knew when he went or when he
-came――so quiet.”
-
-I here interrupted Lady Hester: “It was a lamentable end, that of Mr.
-――――,” said I.[5] “So much the better,” answered Lady Hester. I
-thought she had not heard me well. “It was a lamentable end, that of
-Mr. ――――,” I repeated with a louder tone. “So much the better,” said
-she again; “it could not be too bad for him. He died in bodily
-torment, and C―――― had the torment of a bad conscience for his
-falsehoods, and W―――― lived in mental torment. They all three deserved
-it.”
-
-Lady Hester resumed. “When Mr. Pitt was at Walmer, he recovered his
-health prodigiously. He used to go to a farm near Walmer, where hay
-and corn were kept for the horses. He had a room fitted up there with
-a table and two or three chairs, where he used to write sometimes, and
-a tidy woman to dress him something to eat. Oh! what slices of bread
-and butter I have seen him eat there, and hunches of bread and cheese
-big enough for a ploughman! He used to say that, whenever he could
-retire from public life, he would have a good English woman cook.
-Sometimes, after a grand dinner, he would say, ‘I want something――I am
-hungry:’ and when I remarked, ‘Well, but you are just got up from
-dinner,’ he would add, ‘Yes; but I looked round the table, and there
-was nothing I could eat――all the dishes were so made up, and so
-unnatural.’ Ah, doctor! in town, during the sitting of parliament,
-what a life was his! Roused from his sleep (for he was a good sleeper)
-with a despatch from Lord Melville;――then down to Windsor; then, if
-he had half an hour to spare, trying to swallow something:――Mr. Adams
-with a paper, Mr. Long with another; then Mr. Rose: then, with a
-little bottle of cordial confection in his pocket, off to the House
-until three or four in the morning; then home to a hot supper for two
-or three hours more, to talk over what was to be done next day:――and
-wine, and wine!――Scarcely up next morning, when tat-tat-tat――twenty or
-thirty people, one after another, and the horses walking before the
-door from two till sunset, waiting for him. It was enough to kill a
-man――it was murder!”
-
-Lady Hester reverted to Walmer, and went on, after musing a little
-thus――“I remember once what an improvement I made at Walmer, which
-arose from a conversation with some friends, in which Mr. Pitt agreed
-with them that Walmer was not certainly a beautiful residence, but
-that it only wanted trees to make it so. I was present, but did not
-seem to hear what was passing.
-
-“Mr. Pitt soon after went to town. Mindful of what he had let drop, I
-immediately resolved to set about executing the improvements which he
-seemed to imply as wanting. I got (I know not how) all the regiments
-that were in quarters at Dover, and employed them in levelling,
-fetching turf, transplanting shrubs, flowers, &c. As I possess, in
-some degree, the art of ingratiating myself where I want to do it, I
-would go out of an evening among the workmen, and say to one, ‘You are
-a Warwickshire man, I know by your face’ (although I had known it by
-his brogue). ‘How much I esteem Lord Warwick; he is my best
-friend.’――‘Were you in Holland, my good fellow?’ to another. ‘Yes, my
-lady, in the Blues.’――‘A fine regiment; there is not a better soldier
-in the army than colonel so-and-so.’――‘He was my colonel, my lady.’
-Thus a few civil words, and occasionally a present, made the work go
-on rapidly, and it was finished before Mr. Pitt’s return.
-
-“When Mr. Pitt came down, he dismounted from his horse, and, ascending
-the staircase, saw through a window, which commanded a view of the
-grounds, the improvements that had been made. ‘Dear me, Hester, why,
-this is a miracle! I know ’tis you, so do not deny it: well, I
-declare, it is quite admirable; I could not have done it half so well
-myself.’ And, though it was just dinner-time, he would go out, and
-examine it all over, and then was so profuse in his praises!――which
-were the more delightful, because they applauded the correctness of my
-taste. Above all, he was charmed that I had not fallen into an error
-(which most persons would have done) of making what is called an
-English garden, but rather had kept to the old manner of avenues,
-alleys, and the like, as being more adapted to an ancient castle. Such
-was the amiable politeness of Mr. Pitt.
-
-“When Mr. Pitt retired from office, and sold Hollwood, his favourite
-child, he laid down his carriages and horses, diminished his equipage,
-and paid off as many debts as he could. Yet, notwithstanding this
-complete revolution, his noble manners, his agreeable, condescending
-air, never forsook him for a moment. To see him at table with vulgar
-sea captains, and ignorant militia colonels, with two or three
-servants in attendance――he, who had been accustomed to a servant
-behind each chair, to all that was great and distinguished in
-Europe――one might have supposed disgust would have worked some change
-in him. But in either case it was the same――always the admiration of
-all around him. He was ever careful to cheer the modest and diffident;
-but if some forward young fellow exhibited any pertness, by a short
-speech, or by asking some puzzling question, he would give him such a
-set down that he could not get over it all the evening.”
-
-In answer to a question I put, “By whom and how ministers effected
-their purposes in the city,” she told me that they got hold of one of
-the great squads, as Lloyd’s, the Angersteins, the Merchant Tailors,
-and so on; and by means of one body set the rest to work. Lady Hester
-was saying of herself that she was very fit for a diplomatic
-character. “Nobody can ever observe in me any changes in my
-countenance; and when I am sitting still under a tree, nobody that
-passes and sees me, I will venture to say, would ever suppose what was
-in me, or say that’s a person of talent. Mr. Pitt’s face was somewhat
-the same. In regarding him, I should have said that he had a sort of
-slovenly or negligent look: and the same when he was in a passion. His
-passion did not show itself by knitting his brows or pouting his
-mouth, nor were his words very sharp: but his eyes lighted up in a
-manner quite surprising. It was something that seemed to dart from
-within his head, and you might see sparks coming from them. At another
-time, his eyes had no colour at all.
-
-“That Mr. Pitt got into debt is no wonder. How could a man, so
-circumstanced, find time to look into his affairs? And of course there
-were many things I could not attend to, whatever disposition I might
-have had to do so. The bills that were given in by the cook, by the
-valet, and such people, I looked over. Merely the post-chaises and
-four were enough to run away with a moderate income. Every now and
-then I fixed on some glaring overcharge, and made some inquiry about
-it, just to put a check upon them; and on such occasions I would say,
-‘Take care that does not happen again:’ but, what with great dinners,
-and one thing and another, it was impossible to do any good. As for
-your talking about English servants being more honest than those of
-other countries, I don’t know what to say about it.
-
-“Where Wraxall, in his book, insinuates that Mr. Pitt gave Mr. Smith a
-title, and made him Lord Carrington, merely to discharge a debt for
-money supplied in his emergencies, he is wrong, doctor. Mr. Pitt once
-borrowed a sum of money of six persons, but Lord Carrington was not of
-the number, and the title bestowed on him was for quite another
-reason: it was to recompense the zeal he had shown in raising a
-volunteer corps at his own expense at Nottingham, and in furnishing
-government with a sufficient sum to raise another. Mr. Pitt had also
-found Mr. Smith a useful man in affording him information about
-bankers’ business, which he often stood in need of, and in making
-dinner parties, to enable Mr. Pitt to get rid of troublesome people,
-whom he otherwise would have been obliged to entertain at his own
-table. But Mr. Pitt never knew what I heard after his death, by mere
-accident, that the principal part of the loan, which Mr. S. presented
-to government in his own name, was in reality the gift of an old miser
-at Nottingham; who, being unable or unwilling to go to town to see the
-Chancellor of the Exchequer in person, and to be put to the trouble
-of addressing the crown, got Mr. S., who was an active man, to do it
-for him. It suited Mr. Pitt very well, in making Lord Carrington
-governor of Deal castle, to have somebody near at hand who could take
-off the bore, and the expense too, of entertaining people from
-London.”
-
-“Sir Nathaniel Wraxall speaks of Mr. Pitt’s supposed inclination for
-one of the Duke of Richmond’s daughters, and goes on to say that he
-showed one of them great attention.” Lady Hester Stanhope interrupted
-me at that passage, and said, “So he did to all.”
-
-She denied that Mr. Dundas had any direct influence over Mr. Pitt, as
-Wraxall avers. Her words were, “Because Mr. Dundas was a man of sense,
-and Mr. Pitt approved of his ideas on many subjects, it does not
-follow, therefore, that he was influenced by him.” With the exception
-of Mr. Dundas, Lord ―――― and another that she named, “all the rest,”
-said Lady Hester, “were a rabble――a rabble. It was necessary to have
-some one at their head to lead them, or else they were always going
-out of the right road, just as, you know, a mule with a good star must
-go before a caravan of mules, to show them the way. Look at a flight
-of geese in the air: there must always be one to lead them, or else
-they would not know in what direction to fly.
-
-“Mr. Pitt’s consideration for age was very marked. He had, exclusive
-of Walmer, a house in the village, for the reception of those whom the
-castle could not hold. If a respectable commoner, advanced in years,
-and a young duke arrived at the same time, and there happened to be
-but one room vacant in the Castle, he would be sure to assign it to
-the senior; for it is better (he would say) that these young lords
-should walk home on a rainy night, than old men: they can bear it more
-easily.
-
-“Mr. Pitt was accustomed to say that he always conceived more
-favourably of that man’s understanding who talked agreeable nonsense,
-than of his who talked sensibly only; for the latter might come from
-books and study, while the former could only be the natural fruit of
-imagination.
-
-“Mr. Pitt was never inattentive to what was passing around him, though
-he often thought proper to appear so. On one occasion, Sir Ed. K. took
-him to the Ashford ball to show him off to the yeomen and their wives.
-Though sitting in the room in all his senatorial seriousness, he
-contrived to observe everything; and nobody” (Lady Hester said) “could
-give a more lively account of a ball than he. He told who was rather
-fond of a certain captain; how Mrs. K. was dressed; how Miss Jones,
-Miss Johnson, or Miss Anybody, danced; and had all the minutiæ of the
-night as if he had been no more than an idle looker-on.
-
-“He was not fond of the applause of a mob. One day, in going down to
-Weymouth, he was recognized in some town, and, whilst the carriage
-stopped to change horses, a vast number of people gathered round us:
-they insisted on dragging the carriage, and would do so for some time,
-all he could say. Oh, doctor! what a fright I was in!
-
-“Mr. Pitt bore with ceremony as a thing necessary. On some occasions,
-I was obliged to pinch his arm to make him not appear uncivil to
-people: ‘There’s a baronet,’ I would say; or, ‘that’s Mr. So-and-so.’
-
-“I never saw Mr. Pitt shed tears but twice. I never heard him speak of
-his sister Har-yet” (so Lady Hester pronounced it) “but once. One day
-his niece, Harriet Elliott, dined with us, and, after she was gone,
-Mr. Pitt said, ‘Well, I am glad Harriet fell to my brother’s lot, and
-you to mine, for I never should have agreed with her.’――‘But,’
-observed I, ‘she is a good girl, and handsome.’――‘She ought to be so,’
-said Mr. Pitt, ‘for her mother was so.’”
-
-Lady Hester said, that those who asserted that Mr. Pitt wanted to put
-the Bourbons on the throne, and that they followed his principles,
-lied; and, if she had been in parliament, she would have told them so.
- “I once heard a great person,” added she, “in conversation with him
-on the subject, and Mr. Pitt’s reply was, ‘Whenever I can make
-peace,[6] whether with a consul, or with whosoever it is at the head
-of the French government, provided I can have any dependance on him, I
-will do it.’ Mr. Pitt had a sovereign contempt for the Bourbons, and
-the only merit that he allowed to any one of them was to him who was
-afterwards Charles X., whose gentlemanly manners and mild demeanour he
-could not be otherwise than pleased with. Mr. Pitt never would consent
-to their going to court, because it would have been a recognition of
-Louis XVIII.
-
-“Latterly, Mr. Pitt used to suffer a great deal from the cold in the
-House of Commons; for he complained that the wind cut through his silk
-stockings. I remember, one day, I had on a large tippet and muff of
-very fine fur: the tippet covered my shoulders, and came down in a
-point behind. ‘What is this, Hester?’ said Mr. Pitt; ‘something
-Siberian? Can’t you command some of your slaves――for you must
-recollect, Griselda, Hester has slaves without number, who implicitly
-obey her orders’ (this was addressed to Griselda and Mr. Tickell, who
-were present)――‘can’t you command some of your slaves to introduce the
-fashion of wearing muffs and tippets into the House of Commons? I
-could then put my feet on the muff, and throw the tippet over my knees
-and round my legs.’
-
-“When we were at Walmer, it is incredible what a deal I got through in
-the day. Mr. Pitt was pleased to have somebody who would take trouble
-off his hands. Every week he had to review the volunteers, and would
-ride home in such showers of rain――I have been so drenched, that, as I
-stood, my boots made two spouting fountains above my knees. Then there
-was dinner; and, if I happened to be alone, when I went to the
-drawing-room, I had to give the secret word for spies, to see the
-sergeant of the guard, and then the gentlemen would come in from the
-dining-room. But, if they were late, oh, how sleepy I got, and would
-have given the world to go to bed!
-
-“One day, Lord Chatham had to review the artillery, and he kept them
-under arms from daylight until three o’clock. Bradford went to him
-several times to know if he was ready. ‘I shall come in about half an
-hour,’ was the constant reply; until, at last, seeing no chance of his
-appearance, I agreed with the aide-de-camps to go off together and
-settle matters as well as we could: so, getting Lord Chatham’s leave,
-off we went. Colonel Ford, the commanding-officer, was a cross man;
-and that day he had enough to make him so. But I managed it all very
-well: I told him that pressing business detained Lord C.; that he had
-commissioned us to apologize; and that I should have pleasure in
-saying the men looked admirably: then I added that Mr. Pitt hoped to
-see him in the course of a few days at the Castle, and so on. The
-colonel looked dreadfully out of temper, however, and Bradford and I
-rode back at a furious rate. It was one of those dark, wet days that
-are so peculiar to England. A day or two after, the colonel and some
-of the officers were invited to Walmer, and I behaved very civilly to
-them; so that Lord Chatham’s laziness was forgotten.
-
-“Lord Chatham never travelled without a mistress. He was a man of no
-merit, but of great _sâad_ (luck): he used to keep people waiting and
-waiting whilst he was talking and breakfasting with her. He would keep
-his aide-de-camps till two or three in the morning. How often would
-the servant come in, and say supper was ready, and he would answer,
-‘Ah! well, in half an hour.’ Then the servant would say, ‘Supper is
-on the table;’ and then it would be, ‘Ah? well, in a quarter of an
-hour.’ An aide-de-camp would come in with a paper to sign, and perhaps
-Lord Chatham would say――‘Oh, dear! that’s too long: I can’t possibly
-look at it now: you must bring it to-morrow.’ The aide-de-camp would
-present it next day, and he would cry, ‘Good God! how can you think of
-bringing it now? don’t you know there’s a review to-day?’ Then, the
-day after, he was going to Woolwich. ‘Well, never mind,’ he would say;
-‘have you got a short one?――well, bring that.’
-
-“Doctor, I once changed the dress of a whole regiment――the Berkshire
-militia. Somebody asked me, before a great many officers, what I
-thought of them, and I said they looked like so many tinned
-harlequins. One day, soon after, I was riding through Walmer village,
-when who should pop out upon me but the colonel, dressed in entirely
-new regimentals, with different facings, and more like a regiment of
-the line. ‘Pray, pardon me, Lady Hester’――so I stopped, as he
-addressed me――‘pray, pardon me,’ said the colonel, ‘but I wish to know
-if you approve of our new uniform.’ Of course I made him turn about,
-till I inspected him round and round――pointed with my whip, as I sat
-on horseback, first here and then there――told him the waist was too
-short, and wanted half a button more――the collar was a little too
-high――and so on; and, in a short time, the whole regiment turned out
-with new clothes. The Duke of York was very generous, and not at all
-stingy in useful things.
-
-“I recollect once at Ramsgate, five of the Blues, half drunk, not
-knowing who I was, walked after me, and pursued me to my door. They
-had the impertinence to follow me up-stairs, and one of them took hold
-of my gown. The maid came out, frightened out of her senses; but, just
-at the moment, with my arm I gave the foremost of them such a push,
-that I sent him rolling over the others down stairs, with their swords
-rattling against the balusters. Next day, he appeared with a black
-patch as big as a saucer over his face; and, when I went out, there
-were the glasses looking at me, and the footmen pointing me out――quite
-a sensation!”
-
-During these conversations respecting Mr. Pitt’s times, Sir
-Nathaniel’s Memoirs were generally in my hand, and when there was a
-pause I resumed my reading. In giving Sir Walter Farquhar’s private
-conversation respecting Mr. Pitt’s death, the author says――“Mr. Pitt
-mounted the staircase with alacrity.” Here Lady Hester stopped me,
-with the exclamation of――“What a falsehood, doctor! Just hear how it
-was. You know, when the carriage came to the door, he was announced,
-and I went up to the top of the stairs to receive him. The first
-thing I heard was a voice so changed, that I said to myself, ‘It is
-all over with him.’ He was supported by the arms of two people, and
-had a stick, or two sticks, in his hands, and as he came up, panting
-for breath――ugh! ugh! I retreated little by little, not to put him to
-the pain of making a bow to me, or of speaking:――so much for his
-alacrity!
-
-“After Mr. Pitt’s death, I could not cry for a whole month and more. I
-never shed a tear, until one day Lord Melville came to see me; and the
-sight of his eyebrows turned grey, and his changed face, made me burst
-into tears. I felt much better for it after it was over.
-
-“Mr. Pitt’s bust was taken after his death by an Italian, named, I
-think, Tomino――an obscure artist, whom I had rummaged out. This man
-had offered me at one time a bust worth a hundred guineas, and prayed
-me to accept it, in order, as he said, to make his name known: I
-refused it, but recollected him afterwards. The bust turned out a very
-indifferent resemblance: so, with my own hand, I corrected the
-defects, and it eventually proved a strong likeness. The D. of C.
-happening to call when the artist was at work in my room, was so
-pleased, that he ordered one of a hundred guineas for himself, and
-another to be sent to Windsor. There was one by this Tomino put into
-the Exhibition.
-
-“A fine picture in Mr. Pitt’s possession represented Diogenes with a
-lantern searching by day for an honest man. A person cut out a part of
-the blank canvas, and put in Mr. Pitt’s portrait.
-
-“When Mr. Pitt was going to Bath, previous to his last illness, I told
-him I insisted on his taking my eider-down quilt with him. ‘You will
-go about,’ said I, ‘much more comfortably; and, instead of being too
-hot one day under a thick counterpane, and the next day shivering
-under a thin one, you will have an equable warmth, always leaving one
-blanket with this quilt. Charles and James were present, and could not
-help ridiculing the idea of a man’s carrying about with him such a
-bundling, effeminate thing. ‘Why,’ interrupted I, ‘it is much more
-convenient than you all imagine: big as it looks, you may put it into
-a pocket-handkerchief.’――‘I can’t believe that,’ cried Charles and
-James. ‘Do you doubt my word?’ said I, in a passion: ‘nobody shall
-doubt it with impunity:’ and my face assumed that picture of anger,
-which you can’t deny, doctor, is in me pretty formidable; so I desired
-the quilt to be brought. ‘Why, my dear Lady Hester,’ said Mr. Pitt, ‘I
-am sure the boys do not mean to say you tell falsehoods: they suppose
-you said it would go into a handkerchief merely as a _façon de
-parler_.’”
-
-Lady Hester, when she told me this story, here interrupted
-herself――“And upon my word, doctor, if you had seen the footman
-bringing it over his shoulder, he himself almost covered up by it, you
-would have thought indeed it was only a _façon de parler_.”
-
-She continued. “I turned myself to James. ‘Now, sir, take and tie it
-up directly in this pocket-handkerchief. There! does it, or does it
-not go into it!’
-
-“This,” concluded Lady Hester, “was the only quarrel I ever had with
-Charles and James. James often used to look very black, but he never
-said anything.
-
-“When Mr. Pitt was going to Bath, in his last illness, he told me he
-had just seen Arthur Wellesley. He spoke of him with the greatest
-commendation, and said the more he saw of him, the more he admired
-him. ‘Yes,’ he added, ‘the more I hear of his exploits in India, the
-more I admire the modesty with which he receives the praises he merits
-from them. He is the only man I ever saw that was not vain of what he
-had done, and had so much reason to be so.’
-
-“This eulogium,” Lady Hester said, “Mr. Pitt pronounced in his fine
-mellow tone of voice, and this was the last speech I heard him make in
-that voice; for, on his return from Bath, it was cracked for ever.”
-Then she observed, “My own opinion of the duke is, that he is a blunt
-soldier, who pleases women because he is gallant and has some remains
-of beauty: but,” she added, “he has none of the dignity of courts
-about him.”
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-      [4] This of course refers to the late Duke.
-
-      [5] “I dislike ――――, both as to his principles and the
-          turn of his understanding: he wants to make money by
-          this peace.”――_Diaries and Correspondence_, &c.
-
-      [6] “Mr. Pitt has always been held up to the present
-          generation as fond of war; but the Harris papers
-          could furnish the most continued and certain evidence
-          of the contrary, and that he often suffered all the
-          agony of a pious man who is forced to fight a duel.
-          The cold and haughty temper of Lord Grenville was less
-          sensitive. Our overtures to France were synonymous
-          with degradation, and he could not brook the delays
-          of the directory.”――_Diaries and Correspondence_, v.
-          iii., p. 516.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER III.
-
-Duchess of Gontaut――Duc de Berry――Anecdotes of Lord H.――Sir Gore
-Ouseley――Prince of Wales――The other princes――The Queen’s severity――Men
-and women of George the Third’s time――The Herveys――Lady Liverpool’s
-high breeding――Lady Hester’s declining health.
-
-
-“One of Mr. Pitt’s last conversations, whilst on his death-bed, was
-about Charles and James. Mr. Pitt had called me in, and told me, in a
-low, feeble voice――‘You must not talk to me to-day on any business:
-when I get down to Lord Camden’s, and am better, it will be time
-enough then.’ He seemed to know he was dying, but only said this to
-console me. ‘But now, my dear Hester,’ he continued, ‘I wish to say a
-few words about James and Charles. As for Charles, he is such an
-excellent young man that one cannot wish him to be otherwise than he
-is; and Moore is such a perfect officer, that he will give him every
-information in his profession that he can possibly require. The only
-apprehension I have is on the score of women, who will perhaps think
-differently of him from what he thinks of himself: but with James the
-case is otherwise. He is a young man you must keep under; else you
-will always see him trying to be a _joli garçon_. For Charles’s
-steadiness, I do not fear; but the little one will one day or other
-fall into the hands of men who will gain him over and unsettle his
-political principles. You can guide him, and, so long as he is under
-your care, he is safe:’ and,” added Lady Hester, “Mr. Pitt was right,
-doctor; for the moment I quitted England he fell into the snares of
-Lord B. and his party, and instead of being in Mr. Canning’s place,
-which he might have been, he became nothing.”
-
-Lady Hester went on: “When Charles and James left Chevening,[7] Mr.
-Pitt said to Mahon (the present Earl Stanhope), ‘You know that, when
-your father dies, you will be heir to a large property――whether
-£15,000 a-year or £25,000 it does not much signify. Now, as far as a
-house goes and having a table where your brothers may dine, I have got
-that to offer. But young men in the army have a number of wants, for
-their equipment, regimentals, &c., and for all this I have not the
-means. You, therefore, Mahon, must do that for them; and, if you have
-not money, you can always let their bills be charged to you with
-interest, as is very common among noblemen until they come to their
-fortune. You ought to raise a sum of money for them, and see to their
-wants a little: your two brothers should not be left to starve.’
-
-“Mahon said he would. Charles one day told me that, as a poor captain
-of the army, the baggage warehouse and his tailor were rather shy of
-trusting him; and if Mahon would only go and say to them――‘Do you let
-my brothers have what they want, and I will be answerable for them;’
-then I could get on. Mahon did that too; and, in reliance on this
-arrangement, they had clothes and other things, considering him as
-responsible for them. After Mr. Pitt’s death, several tradesmen
-applied for their bills.”
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-So, recollecting an old peer, who had been one of Mr. Pitt’s
-particular friends, I sent off James to him to his country-seat with a
-letter, relating the whole business: this person immediately gave
-James a draft for £2,000, with which he returned, and paid his own
-and Charles’s debts.
-
-“Well, it was agreed between Charles, James, and me, that whoever had
-the first windfall should pay the £2,000. Charles died: James was not
-rich enough at any time to do it; and it fell to my lot to pay it
-since I have been in this country. And that was the reason of my
-selling the Burton Pynsent reversion, which, you know, I did in 1820
-or thereabouts; and when Mr. Murray found fault with me for my
-extravagance, and said he would have no hand in the business, neither
-he nor anybody else knew then why I sold it.
-
-“When Coutts wrote me word that my brother James had been very good to
-me in having given me £1,000, he did not know that the civility was
-not so disinterested as he imagined. James might think he did a great
-deal for me: but, let me ask you――did I not make a pretty great
-sacrifice for Lord Mahon and him? I sold a pretty round sum out of the
-American funds, and James took possession of about five hundred
-pounds’ worth of plate of mine, and of my jewels, and of Tippoo Saib’s
-gold powder-flask, worth £200, and of the cardinal of York’s present,
-which, to some persons who wanted a relic of the Stuarts, was
-invaluable. Then there was a portfolio, full of fine engravings of
-Morghen and others, that the Duke of Buckingham bought of him: so
-there was at least as much as he sent me.
-
-“If I had not been thwarted and opposed by them all, as I have been,
-and obliged to raise money from time to time to get on, I should have
-been a very rich woman. There was the money I sold out of the American
-funds; then there was the Burton Pynsent money, £7,000; my father’s
-legacy, £10,000; the (I did not distinctly hear what) legacy, £1,000:”
-and thus her ladyship reckoned up on her fingers an amount of £40,000.
-
-“Is it not very odd that General G. and Lord G. could not leave me a
-few thousand pounds out of their vast fortunes when they died? They
-knew that I was in debt, and that a few thousands would have set me
-up; and yet in their wills, not to speak of their lifetime, they never
-gave me a single sixpence, but left their money to people already in
-the enjoyment of incomes far exceeding their wants, and very little
-more nearly related to them than I am. Well, all their injustice does
-not put me out of spirits. The time will soon come when I shall want
-none of their assistance, if I get the other property that ought to
-come to me. Oh! how vexed Lady Chatham always was, when Lady Louisa V.
-used to point at me, and say――‘There she is――that’s my heir.’ Lady L.
-was deformed, and never thought of marrying; but Lord G. did marry
-her nevertheless, and she had a child that died.
-
-“Then there is the reversion of my grandfather’s pension of £4,000
-a-year, secured for four lives by the patent: the first Lord Chatham
-one, the late Lord Chatham the next, and I, of course, the third.”[8]
-
-Nov. 14.――I saw that Lady Hester grew weaker every day, and I felt
-alarmed about her. Still, whenever I had to write to the person she,
-about this time, most honoured with her confidence, Mons. Guys, the
-French consul at Beyrout, she would not allow me to make any further
-allusion to her illness than to state simply that she was confined to
-her bed-room with a cold. “I see you are afraid about me,” she said,
-“but I have recovered from worse illnesses than this by God’s help and
-the strength of my constitution.”
-
-My wife sent to her to say that she or my daughter would, with
-pleasure, come and keep her company, or sit up with her: this she
-refused. I then offered Miss Longchamp’s services: but Lady Hester’s
-pride would not allow her to expose to a stranger the meagreness of
-her chamber, so utterly unlike a European apartment. It was indeed an
-afflicting sight to behold her wrapped up in old blankets, her room
-lighted by yellow beeswax candles in brass candlesticks, drinking her
-tea out of a broken-spouted blue teapot and a cracked white cup and
-saucer, taking her draughts out of an old cup, with a short wooden
-deal bench by her bedside for a table, and in a room not so well
-furnished as a servant’s bed-room in England.
-
-The general state of wretchedness in which she lived had even struck
-Mr. Dundas, a gentleman, who, on returning overland from India, staid
-some days with her: and, as Lady Hester observed, when she told me the
-story, “He did not know all, as you do. I believe he almost shed
-tears. ‘When I see you, Lady Hester,’ said he, ‘with a set of fellows
-for servants who do nothing, and when I look at the room in which you
-pass your hours, I can hardly believe it is you. I was much affected
-at first, but now I am more reconciled. You are a being fluctuating
-between heaven and earth, and belonging to neither; and perhaps it is
-better things should be as they are’” Lady Hester added, “He has
-visited me two or three times: he is a sensible Scotchman, and I like
-him as well as anybody I have seen for some years.”
-
-November 15.――It was night, when a messenger arrived from Beyrout, and
-brought a small parcel containing a superbly bound book presented to
-her ladyship by the Oriental Translation Fund Society. It was
-accompanied by a complimentary letter from the president, Sir Gore
-Ouseley. The book was “_The History of the Temple of Jerusalem,
-translated by the Rev. J. Reynolds_.” After admiring it, and turning
-over the leaves, she said to me, “Look it over, and see what it is
-about,” and then began to talk of Sir Gore. “I recollect, doctor,”
-said she, “so well the night he was introduced to me: it was at Mr.
-Matook’s (?) supper.
-
-“You may imagine the numbers and numbers of people I met in society,
-whilst I lived with Mr. Pitt, almost all of whom were dying to make my
-acquaintance, and of whom I necessarily could know little or nothing.
-Indeed, to the greater part of those who were introduced to me, if
-they saw me afterwards, when they bowed I might return the salutation,
-smile a little, and pass on, for I had not time to do more:――a
-person’s life would not be long enough. Well, I recollect it was at a
-party where Charles X. was present――I think it was at Lord
-Harrington’s――that somebody said to me, ‘Mr. ―――― wants to know you so
-much! Why won’t you let him be introduced to you?’――‘Because I don’t
-like people whose face is all oily, like a soap-ball,’ answered I.
-Now, doctor, upon my word, I no more knew he had made his fortune by
-oil, than I do what was the colour of the paper in your saloon at
-Nice; and when his friend said, ‘You are too bad, Lady Hester,’ I did
-not understand what he meant. However, they told me there would be all
-the royalties there, and so I consented.
-
-“I have had an instinct all my life that never deceived me, about
-people who were thorough-bred or not; I knew them at once. Why was it,
-when Mr. H*******n came into a room, and took a long sweep with his
-hat, and made a stoop, and I said: ‘One would think he was looking
-under the bed for the _great business_;’ and all the people laughed,
-and when at last Mr. Pitt said, ‘Hester, you are too bad, you should
-not be personal,’ I declared ‘I did not know what he meant?’ Then he
-explained to me that the man was a broken-down doctor, a fact which, I
-honestly assured him, I never heard of before. But my quickness in
-detecting people’s old habits is so great, that I hit upon a thing
-without having the least previous intimation.
-
-“As I passed the card-table that evening where the Comte d’Artois was
-playing, he put down his cards to talk to me a little, so polite, so
-well-bred――poor man! And there were the other three old dowagers, who
-were playing with him, abusing him in English, which he understood
-very well, because he had stopped the game. After he had resumed his
-cards, I was leaning over the back of a chair facing him, reflecting
-in one of my thoughtful moments on the uncertainty of human greatness
-in the picture I had then before me, when I gave one of those deep
-sighs, which you have heard me do sometimes, something between a sigh
-and a grunt, and so startled the French King, that he literally threw
-down his cards to stare at me. I remained perfectly motionless,
-pretending not to observe his action; and, as he still continued to
-gaze at me, some of the lookers-on construed it into a sort of
-admiration on his part. This enraged Lady P., and her rage was
-increased when, at every knock at the door, I turned my head to see
-who was coming, and he turned his head too; for I was expecting the
-royalties, and so was he: but she did not know this, and she took it
-into her head that the Prince and I had some understanding between us.
-
-“I never thought any more of the matter; but, in the course of the
-evening, somebody brought Lady P. to me, and introduced her. ‘I have
-longed,’ said Lady P. ‘for some time to make your acquaintance: I
-don’t know how it is that we have never met; it would give me great
-pleasure if I sometimes saw you at my parties,’ and so on. The next
-day I had a visit from Lady P., and the day after that came her card,
-and then an invitation; and, day after day, there was nothing but Lady
-P. So, at last, not knowing what it meant, I said to an acquaintance,
-‘What is the reason that Lady P. is always coming after me?’――‘What!
-don’t you know?’ she replied: ‘why, the King of France is in love with
-you?’ And this is the art, doctor, of all those mistresses: they watch
-and observe if their lovers are pleased with any young person, and
-then invite her home, as a lure to keep alive the old attraction.”
-
-Here Lady Hester paused, and, after a moment, added: “How many of
-those French people did I see at that time, especially at Lord H.’s!
-There was the Duchess of Gontaut, who was obliged to turn washerwoman;
-and even to the last, when she was best off, was obliged to go out to
-parties in a hackney-coach. Why, the Duc de Berry himself lodged over
-a greengrocer’s in a little street leading out of Montague Square, and
-all the view he had was to lean out of his window, and look at the
-greengrocer’s stall. I have seen him many a time there, when he used
-to kiss his hand to me as I passed. The Duchess of Gontaut afterwards
-brought up the Duke of Bordeaux. That was a woman quite admirable; so
-full of resources, so cheerful, she kept up the spirits of all the
-emigrants: and then she was so well dressed! She did not mind going in
-a hackney-coach to dine with the Duke of Portland.
-
-“Lord H********** scraped up a reputation which he never deserved,”
-continued Lady Hester, as her reflections led her from one person to
-another. “Insincere, greedy of place, and always pretending to be
-careless about it, he and my lady lived in a hugger-mugger sort of a
-way, half poverty half splendour, having soldiers for house servants,
-and my lady dining at two with the children (saying my lord dined
-out), and being waited on by a sergeant’s daughter. How often have I
-seen a scraggy bit of mutton sent up for luncheon, with some potatoes
-in their skins, before royalty! The princes would say to me, ‘Very
-bad, Lady Hester, very bad; but there! he has a large family――he is
-right to be saving.’ And then Lady H**********, with her little eyes,
-and a sort of waddle in her gait (for she once had a paralytic
-stroke), with a wig all curls, and, at the top of it, a great bunch of
-peacock’s feathers――then her dress, all bugles, and badly put
-on――horrid, doctor, horrid! and why should they have lived in such a
-large house, half furnished, with the girls sleeping altogether in
-large attics, with a broken looking-glass, and coming down into their
-mother’s room to dress themselves!
-
-“But to go back to Sir Gore Ouseley: it was at Mr. M.’s supper, when
-getting up from the card-table, and advancing towards me, he made a
-diplomatic bow, accompanied with some complimentary speech. That was
-the old school, very different from the fizgig people now-a days. Just
-before, the Prince had been standing in the middle of the room,
-talking to some one I did not know, first pulling up the flap of his
-coat to show his figure, then seizing the person he spoke to by the
-waistcoat, then laughing, then pretending to whisper; and this he
-continued for nearly an hour. ‘What can the Prince be talking about?’
-said some one next to me: ‘He does not know himself,’ said I. Soon
-after, the person who had been talking to the Prince approached the
-sofa, when the mylord, who was sitting next to me, observed, ‘We have
-been looking at the Prince and you; what in the world was he talking
-about?’――‘He don’t know himself,’ answered his friend, ‘and I’m sure I
-don’t know.’――‘That’s just what Lady Hester said,’ rejoined the first
-speaker. ‘I have been wishing to make my bow to Lady Hester all the
-evening,’ said the friend, who then sat down by me.”
-
-Lady Hester went on: “What a mean fellow the Prince was, doctor! I
-believe he never showed a spark of good feeling to any human being.
-How often has he put men of small incomes to great inconvenience, by
-his telling them he would dine with them and bring ten or a dozen of
-his friends with him to drink the poor devils’ champagne, who hardly
-knew how to raise the wind, or to get trust for it! I recollect one
-who told me the Prince served him in this way, just at the time when
-he was in want of money, and that he did not know how to provide the
-dinner for him, when luckily a Sir Harry Featherstone or a Sir Gilbert
-Heatchcote or some such rich man bought his curricle and horses, and
-put a little ready money into his pocket. ‘I entertained him as well
-as I could,’ said he, ‘and a few days after, when I was at Carlton
-House, and the Prince was dressing between four great mirrors, looking
-at himself in one and then in another, putting on a patch of hair and
-arranging his cravat, he began saying that he was desirous of showing
-me his thanks for my civility to him. So he pulled down a bandbox from
-a shelf, and seemed as if he was going to draw something of value out
-of it. I thought to myself it might be some point-lace, perhaps, of
-which, after using a little for my court-dress, I might sell the
-remainder for five or six hundred guineas: or perhaps, thought I, as
-there is no ceremony between us, he is going to give me some
-banknotes. Conceive my astonishment, when he opened the bandbox, and
-pulled out a wig, which I even believe he had worn. ‘There,’ said he,
-‘as you are getting bald, is a very superior wig, made by――I forget
-the man’s name, but it was not Sugden.’ The man could hardly contain
-himself, and was almost tempted to leave it in the hall as he went
-out. Did you ever hear of such meanness? Everybody who had to do with
-him was afraid of him. He was sure to get a horse, or a vis-à-vis, or
-a something, wherever he went, and never pay for them. He was a man
-without a heart,[9] who had not one good quality about him. Doctor,”
-cried Lady Hester, “I have been intimate with those who spent their
-time with him from morning to night, and they have told me that it was
-impossible for any person who knew him to think well of him.[10]”
-
-“Look at his unfeeling conduct in deserting poor Sheridan! Why, they
-were going to take the bed from under him whilst he was dying; and
-there was Mrs. Sheridan pushing the bailiffs out of the room. That
-amiable woman, too, I believe, died of grief at the misery to which
-she was reduced. The Prince had not one good quality. How many fell
-victims to him! Not so much those who were most intimate with him――for
-they swallowed the poison and took the antidote――they knew him well:
-but those were the greatest sufferers who imitated his vices, who were
-poisoned by the contagion, without knowing what a detestable person he
-was. How many saw their prospects blasted by him for ever!”
-
-Lady Hester continued: “Oh! when I think that I have heard a sultan”
-(meaning George IV.) “listen to a woman singing _Hie diddle diddle,
-the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon_, and cry,
-‘Brava! charming!’――Good God! doctor, what would the Turks say to such
-a thing, if they knew it?
-
-“There was Lord D., an old debauchee, who had lost the use of his
-lower extremities by a paralytic stroke――the way, by the by, in which
-all such men seem to finish; nay, I believe that men much addicted to
-sensuality even impair their intellects too――one day met me on the
-esplanade, and, in his usual way, began talking some very insipid
-stuff about his dining with the Prince, and the like; when James, who
-overheard the conversation, made an impromptu, which exactly described
-one of the Prince’s dinners; and, though I don’t recollect it word for
-word, it was something to this effect:――
-
-    ‘With the Prince I dine to-day:
-      We shall have prodigious fun.
-    I a beastly thing shall say,
-      And he’ll end it with a pun.’
-
-“I remember the Prince’s saying to Lord Petersham, ‘What can be the
-reason that Lady Hester, who likes all my brothers, does not like me?’
-Lord P. told me this, and I replied――If he asks me, I will have an
-answer ready for him, and that is, ‘When he behaves like them I shall
-like him, and not before.’ I loved all the princes but him. They were
-not philosophers, but they were so hearty in their talking, in their
-eating, in all they did! They would eat like ploughmen, and their
-handsome teeth would” (here she imitated the mastication of food, to
-show me how) “at a pretty rate.
-
-“The Prince is a despicable character. He was anxious enough to know
-me whilst Mr. Pitt was alive; but the very first day of my going to
-court, after Mr. Pitt’s death, he cut me, turning his back on me
-whilst I was talking to the Duke of Richmond.
-
-“As for the princesses, there was some excuse for their conduct: I do
-not mean as regards myself――for they were always polite to me――but as
-to what people found fault with them for. The old queen treated them
-with such severity, shutting them up in a sort of a prison――at least
-the Princess Sophia――that I rather pitied than blamed them.
-
-“But look at the princes: what a family was there! never getting more
-than four hours’ sleep, and always so healthy and well-looking. But
-men generally are not now-a-days as they were in my time. I do not
-mean a Jack M. and those of his description, handsome, but of no
-conversation: they are, however, pleasant to look at. But where will
-you see men like Lord Rivers, like the Duke of Dorset? Where will you
-find such pure honour as was in the Duke of Richmond and Lord
-Winchelsea? The men of the present generation are good for
-nothing――they have no spunk in them.
-
-“And as for women, show me such women of fashion as Lady Salisbury,
-the Duchess of Rutland, Lady Stafford, and” (three or four more were
-named, but they have slipped my memory). “However, doctor, I never
-knew more than four fashionable women, who could do the honours of
-their house, assign to everybody what was due to his rank, enter a
-room and speak to everybody, and preserve their dignity and
-self-possession at all times: it is a very difficult thing to acquire.
-One was the old Duchess of Rutland, the others the Marchioness of
-Stafford, Lady Liverpool, and the Countess of Mansfield:[11]――all the
-rest of the _bon ton_ were _bosh_” (in Turkish, good for nothing).
-“The Countess of Liverpool was a Hervey; and men used to say, the
-world was divided into men, women, and Herveys――for that they were
-unlike every other human being. I have seen Lady Liverpool come into a
-room full of people; and she would bow to this one, speak to that
-one, and, when you thought she must tread on the toes of a third, turn
-round like a teetotum, and utter a few words so amiable, that
-everybody was charmed with her. As for the Duchess of D*********, it
-was all a ‘fu, fu, fuh,’ and ‘What shall I do?――Oh, dear me! I am
-quite in a fright!’――and so much affectation, that it could not be
-called high breeding; although she knew very well how to lay her traps
-for some young man whom she wanted to inveigle into her parties, and
-all that. Then there were some, with highly polished manners, who
-would pass along like oil over water, smooth and swimming about: but
-good breeding is very charming, doctor, isn’t it?
-
-“The last time I saw Lady Liverpool was at Lord Mulgrave’s. The dinner
-was waiting: Mr. Pitt and I had got there; but Lord Liverpool, being
-long in dressing, was still behind. Everybody was looking at the door
-or the window. At last his carriage was seen, and dinner was ordered.
-If you had been present when Lady Liverpool entered the room, and had
-marked the grace with which, whilst we were standing, she slipped in
-and out among the guests, like an eel, when she turned her back,
-turning her head round, speaking to this person and to that, and all
-with such seasonable courtesies and compliments, it was really
-wonderful. But Lady Liverpool was a Hervey, and the Herveys, as I
-told you before, were a third part of the creation.
-
-“Oh, Lord! when I think of some people, who fancy that abruptness is
-the best way of approaching you――how horrid it is! I recollect one
-man, a sensible man too, who came into the room with――‘Lady Hester, I
-understand you are a very good judge of a leg; you shall look at mine:
-see, there are muscles! they say it is an Irish chairman’s; but isn’t
-it the true antique?’ Another would enter, and begin――‘What a horrid
-bonnet Lady So-and-so wears; I have just seen her, and I never shall
-get over it.’ A third would cry, on seeing you――‘Do you know Lord
-Such-a-one is given over? He has tumbled down from a terrible height,
-and is so hurt!’――‘Good God! what’s the matter?’――‘Why, don’t you
-know? He has tumbled from his government:’ and then they fancy that
-wit.
-
-“Such conversations as we hear in people’s houses are, in my mind, no
-conversations at all. A man who says, ‘Oh! it’s Sunday; you have been
-to church, I suppose?’――or, ‘You have not been to church, I see;’ or
-another, who says, ‘You are in mourning, are you not? what, is the
-poor Lord So-and-so dead at last?’――and is replied to by, ‘No, I am
-not in mourning; what makes you think so? is it that you don’t like
-black?’――all this is perfect nonsense, in my mind. I recollect being
-once at a party with the Duchess of Rutland, and a man of some note in
-the world stopped me just as we entered the room. ‘Lady Hester,’ said
-he, ‘I am anxious to assure you of my entire devotion to Mr. Pitt:’ so
-far he got on well. ‘I had always――hem――if you――hem――I do assure you,
-Lady Hester, I have the sincerest regard――hem――G――d d――n me, Lady
-Hester, there is not a man for whom――hem――I esteem him beyond measure,
-and, G――d d――n me――hem――if I were asked――hem――I do assure you, Lady
-Hester――hem and here the poor man, who could not put two ideas
-together, coming to a stand-still, the Duchess of Rutland, to relieve
-his embarrassment, helped him out by saying, ‘Lady Hester is perfectly
-convinced of your sincere attachment to Mr. Pitt’s interests.’ He had
-a beautiful amber cane, doctor, worth a hundred guineas, that he had
-sent for from Russia.”
-
-November 16.――Lady Hester Stanhope’s features had a very pallid and
-almost a ghastly look. The fits of oppression on her lungs grew more
-frequent, when, from a lying posture, she would start suddenly up in
-bed and gasp for breath. As she had not been beyond the precincts of
-her house for some years, I suggested the increased necessity of her
-getting a little fresh air, by going into her garden at least every
-day. She said, ‘I will do as you desire, and if you will ride my ass
-a few times to break her in, and make her gentle, I will try and ride
-about in the garden: but, as for going outside my own gates, it is
-impossible; the people would beset me so――you have no idea. They
-conceal themselves behind hedges, in holes in the rocks, and,
-whichever way I turn, out comes some one with a complaint or a
-petition, begging, kissing my feet, and God knows what: I can’t do it.
-I can ride about my garden, and see to my plants and flowers: but you
-must break her in well for me; for, if she were to start at a bird or
-a serpent, I am so weak I should tumble off.’
-
-November 18.――I had taken some physic without consulting her, upon
-which she launched out into a tirade against English doctors.
-Impoverishment of the blood is a very favourite theme among people who
-are well off, and who shut their eyes to the robust health of many a
-labourer, whose whole sustenance amounts not to the offals of their
-table. So she began――“What folly you have been guilty of in
-impoverishing your blood! Look at a stupid Englishman, who takes a
-dose of salts, rides a trotting horse to get an appetite, eats his
-dinner, takes a cordial draught to make him agreeable, goes to his
-party, and then goes to bed:――for worlds, I would not be such a man’s
-wife! where is he to get a constitution? But the fault is not all
-their own――part is you doctors: you give the same remedies for
-everybody. If I look at the mouthpiece of my pipe” (Lady Hester was
-smoking at the time) “I know it is amber; and, when I know it is
-amber, I know how to clean it: but, if I did not know that, I might
-attempt to clean it in some way that would spoil it: so it is with you
-doctors. Not half of you can distinguish between people’s _nijems_
-[stars], and what you do often does more harm than good. The
-constitution you take in hand you do not well examine; and then how
-can you apply proper remedies for it?”
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-      [7] Lady Hester, soon after she went to live with Mr.
-          Pitt, was anxious that her three half-brothers should
-          be removed from their father’s roof, to be under her
-          own guidance: fearing that the line of politics which
-          Earl Stanhope then followed might be injurious to
-          their future welfare and prospects. To this end, Mr.
-          Rice, a trusty person, of whom mention is incidentally
-          made elsewhere, brought them furtively to town in a
-          post-chaise, and they afterwards remained under Mr.
-          Pitt’s protection until his death.
-
-      [8] Whether Lady Hester Stanhope was justified in
-          entertaining expectations of the G. property and
-          title, I am unable to say; but having by me a copy
-          of the grant to the first Lord Chatham, it is
-          inserted here as conclusive against her ladyship,
-          as far as regards the pension. The circumstances
-          were these:――the day following his (then Mr. Pitt’s)
-          resignation of office, a pension of £3,000 a-year was
-          settled on _himself_ and _two_ other lives, and at the
-          same time a title was conferred on his lady and her
-          issue. He resigned office Oct. 9th, 1761, and the next
-          published Gazette announced all these transactions.
-          The notification ran thus:――That a warrant be prepared
-          for granting to the Lady Hester Pitt, his wife, a
-          Barony of Great Britain, by the name, style, and
-          title of Baroness Chatham, to her heirs male, and
-          also to confer upon the said William Pitt an annuity
-          of £3,000 sterling during his own life, that of Lady
-          Hester Pitt, and her son, John Pitt. Shortly after
-          his death, May 11th, 1778, His Majesty sent a message
-          to the Commons thus:――George R.――His Majesty having
-          considered the address of this house, that he will be
-          graciously pleased to confer some signal and lasting
-          mark of his royal favour on the family of the late
-          William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, and being desirous to
-          comply as speedily as possible with the request of his
-          faithful Commons, has given directions for granting
-          to the present Earl of Chatham, and to the heirs
-          of the body of the late William Pitt, to whom the
-          Earldom of Chatham may descend, an annuity of £4,000
-          per annum, payable out of the Civil List revenue; but
-          his Majesty, not having it in his power to extend
-          the effects of the said grant beyond the term of his
-          own life, recommends it to the house to consider of
-          a proper method of extending, securing, and annexing
-          the same to the Earldom of Chatham in such a manner as
-          shall be thought most effectual to the benefit of the
-          family of the said William Pitt, Earl of Chatham.
-                                                     Signed “G. R.”
-
-          On May 20th, in the House of Commons, Mr. Townsend moved
-          in a committee on the king’s message――“That the sum of
-          £4,000 be granted to his Majesty out of the Aggregate
-          Fund, to commence from 5th July, 1778, and be settled
-          in the most beneficial manner upon the present Earl of
-          Chatham and the heirs of the body of the late William
-          Pitt, to whom the Earldom of Chatham shall descend.”
-          The resolution was agreed to without opposition, and
-          a bill was ordered to be brought in thereon, which
-          passed the Commons without debate.
-
-      [9] “The second day of the king’s illness, and when he was
-          at his worst, the P. of W. went in the evening to a
-          concert at Lady Hamilton’s, and there told Calonne
-          (the rascally French ex-minister) ‘Savez vous,
-          Monsieur de Calonne, que mon pere est aussi fou que
-          jamais.’”――_Diaries and Correspondence_, v. 4, p. 20.
-
-     [10] _Audi alteram partem_ is a maxim that holds good
-          wherever accusations are levelled against individuals,
-          illustrious or mean. Lady Hester may have maligned
-          the Prince from personal pique or from some other
-          cause; and, whilst she placed his foibles and failings
-          in a conspicuous point of view, may have studiously
-          concealed the good qualities which he possessed. Sir
-          Walter Scott, who read men’s characters if any body
-          could, has left upon record a very different opinion
-          of him; and, unless we suppose that Sir Walter had
-          motives of his own for eulogizing him, we must place
-          his testimony in the balance against Lady Hester’s
-          spite. In a letter, he describes George IV. as――“A
-          sovereign, whose gentle and generous disposition,
-          and singular manners, and captivating conversation,
-          rendered him as much the darling of private society,
-          as his heart felt interest in the general welfare of
-          the country: and the constant and steady course of
-          wise measures, by which he raised his reign to such
-          a state of triumphal prosperity, made him justly
-          delighted in by his subjects.”――_Letter from Sir W.
-          Scott_, p. 65, vol. ii., _Mem. of Sir Wm. Knighton,
-          Bart._――Paris edit. Sir Walter could not have written
-          worse prose if he had tried. It shows how difficult it
-          is to string words together on a subject where perhaps
-          the convictions of the heart were not altogether in
-          unison with the sentiments expressed.
-
-     [11] Louisa, in her own right Countess of Mansfield, is
-          here meant.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER IV.
-
-Conscription in Syria――Inviolability of consular houses――Panic and
-flight of the people of Sayda――Protection afforded by Lady Hester――
-Story of a boy――Mustafa the barber――Cruelty to mothers of Conscripts――
-Conscription in the villages――Lady Hester’s dream――Inhabitants of
-Sayda mulcted――Lady Hester’s opinion of negresses――Severity necessary
-in Turkey――Case of Monsieur Danna――Captain Y.――Mustafa Pasha’s
-cruelty.
-
-
-November 18, 1837.――The conscription for Ibrahim Pasha’s army, called
-the _nizàm_ or regular troops, was going on at this time, and created
-much distress in the towns and villages. Forced levies were unknown
-previous to the conquests of that ambitious prince; as it was
-customary for the pashas to keep in their pay mercenary troops,
-composed chiefly of Albanians, a nation that for some centuries had
-sent its hordes into different parts of the Turkish empire, under the
-guidance of enterprising chieftains, to seek military service. There
-were also Bosnians, Kûrds, and some Mograbýns or Moors: these, with
-the Janissaries or standing militia, had exempted the inhabitants in
-general from enlistment; and, although the martial and turbulent
-disposition of the Mohametans had frequently manifested itself in
-their provincial insurrections and in the petty contentions between
-neighbouring chieftains, yet a man always went to the camp from choice
-and from the hopes of booty, and quitted it when tired of the service.
-But Ibrahim Pasha, among the innovations which he found it necessary
-or politic to introduce for the furtherance of his father’s views, saw
-that his whole dependance must be on the adoption of a conscription,
-after the manner of France and other European states. He had already
-drained Egypt, in this manner, of all her able-bodied youths; and, to
-supply the constant waste of men carried off by war and disease, he
-had, since his first taking possession of Syria, made an annual levy
-after harvest time.
-
-At first, the idle, vagabond, thievish, and ardent part of the
-population supplied the numbers he required; and, as fast as they
-could be collected, they were shipped off to Egypt; where, marched to
-the Hedjàz and to distant wars, the major portion of them left their
-bones, whilst some gained rank and lucrative situations, and a few
-returned to tell the story of their exploits. For with Ibrahim there
-was no defined term of service; once a soldier, every man continued so
-until death or desertion broke the chain. In the same way the Egyptian
-conscripts were sent into Syria: so that no sympathy, in either case,
-existed between the troops and the people amongst whom they were
-quartered, which acted as a direct check upon the spirit of
-insurrection.
-
-So far, everything had gone on peaceably, and the quiet portion of the
-inhabitants rejoiced in seeing their neighbourhood cleared of such
-troublesome rabble. But latterly the conscription had begun to fall on
-the families of shopkeepers, tradesmen, small farmers, and the like:
-and it will be seen that, of all the changes introduced by Ibrahim
-Pasha into the government of the country, the conscription became the
-most odious.
-
-The first intimation people had of the levies this year was one
-evening, when, as the inhabitants of Sayda were coming out of their
-mosques, gangs of soldiers suddenly appeared at the doors, and laid
-hands on all the young men. At the same moment, similar measures had
-been taken at the coffee-houses, and nothing was to be seen but young
-fellows dragged through the streets, or running off in all directions
-to secrete themselves in some friend’s house, stable, vault, or the
-like. The city gates were closed, and there was no outlet for the
-fugitives: but Sayda, although walled in, has many houses with windows
-looking on the fields; and from these, during the night, some let
-themselves down and escaped to the gardens, or villages, or to Mount
-Lebanon. The next day the city wore the appearance of a deserted
-place: the shops were closed, and consternation reigned in every face.
-The panic became general.
-
-It is customary in Turkish towns to consider consular residences as
-inviolable; a point on which, from apprehension of tumults and for
-personal safety, the consuls have ever been very tenacious. France
-possesses, from a long date, a khan or factory-house in Sayda, wherein
-the subjects of that nation reside. It is a square building with one
-gateway, containing a spacious quadrangle, surrounded by vaulted
-warehouses, and, over these, commodious habitations with a handsome
-corridor in front. It may be compared to a quadrangle of a college at
-the Universities. To this khan many of the young men fled, being
-admitted out of compassion, and in some cases for a consideration of a
-more tangible nature.
-
-The number of conscripts for Sayda, as was made known afterwards, had
-been rated at one hundred and eighty. When the first press was over,
-the government found the quota had not yet been half supplied: but the
-secret of the deficiency was kept, and it was given out that no more
-would be wanted. A smiling face was assumed by the commandant and his
-staff, and every expression of sympathy was in their mouths, to
-demonstrate the cessation of all farther oppressive measures. By
-calming the people’s fears in this way, information was obtained as to
-those concealed in the French khan, and scouts were sent about the
-country to get tidings of the fugitives.
-
-In the mean time, the caverns and excavations, once the beautiful
-sepulchres of the ancient Sidonians, in which the environs of Sayda
-abound, were converted into hiding-places, all well known to the
-peasantry and gardeners: but no soul was found capable of betraying
-the fugitives. Some were concealed by the Christian peasants in
-cellars, although the punishment of detection was a terrible
-bastinadoing. At the end of about a fortnight, when everything seemed
-calm again, all of a sudden the fathers of those who were known to be
-in the French khan were seized in their dwellings and shops, and
-brought before the motsellem or mayor. They were told that their sons’
-hiding-places were known, and that means would be resorted to for
-forcing them to come out, if they, the fathers, did not immediately
-use their paternal authority to compel them. Anxious to save their
-children, they strenuously denied any knowledge of their places of
-concealment. Then it was that the dreadful work of bastinadoing began.
-From the windows of the east side of the khan was visible the open
-court in the front of the motsellem’s gate, where, according to the
-Eastern custom, he often sat to administer justice or injustice, as
-the case might be, and through those windows the sons might behold
-their aged fathers, writhing with agony under that cruel punishment,
-until pain and anguish extorted the appeal of, “Come forth, for
-mercy’s sake! and save a father’s life.” Some yielded to the call, and
-some thought only of their own safety.
-
-As happens always in all Turkish matters, much bribery arose from this
-state of tribulation. Nobody in these countries is inaccessible to a
-bribe. Many were the men in office who received gratifications of vast
-sums to favour the exemption or escape of individuals. Substitutes
-could hardly be got, even at the enormous premium of 10,000 piasters
-each, or £100 sterling; such a dread had the natives of being
-expatriated and subjected to military discipline! for in Ibrahim
-Pasha’s army the drill is indeed a terrible ordeal. There,
-inadvertency, slowness of apprehension, or obstinacy, is not punished
-by a reprimand, a day’s imprisonment, or double drill; but the poor
-recruit is, at the moment, thrown on the ground, and lacerated without
-mercy by the korbàsh.
-
-Among the fugitives, there were two young men, the sons of a
-respectable shopkeeper, who, during twenty years, had been employed,
-more or less, by Lady Hester: these two fled for refuge to Jôon. No
-notice was taken of the circumstance by the government; and, after
-remaining about six weeks under her protection, they returned to
-Sayda, where they remained unmolested. Her ladyship’s servants also
-enjoyed an exemption from the press; and, had she chosen to avail
-herself of the dilemma in which these unfortunate young men were
-placed, she might easily have ensured their servitude without pay, by
-the mere threat of turning them adrift: in which case they would have
-been compelled to remain upon any conditions she might have thought
-proper to propose.
-
-An old Turk presented himself, one day, at my gate with his son, a boy
-about fourteen years of age, and, with earnest entreaties, begged me
-to take the son as my servant, no matter in what capacity, and for
-nothing. I asked him how he could be apprehensive for a stripling, too
-young to carry a musket; but he told me that his age was no safeguard.
-“Alas!” said he, “these unprincipled Egyptians will lay hold of him;
-for there are other kinds of service besides carrying a gun: you do
-not know them as well as we do.” I was very unwillingly obliged to
-refuse the man’s request; for how could a stranger violate the laws of
-a country in which he resided, any more than he could harbour a
-deserter in France, for example, where he would be brought to justice
-for so doing? But some of the agents of European powers do not
-scruple, in these parts, to enrich themselves by affording protection
-to Turkish deserters, contrary to the edicts of a sovereign prince,
-and then set up, as an excuse, the want of civilization in Mahometan
-countries.
-
-A woman, the widow of Shaykh Omar ed dyn, came also on a donkey to beg
-Lady Hester’s intercession with the commandant for one of her sons, a
-lad, who had been pressed in the streets. Lady Hester sent out word to
-her that she could not mix herself up in the business, and desired me
-to give her 500 piasters――I suppose to help her to buy him off. This
-son, Lady Hester told me, was a beautiful boy, and that she once had
-him in her house, but could not keep him――he was too handsome! * * * A
-sad picture this of the morals of the Syrian Turks, and yet a true
-one!
-
-November 20.――After a succession of sunny days, finer and warmer than
-an English summer, the wind got up at the change of the moon, and it
-blew a gale. The effect of gloomy weather in climates naturally so
-genial as that of Syria is perhaps more impressive than in one like
-that of England, where clouds and fogs are so common. I was therefore
-in a fit humour to listen to the melancholy stories of her ladyship’s
-secretary, Mr. Michael Abella, who had been absent a day or two to see
-his father and mother at Sayda. He told me that the press for recruits
-continued with unabated severity, and that the military commandant
-and motsellem were resorting to measures, which, I thank God, are
-unknown in England! From imprisoning and bastinadoing fathers, with a
-view to make them produce their children, a measure which had already
-induced several families to abandon their homes, they now proceeded to
-bastinado the neighbours and acquaintances of the fugitives, in order
-to wring from them the secret of their hiding-places.
-
-The reader is already in some degree familiar with the name of
-Mustafa, the barber, well-known in Sayda for his skill in shaving,
-phlebotomizing, and curing sores and wounds. He had four or five sons,
-and he had taken his donkey and ridden up to Jôon to beg of Lady
-Hester Stanhope to admit one or two of them into her household, in
-order to save them from the conscription. In the interim, two others
-had taken refuge in the French khan, and one had fled to Tyr; but the
-father said he expected hourly to be seized and put to the torture, if
-some means were not afforded him for protecting his children. “A
-letter from the Syt mylady to the commandant,” added Mustafa, “would
-be sufficient to save my two boys who are in the French khan, and it
-is so easy for her to write it.” Lady Hester, being ill, could not see
-Mustafa, and I went to her and stated his supplication. She considered
-the matter over, and, as Mustafa was rather a favourite, she said at
-first――“I think I will write to the commandant; for poor Mustafa will
-go crazy if his children are taken away from him. I have only to say
-that I wish the commandant to _bakshýsh_” (make a present of) “these
-boys to me, and I know he will do it:” then, reflecting a little
-while, she altered her mind. “No, doctor,” says she, “it will not do:
-I must not do anything in the face of the laws of the country; and,
-besides, I shall have all the fathers and mothers in Sayda up here.
-Go, tell him so.” I did, and Mustafa returned very much dispirited to
-Sayda.
-
-He had scarcely got back to his shop, when, as he had anticipated, he
-was summoned before the motsellem, and questioned about his children.
-With an assumed air of cheerfulness and submission, he answered that
-they were within call, and, if necessary, he would fetch them
-immediately. The motsellem, by way of precaution, was about to send a
-guard of a couple of soldiers, to see that no trick was played him;
-but Mustafa, laughing, exclaimed――“Oh! don’t be afraid of me: I shan’t
-run off. That man” (pointing to a small merchant of his acquaintance
-standing by)――“that man will be bail for my appearance.” The man
-nodded his head, and said――“There is no fear of Mâalem Mustafa: I will
-be responsible for him.”
-
-Mustafa went towards his house, and, as soon as he was out of sight,
-looking round to make sure that he was not followed, he hurried to
-one of the outlets of the town, entered a lane between the gardens,
-and, mounting again on his own donkey, which he had left with a friend
-in case of such an emergency, rode off. Not appearing within the
-expected time, search was made for him, and, when he was not to be
-found, the man, who so incautiously vouched for his reappearance, was
-seized, bastinadoed, and thrown into gaol. Mustafa, in the mean time,
-had taken the road to Jôon,――not to Lady Hester’s residence, but to
-Dayr el Mkhallas, the monastery, where he had a good friend in the
-abbot, and was immediately sheltered in a comfortable cell. Nor did
-he, when he heard what cruelties had been inflicted on his bail, move
-one inch from his retreat, but there remained for about six weeks,
-until, by negociations with the commandant and by the sacrifice of a
-good round sum, he was informed that his children were safe, and that
-he might return unmolested.
-
-The secretary told me that, in some cases, mothers were suspended by
-the hair of their head, and whipped, to make them confess where their
-children were concealed. Surely such horrors are enough to make men
-hold these sanguinary tyrants in abhorrence, who, whatever their
-pretended advances towards civilization may be, never suffer it to
-soften the barbarity of their natures. Of civilization, they have
-borrowed conscription, custom-houses, quarantines, ardent spirit and
-wine-drinking, prostitution, shop licensing, high taxation, and some
-other of our doubtful marks of superiority; but whatever is really
-excellent in an advanced state of society they have forgotten to
-inquire about. The secretary added that, when down at Sayda, he had
-seen a lad, nursed in the lap of luxury, the only child of respectable
-parents, at drill on the parade outside of the town, with two soldiers
-who never quitted him. The drilling was enforced by cuts of the
-korbàsh. So long as the recruits remain in Sayda, their parents are
-allowed to supply them with a meal and other little comforts; but,
-when transported to Egypt, and perhaps to the Hedjàz, they are exposed
-to hardships unknown to European troops. Their pay is fifteen piasters
-(3_s._ 2_d._ English) a month.
-
-After the expiration of two or three weeks, the shaykhs or head-men of
-the villages in Mount Lebanon, received orders to levy their
-contingent of recruits, and pretty much the same scenes were acted
-over again. From the village of Jôon eight conscripts were required;
-for, although the population might be five hundred persons, there were
-but few Mahometan families. No sooner had the estafette, who brought
-the order, alighted at the Shaykh’s door, than the mussulman peasants
-to a man seemed to guess what its contents were, and every one who
-thought himself liable to serve made off to the forests. Among the
-lads put down on the roll were two, the brothers of Fatôom and Sâada,
-Lady Hester’s maids. The girls fell on their knees, kissed her feet
-and the hem of her robe, and prayed her, for God’s sake, to save them.
-Lady Hester returned the same answer she had done to Mustafa, the
-barber, and to the other applicants, that she could not act contrary
-to the laws of the country, and that they must take their chance.
-
-Three or four days had elapsed, when, quitting my house in the morning
-to go to Lady Hester’s, I found that all her people were full of an
-extraordinary dream she had had. She had seen in her vision a man with
-a white beard, who had conducted her among the ravines of Mount
-Lebanon to a place, where, in a cavern, lay two youths apparently in a
-trance, and had told her to lead them away to her residence. She
-attempted to raise them, and at the same moment the earth opened, and
-she awoke. As soon as I saw Lady Hester, she recounted to me her dream
-to the same effect, but with many more particulars. Being in the habit
-of hearing strange things of this kind from her, I thought nothing of
-it, although I well knew there was something intended by it, as she
-never spoke without a motive.
-
-Next morning I saw, as I passed the porter’s lodge, two peasant lads
-sitting in it, and, as soon as I got to Lady Hester’s room, she asked
-me if I had observed them.――“Isn’t it wonderful, doctor,” said Lady
-Hester, “that I should have had exactly the same dream two nights
-following, and the second time so strongly impressed on my mind, that
-I was sure some of it would turn out true: and so it has. For this
-very morning, long before daylight, I had Logmagi called, and,
-describing to him the way he was to go in the mountain until he should
-come to a wild spot which I painted to him, I sent him off; and, sure
-enough, he found those two lads you saw, concealed, not in a cavern,
-but in a tree, just where I had directed him to go.
-
-“They are two runaway conscripts, and, although I know nothing of
-them, yet I seem to feel that God directed me to bring them here. Poor
-lads! did you observe whether they looked pale? they must be in want
-of nourishment; for the search that is going on everywhere after
-deserters is very hot. Logmagi himself had no very pleasant duty to
-perform; for, if they had mistaken him for a man in search of them,
-one against two in the heart of the mountain ran some risk of his
-life. You know, one deserter the other day wounded three soldiers who
-attempted to take him, and another killed two out of five, and,
-although taken, was not punished by the Pasha, who exchanged willingly
-an athletic gladiator, who had proved his fighting propensities, for
-two cowards.”
-
-These lads, whom Lady Hester pretended not to know, were the two
-brothers of Fatôom and Sâada: they were put into a room in an inner
-enclosure, where they had comfortable quarters assigned them, and were
-kept for two months hid from observation; by which means they escaped
-the conscription of that year. At the end of their term, they were one
-day turned out, told they might go home in safety, and warned that, if
-ever they made their appearance near the house, they would be flogged.
-Such were Lady Hester’s eccentric ways; and just as they were wasting
-their breath in protestations of gratitude, they were frightened out
-of their senses. No doubt, the reason was that, as from their long
-stay in the premises, they were more or less acquainted with every
-locality, it might be that they had formed plans to carry off stolen
-goods, which Lady Hester thus had the foresight to frustrate. She
-never told me that her dream was an invention, but I believe that it
-was.
-
-In addition to the loss of a son, or a husband, or a brother, which
-the dozen families of Jôon (for there were no more) had to complain
-of, these same families were taxed at the rate of one, two, or three
-hundred piasters each, in order to furnish the equipment of the
-soldiers draughted from among them. For, under the pretext of sending
-off each recruit with a good kit and with a little money in his
-pocket, a benevolence tax was invented, the greatest part of which,
-after the parings of the collectors, went to the Pasha’s treasury, and
-the half-naked recruit was left to take his chance. Oh! that a
-European soldier could see what these men are compelled to live
-on――how they sleep, how they are flogged――and how they are left to
-die!――and yet suicide is unknown among them.
-
-The bastinado in Sayda was succeeded by mulcts. An order was published
-by the Pasha, that those whose sons had concealed themselves, or did
-not appear by a certain day, should be taxed collectively 1,300
-purses, a sum more than enough to pay for substitutes. An appeal was
-made to Ibrahim Pasha to lessen the fine, but the result never came to
-my knowledge.
-
-November 19.――I had taken to my house to read the book that Sir Gore
-Ouseley had sent Lady Hester Stanhope, and I related to her the
-anecdote of the old woman and the copper dish.[12] This threw a gleam
-of satisfaction over her countenance. “Ah!” said she, and she made a
-sigh of pleasurable feeling, “these are the people I like; that’s my
-sort: but the people now-a-days, who call themselves gentlemen, and
-don’t know how to blow their nose!――when the first peer of the realm
-will go about bragging what a trick he has played some poor woman whom
-he has seduced! Cursed be the hour that ever the name of gentleman
-came into the language! I have seen hedgers and ditchers at my
-father’s, who talked twice as good sense as half the fine gentlemen
-now-a-days――a pack of fellows, that do little else than eat, drink,
-and sleep. Can one exist with such persons as these? or is it to be
-supposed that God can tolerate such brutalities?”
-
-I sat by, as I was accustomed to do, on such occasions, mute; knowing
-that a word uttered at that moment would only increase her irritation,
-instead of appeasing it. She went on: “And whilst you show no more
-sensibility than that wall, here am I, a poor dying creature” (and
-then she wept so that it was piteous to hear her), “half killed by
-these nasty black beasts. Last night, instead of coming refreshed out
-of my bath, soothed by a gentle perspiration, I was drier than ever,
-with my mouth parched, my skin parched, and feebler than I was
-yesterday. But they will all suffer for it; not here, perhaps, but in
-the other world: for God will not see a poor miserable creature
-trampled under foot as I have been.”
-
-As she grew a little calm, I expressed my regret to see her so annoyed
-and tormented by her servants. The conversation then turned on blacks:
-and I asked――“Are they then never susceptible of feeling: can kind
-treatment never work on their sensibility?”――“Doctor,” answered Lady
-Hester, “they have neither one nor the other: it is a bit of black
-skin, which the people of the country say you must work on with the
-korbàsh, and with nothing else. I recollect an aga, who told me that
-he had a black slave, who, when he first bought her, one day got hold
-of his poniard, and seemed as if she was going to stab him with it. He
-started up, seized his sabre, and gave her a cut or two; then, with a
-switch, beat her pretty handsomely. From that day she became fond of
-him, faithful, and so attached, that, when he wanted to sell her, she
-would not be sold, but always contrived that the contract should be
-broken by her swearing she would kill herself, throw herself over the
-terrace, or something, that made the buyer refuse to take her.
-
-“I recollect another story. There were five European travellers coming
-down the banks of the Nile on horseback, when they saw an aga, who was
-sitting in the open air, lay hold of a black woman by the hair of her
-head, throw her down, and flog her most unmercifully with the korbàsh.
-One of the party was a German count, or something, who, being what you
-call a humane man, said he must interfere; but the others told him he
-had better not. However, he did: and what was the consequence? why,
-the woman immediately jumped up, called him an impudent rascal,
-slapped his face with her slipper, hooted him, and followed the party
-until she fairly frightened them by her violence.
-
-“No, doctor, they do not like mild people. They always say they want
-no old hens, but a _jigger_” (I believe her ladyship meant some
-ferocious animal) “for their master. As for what you say, that the
-common people of this country stand in respect of nobody, I can tell
-you that they do. You should have seen the Shaykh Beshýr, how they
-respected him. When I was at his palace, I recollect, one day, one of
-his secretaries brought in a bag of money. ‘Is it all here?’ said the
-Shaykh, with a terrible, cross, frowning face. ‘It is, your felicity,’
-said the man. ‘Very well,’ said the Shaykh, still with the same fierce
-countenance; and I asked him what he put on such a severe look for to
-a very pleasing-looking man. ‘Why,’ answered he, ‘if I did not, I
-should be robbed past imagination: if I said to him, I am much obliged
-to you, sir; you have given yourself a great deal of trouble on my
-account, and the like compliments, he would go away and chuckle in his
-own mind to think his peculations were not suspected; but now he will
-go, and say to himself, I will bet an _adli_ some one has told the
-Shaykh of the five hundred piasters that were left for me at my house:
-I must send directly, and desire they may be returned――or, he knows
-about the tobacco that was brought me by the peasant; I had better get
-rid of it; and so on. Their peculations are past all bounds, and they
-must be kept under with a rod of iron.’
-
-“There was Danna, the poor old Frenchman, who lost his trunk with all
-his doubloons in it: do you think he would ever have found them, if
-the Emir Beshýr had not sent Hamâady to that village about a league
-off――what do you call it?――where the robbery was committed? He
-assembled all the peasants, men and women, and he told them――‘Now, my
-friends, Monsieur Danna does not want anybody to be punished, if he
-can help it; therefore, you have only to produce the money, and
-nothing farther will be said: for the money was lost here, and some of
-you must know where it is.’ To see what protestations of innocence
-there were, what asseverations! and from the women more than the men.
-So Hamâady, finding that talking was of no use, heated his red-hot
-irons and his copper skull caps, and produced his instruments of
-torture; and, seeing that the women were more vociferous than the men,
-he selected one on whom strong suspicions had fallen, and drove a
-spike under her finger-nails. At the first thrust, she screamed
-out――‘Let me off! let me off! and I will acknowledge all.’ She then
-immediately confessed――would you believe it?――that the curate’s son
-had robbed Danna, and she had shared the money with him.
-
-“Now, tell me, was it best that the old Frenchman should die of
-starvation, or that the rascally thief of a woman, who had induced the
-curate’s son to commit the robbery, should be punished, as a warning
-to others? If such severe punishments were not used among them, we
-should not sleep safe in our beds. How well is it known that they have
-with pickaxes opened a roof, and thrown in lighted straw to suffocate
-people, that they might rob in security.
-
-“I recollect once, when Captain Y. was here, I was showing him the
-garden; and, seeing some lettuces which were badly planted, he said to
-me, ‘That’s not the way to plant lettuces: they should be so and
-so.’――‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I have told the gardener so a hundred times,
-and he will never listen to me.’――‘Oh! oh!’ said he, ‘won’t he? Let me
-bring a boatswain’s mate to him, and I’ll soon see whether he will or
-not?――‘You are very good,’ was my answer; ‘but then I should lose your
-company for half a day, and I had rather have no lettuces than do
-that.
-
-“When I first came to this country, you know perfectly well that I
-never behaved otherwise than with the greatest kindness to servants.
-You ask me why I don’t now try gentle measures with them, rewarding
-the good, and merely dismissing the idle and vicious: my reply is, I
-did so for years, until I found they abused my forbearance in the
-grossest manner. Do you think it would frighten the rest, were I to
-turn away one or two? no such thing. Why, upon one occasion, four of
-them, after they had received their wages, and had each got a present
-of new shawls, new girdles, and new kombázes, all went off together,
-clothes, wages and all, in the night. It is by degrees I am become
-what I am; and, only after repeated trials and proofs of the
-inefficiency of everything but severity, that I am grown so
-indifferent, that I do nothing but scold and abuse them.
-
-“But you talk of cruelty: it is such men as Mustafa Pasha, who was one
-of those who besieged Acre when Abdallah Pasha was _firmanlee_”
-(proscribed), “that you should call cruel; he was indeed a sanguinary
-tyrant. Doctor, he made a noise sometimes like the low growl of a
-tiger, and his people knew then that blood must flow. It was his
-custom, when the fit was on him, to send for some poor wretch from
-prison, and kill him with his own hand. He would then grow calm, smoke
-his pipe, and seem for a time quieted. But he was a shrewd man, and a
-clever pasha. He wrote with his own hand (which pashas never do,
-except on particular occasions) a letter to the Shaykh Beshýr,
-desiring him to pay marked attention to me. The Shaykh was highly
-flattered with the distinction shown him.”
-
-The recollection of the Pasha’s civility and the Shaykh Beshýr’s
-letter recalled her thoughts to what she had proposed to do at the
-beginning of the evening, which was to write an answer to Sir Gore
-Ouseley, and to thank the Oriental Translation Fund Society for their
-present. This was done in a letter from which the following are
-extracts:――
-
-
-              _To the Right Hon. Sir Gore Ouseley, Bart._
-
-                                         Djoun, on Mount Lebanon,
-                                            November 20, 1837.
-
-     Forgotten by the world, I cannot feel otherwise than much
-     flattered by the mark of attention which it has pleased the
-     society of learned men to honour me with. I must therefore
-     beg leave, in expressing my gratitude, to return them my
-     sincere thanks. You must not suppose that I am the least of
-     an Arabic scholar, for I can neither read nor write one word
-     of that language, and am (without affectation) a great dunce
-     upon some subjects. Having lived part of my life with the
-     greatest philosophers and politicians of the age, I have
-     been able to make this _observation_, that all of them,
-     however they may dispute and ingeniously reason upon
-     abstruse subjects, have, in moments of confidence, candidly
-     declared that we can go no _farther_. Here we must stop――all
-     is problematical: therefore I have wished, however it may
-     appear presumptuous, _to go farther_ and remove some of
-     these stumbling-blocks, not by erudition, but by trusting to
-     some happy accident.
-
-     It is extraordinary that many of this nature have occurred
-     to me during my residence in the East. First, many proofs of
-     the fallacy of history; next, the denial of many curious
-     facts, which are even scouted as gross superstitions, and
-     are pretended to be doubted, because no one knows how to
-     account for them, but which real knowledge can clearly
-     substantiate. Then there is a gap in history which ought to
-     be filled up with the reign of Malek Sayf (a second King
-     Solomon), and his family, and after him with that of Hamzy,
-     the sort of Messiah of the Druzes, who is expected to return
-     in another form. I once saw a work, which clearly proved the
-     Pyramids to be antediluvian, and that Japhet was aware the
-     deluge was to be partial, as he placed _that_ which was most
-     valuable to him in another quarter of the world.
-
-     The Bedoween Arabs may be divided into two distinct classes,
-     original Arabs, and the descendants of Ismael, whose
-     daughter married the ninth descendant of the great Katàn,
-     out of which germ sprang the famous tribe of the Koreish,
-     subdivided into many tribes, and which are a mixture of
-     Hebrew blood. One of the most famous tribes was that of the
-     Beni Hasheniz, from which spring the Boshnàk and the Beni
-     Omeyn, the Irish, always famed for the beauty of their
-     women. The Scotch are likewise Koreish――the nobility
-     descending from the King Al Yem (and his court), father of
-     Gebailuata, who headed the 50,000 horse, when they took
-     their flight from the Hedjáz, after a quarrel with the
-     Caliph Omar. They resided some time in Syria; but, when the
-     town of Gebeili became inadequate to contain their numbers,
-     many took themselves off to the Emperor Herculius,[13]
-     towards Antioch and Tarsus.
-
-     You must look over the Scotch titles and names of persons
-     and places, and you will see how many there are, who, it is
-     plain to perceive, are of Arabic origin; and you will soon
-     observe the relation they bear either to circumstances,
-     former employments, propensities, or tastes.
-
-     You cannot expect, as when a Frenchman remains forty years
-     in England, and can neither pronounce nor spell a name,
-     that, during such a lapse of time, many of these names
-     should not have undergone changes; but their origin is yet
-     evident.
-
-     The Duke of Leinster’s motto (_Croom Aboo_――his father’s
-     vineyards) has a grand signification, alluding to the most
-     learned of works, of which only two copies exist, and which
-     was not well understood even by the great Ulemas until about
-     five hundred years afterwards, when Shaikh Mohadeen of the
-     Beni Taya found out the key.
-
-     If the philosopher of chance should have presumed to have
-     offered a little heterogeneous information to the learned,
-     you, sir, must forgive me. Your star denotes you to be of
-     admirable good taste and great perspicuity, and therefore
-     well calculated to investigate the subjects I have had the
-     honour to lay before you.
-
-     You will forgive me for having used the pen of another, but
-     my sight and state of health will not at all times allow of
-     my writing a long letter.
-
-                      I salute all the philosophers with respect,
-                                       HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-     [12] See the History of the Temple of Jerusalem, translated
-          from the Arabic by the Rev. Mr. Reynolds, p. 403.
-
-     [13] Heraclius?
-
-
-
-
-                               CHAPTER V.
-
-Rainy season――Lady Hester’s despondency――Her Turkish costume――Turkish
-servants――Terror inspired by Lady Hester in her servants――Visit of
-Messieurs Poujolat and Boutés――Lady Hester’s inability to entertain
-strangers――Her dejected spirits and bad health.
-
-
-November 24.――Still rain, rain! The courtyards were deep in mud and
-puddles, and the men-servants walked about in wooden clogs, such as
-are worn in breweries. The flat roofs, which cover the houses in most
-parts of Syria, are made of a cement of mortar and fine gravel, in
-appearance like an asphaltum causeway. In the hot months fissures show
-themselves; and it rarely happens, when winter comes on, that, during
-the first heavy rains, the wet does not filter through. Lady Hester,
-therefore, had to suffer, as well as all the house, from this
-annoyance, hardly bearable when a person is in health, but extremely
-distressing and even dangerous in sickness. For some days past pans
-had been standing on the bedroom floor to catch the droppings, and it
-continued to rain on. The sloppy communications from door to door,
-where every door opens into a courtyard, gave likewise a damp to the
-apartments only supportable in a climate as mild as that of Syria.
-Snow had covered the upper chain of Mount Lebanon in great abundance,
-and the wind blew furiously. Everybody was out of humour, and many of
-the servants were labouring under bad coughs and colds: but the women,
-notwithstanding, always moved about the house with naked feet. It was
-a wonder to see how, with coughs that might be heard from one
-courtyard to another, they constantly went barefoot, and yet got well;
-and a servant, if sent to the village, was sure to leave his shoes at
-the porter’s lodge, and, drawing his _sherwáls_ or trousers up above
-his knees, to set off as light as a deer through the pelting storm,
-careless of wet, if he could but cover his head.
-
-I saw Lady Hester about two in the day: she was in low spirits, lying
-in her bed with the window and door open from a sense of suffocation
-which had just before seized her.
-
-“Would you believe it,” said she, as I entered, “those beasts would
-leave me to die here before they came to my assistance! and, if I
-happen to fall asleep, there is not one would cover my shoulders to
-prevent my taking cold.”
-
-Poor Lady Hester! thought I, the contrast between your early days and
-your present sufferings is almost enough to break your heart. So I
-abused the maids handsomely; and then, being satisfied with the warmth
-of my expressions, and having vented her own anger, she began to talk
-composedly.
-
-I remained until near dinner-time, and, after dinner, went to her
-again. She observed that the nights were dreadfully long, and that she
-should be obliged to me if I would read to her. Her stock of books,
-and mine too, was very small, and, after naming a few, which did not
-please her, I recollected she had asked me once if I had by me a
-heathen mythology, and she immediately fixed on that. So, writing on a
-slip of paper to my daughter to send me hers, Lady Hester said, “First
-let me order a pipe for you:” for this was usually the preliminary to
-all business or conversation. Every sitting was opened with a pipe,
-and generally terminated with one; as her ladyship would say, “But,
-before you go, doctor, you must smoke one pipe more.” When the book
-came, she desired me to turn to the part about Jupiter Ammon, and it
-will be seen farther on why she did so. After a page or two, she began
-to talk of the coming of the Mahadi, and the conversation was
-prolonged far into the night. She afterwards ordered tea――for I now
-drank tea with her almost every evening――and I then returned to my
-house, covered with my thick capote, which, in the short distance of a
-few hundred yards, could hardly save me from being wet through.
-
-November 25.――The annual fast of the Mahometans, called Ramazàn, had
-begun on the preceding day. It is customary for persons of rank to
-make presents of clothes and other things to their dependants, during
-the lunar month that the Ramazàn lasts, in order that they may appear
-dressed up in finery on the first day of the succeeding new moon, at
-the holyday of the Byràm, which succeeds it, as Easter-day does Lent
-among Christians. Lady Hester, who never was behindhand in
-beneficence, made it a rule to clothe all her Mahometan servants anew
-at this season, as she did all her Christian ones on New Year’s Day or
-at Easter. New capotes, pelisses, sherwáls, shirts, shifts, turbans,
-gowns, &c., were always bought previous to the time; and, the best
-being given to the most deserving, the worst to the least so, with
-none at all to the lazy and worthless, some sort of activity was
-observable in their service previous to the expected time. But the
-objects they coveted once in their possession, they soon relapsed into
-their customary sloth.
-
-Some of these articles of dress were lying on the floor, Lady Hester
-having had them brought for her to look at. She said to me, “You must
-take home one of these abahs[14] to show to your family. You must
-tell them,” continued she, “that once I had all my servants clothed in
-such abahs as that: but they played me such tricks, I have given it
-up. Some sold them; and, on one occasion, four of them marched off
-within twenty-four hours after I had dressed them from head to foot,
-and I never saw them again: isn’t it abominable? At the time that I
-dressed them so well, and rode out myself with my bornôos, crimson and
-gold, the gold lace being everywhere where silk tape is generally put,
-I did not owe a shilling in the world.”
-
-“Once,” she continued, “when riding my beautiful Arabian mare Asfoor,
-near a place called Gezýn, in that crimson bornôos, with a
-richly-embroidered dress under it, and on my crimson velvet saddle, I
-happened to approach an encampment of the Pasha’s troops. Several
-_benát el hawa_” (street ladies), “who were living with the soldiers,
-ran across a field to come up with me, thinking I was some young bey
-or binbashi. Every time, just as they got near, I quickened my horse’s
-pace, that they might not see I was a woman: at last, two fairly came
-and seized my knees, to make me turn and look at them. But what was
-their confusion (for such women are not so hardened as in Europe) when
-they saw I had no beard or mustachios, and was one of their own sex!”
-
-Lady Hester related this droll adventure to me more than once, to
-show, I believe, what a distinguished and real Turkish appearance she
-made on horseback, which was perfectly true: but to return to the
-servants.
-
-A Turk for work is little better than a brute animal: he moves about
-nimbly, when roused by vociferation and threats, and squats down like
-a dog the moment he is left to himself. England produces no type of
-the Syrian serving-man. He sets about his work as a task that is given
-to him, and, when it is over, sits down immediately to smoke his pipe
-and to gossip, or seeks a snug place near at hand, and goes to sleep.
-You call him, and set him to do something else, and the same practice
-follows. The next day you expect he will, of his own accord,
-recommence what was shown to him on the preceding one; but no such
-thing: you have to tell him over again, and so every day. He is a
-thief from habit, and a liar of the most brazen stamp, as no shame is
-ever attached to detection. In plausible language, protestations of
-honesty and fidelity, he has no superior; and, if beaten or reviled,
-he will smother his choler, nay, kiss the hand that has chastised him,
-but waits a fit opportunity for vengeance, and carefully weighs kicks
-against coppers. He is generally so servile as to make you bear with
-his worthlessness, even though you despise him; and, when your anger
-appears to threaten him with the loss of his place and is at the
-highest, he smooths it down with an extraordinary day’s activity,
-making you hope that a reformation has taken place in him: but it is
-all delusion. And think not that you, a Christian, can raise your hand
-against the meanest servant, if a Mahometan: when you would have him
-beaten, you must employ another Mahometan to do it, who will, however,
-lay on to your heart’s content.
-
-What has been said above applies to the menials of towns and cities.
-Of another class of servants taken from the villages, Lady Hester used
-to say, “I have tried the Syrian _fellahs_” (peasants) “for twenty
-years as servants, and I ought to know pretty well what they are fit
-for. It is my opinion that, for hard work, lifting heavy things, going
-with mules and asses, for foot messengers across the country, and for
-such business, you may make something of them, but for nothing else.
-The women are idle, and prone to thieving; and it is impossible to
-teach them any European usages.”
-
-One day, in walking through the back yard, I observed two stakes,
-about six feet high and sharply pointed, stuck deep and firmly into
-the ground, which had before escaped my notice. I inquired what they
-were for, but got no satisfactory answer, the dairyman, to whom I
-addressed myself, using the reply so common throughout the East, _Ma
-aref_ (I don’t know); for no people in the world have so quick a scent
-of the danger of being brought into trouble by professing to know what
-is inquired about as the Orientals. A Jew, in a street in Turkey, and
-a Christian likewise, is sure to answer the most simple question by an
-“I don’t know”――“I have not heard”――“I have not seen;” for he fears
-what that question may lead to, and that, if he knows a little, a
-bastinadoing may be resorted to to make him know more: so I afterwards
-asked Lady Hester. “Oh!” replied she, “I’ll tell you how those stakes
-came there: I had forgotten all about them. One day, at the time they
-were robbing me right and left, I ordered the carpenter to make two
-stakes, such as people are impaled upon, and to erect them in the back
-yard. I spoke not to any one why or wherefore I had given the order;
-but if you had seen the fright that pervaded the house, and for weeks
-how well the maids behaved, you would then have known, as I do, that
-it is only by such terrible means that these abominable jades can be
-kept under. From that time to this it appears the stakes have
-remained; for, as I never go into that yard, I had forgotten them: but
-since they are there still, there let them be.”
-
-Thus Lady Hester was dying in a struggle to cure her men and maids of
-theft, lying, and carelessness, whilst they ended the month with the
-same indifference to honesty, truth, and cleanliness, as they began
-it.
-
-Each one was a sycophant to those who had authority over him; each one
-distrusted his comrade. Lady Hester might say with truth, “If I did
-not act so, they would cut your throat and mine:” but why did she keep
-such wretches about her? why not turn them away, and procure European
-servants? or why continue to live in such a wild mountain, and not
-make her dwelling-place in or near a city, where consular protection
-was at hand? The first three questions I have endeavoured to answer
-already; and, as for the last, respecting consular protection, he that
-had dared to suggest such an expedient of safety to her would have
-rued the observation. To name a consul in that sense to her was to
-name what was most odious; and the epithets that were generally
-coupled with their names were such as I have too much respect for that
-useful body of magistrates to put down in writing.
-
-Saturday, November 25.――As I was returning from the village about
-four in the afternoon, on ascending the side of the hill on which Lady
-Hester’s house stands, I met four persons mounted on mules, and
-conjectured them, by their boots, which were black, and reached up to
-the calf of the leg, not to be of the country; for in Syria either red
-or yellow boots are always worn. They had on Morea capotes, and their
-dress was that of the more northern provinces of Turkey. In passing
-them, I said, “Good evening!” in Arabic, but, on receiving no answer
-from the two nearest to me, I looked hard at them, and immediately saw
-they were Europeans.
-
-On alighting at my own door, I asked the servant if he had seen
-anybody go by, and his reply was, that three or four Turkish soldiers
-had passed. I then inquired of one of Lady Hester’s muleteers, who was
-unloading some provisions he had brought from Sayda, if he knew who
-the four men were whom I had seen; and he answered that, at the foot
-of the hill, they had inquired of him the road to Jôon, and that they
-were Milordi travelling: Milordo being the term applied to every
-European who travels in the Levant with a man-servant, and has money
-to spend.
-
-I went in to Lady Hester a few minutes afterwards, and told her that
-some travellers, as I thought, to get a nearer view of her house than
-could be had from the high road, had made a round, and had just ridden
-past the door. About a quarter of an hour afterwards, the maid
-brought in a message from the porter to say that two Franks, just
-arrived at the village of Jôon, had sent their servant with a note,
-and the porter wished to know whether the note was to be taken in. For
-Lady Hester had been so tormented with begging letters, petitions,
-stories of distress, &c., that it was become a general rule for him
-never to receive any written paper, until he had first sent in to say
-who had brought it, and from whom it came; and then she would decide
-whether it was to be refused or not. The note, accordingly, was
-fetched.
-
-Lady Hester read it to herself, and then the following conversation
-took place, which will explain some of the reasons why she did not
-always receive strangers who presented themselves at her gate. “Yes,
-doctor,” said she, “you were right: they are two travellers, who have
-been to Palmyra and about, and want to come and talk to me concerning
-the Arabs and the desert. Should you like to go to Jôon, and tell them
-I can’t see them, because I have been confined to my room for several
-days from a bad cold?” I answered, “Certainly; I would go with the
-greatest pleasure.” She then rang the bell, and desired the servant to
-order my horse. She continued, “One of the names, I think, is a man of
-a great family.”――“What is it?” I asked. She took up the note again.
-“Boo, poo, bon――no――Boo――jo――lais――Beaujolais, I think it is. No,
-Pou――jo――lat; it is Poujolat.”――“Then,” interrupted I, “I guess who
-they are: there was a Monsieur Poujolat, who came into the Levant six
-or seven years ago, to make researches respecting the crusades: I saw
-him at Cyprus; he and Monsieur Michaud were together. They were
-considered men of talent, and I believe were contributors to some
-Paris newspaper during Charles the Tenth’s time. They had published
-already some volumes of their travels before I left Europe, and the
-greatest part of the ground was travelled over, as I surmise, in the
-saloons of their consuls, during the long evenings when they were shut
-in by the plague of 1831 and 1832; for they speak of many places where
-they could hardly have gone. But this is not unusual,” I added, “with
-some writers; for Monsieur Chaboçeau, a French doctor at Damascus,
-told me, in 1813, when I was staying in his house, that Monsieur de
-Volney never went to Palmyra, although he leads one to suppose he had
-been there; for, owing to a great fall of snow just at the period when
-he projected that journey, he was compelled to relinquish the attempt.
-Monsieur Chaboçeau, an octogenarian, had known him, and entertained
-him as his guest in his house; and he answered me, when I reiterated
-the question, that Volney never saw Palmyra.”
-
-“Oh! if they have written about the crusades,” said Lady Hester,
-paying no attention to what I said about Volney, “tell them that all
-the crusaders are not dead, but that some of them are asleep only;
-asleep in the same arms and the same dress they wore on the field of
-battle, and will awake at the first resurrection. Mind you say the
-first resurrection; for I suppose you know there are to be two, one a
-partial one, and the last a general one.[15]
-
-“But there, doctor, I must not detain you. Now, just listen to what
-you have got to do. Mohammed shall take to them two bottles of red
-wine, and two bottles of _vino d’oro_” (ding, ding.) “Zezefôon, tell
-Mohammed to get out four bottles of wine, two of each sort; of my
-wine――you understand――and he is to put them in a basket, and be ready
-to go with the doctor to Jôon.” Then, addressing herself again to me,
-“You must say to them that I am very sorry I can’t see them, but that
-I am not very well, and that I beg their acceptance of a little wine,
-which, perhaps, they might not find where they sleep to-night. Say to
-them, I should be very much pleased to talk over their journey to
-Palmyra with them; and add that the respect I bear to all the French
-makes me always happy to meet with one of their nation. Say that the
-wine is not so good as I could wish it to be, but that, since Ibrahim
-Pasha and his soldiers have been in the country, they have drunk up
-all the good, and it is now very difficult to procure any. If they
-talk about Ibrahim Pasha, say that I admire his courage, but cannot
-respect him; that I am a faithful subject of the Sultan, and shall
-always be so, and that I do not like servants that rise against their
-masters; for whether Cromwells, or Buonapartes, or people in these
-countries, it never succeeds. If they allude to the horrors of the
-recruiting service, and to the nizàm troops, tell them that I never
-interfere in matters like that; but that, when heads were to be saved
-and the wounded and houseless to be succoured, as after the siege of
-Acre, then I was not afraid of Ibrahim Pasha, or any of them. Well, I
-think that’s all:” then, musing a little while, she added, “I ought,
-perhaps, to ask them to pass the night here; but, if I did, it would
-be all confusion: no dinner ready for them――and, before it could be,
-it would be midnight, for I must have a sheep killed: besides, it
-would be setting a bad example. There would be others then coming just
-at nightfall to get a supper and be off in the morning, as has
-happened more than once already. So now go, doctor, and” (ding, ding)
-“Fatôom! who is that woman that lodges strangers sometimes at
-Jôon?”――“Werdy, Sytty, the midwife.”――“Ah! so; very well. Tell them,
-doctor, that they had better not think of going to Sayda to-night, as
-the gates will be shut; and that they will be nowhere better off for
-sleeping in all the village than at Werdy, the midwife’s: for she has
-good beds and clean counterpanes: so now go.”
-
-I half rose to go, still hanging back, as knowing her ladyship would,
-as usual, have much more to say. “Oh! by the bye,” she resumed, “if
-they inquire about me, and ask any questions, you may say that
-sometimes I am a great talker when subjects please me, and sometimes
-say very little if they do not. I am a character: what I do, or intend
-to do, nobody knows beforehand; and, when done, people don’t always
-know why, until the proper time, and then it comes out.” Here she
-paused a little, and then resumed. “I dare say they came here to have
-something to put in their book, so mind you tell them about the
-crusaders; for it is true, doctor. You recollect I told you the story,
-and how these sleeping crusaders had been seen by several persons; and
-I don’t suppose those persons would lie more than other people; why
-should they?”――“Why should they indeed?” I answered. “They were
-martyrs,” resumed her ladyship, “and those who sleep are not only of
-the Christians who fought, but of the Saracens also; men, that is, who
-felt from their souls the justice of the cause they fought for. As for
-yourself, if you don’t believe it, you may add you know nothing about
-it; for you are lately come into the country, and all these are things
-which are become known to me during my long residence here.”
-
-At last I went, mounted my horse, and rode out of the gate, Mohammed
-following with the basket of wine. But, instead of having to go to the
-village, I found the strangers waiting on their mules about two or
-three hundred yards from the porter’s lodge. My horse, taken from his
-feed, for it was near sunset, and seeing the mules, jumped and pranced
-so that I was obliged to dismount before I could approach them. I
-delivered Lady Hester’s message to them, and in answer they expressed,
-in polite terms, their regret at not seeing her, and their still
-greater regret that the reason was from her ill state of health.
-Unlike what some Englishmen have done on similar occasions, they
-uttered not the slightest murmur about her want of hospitality, nor
-the least doubt of the veracity of the excuse; but, as soon as they
-found that they should not be admitted, they cut short all further
-conversation; lamenting, as night was fast approaching, that they
-could not stop, and that they were under the necessity of bending
-their way somewhere as fast as possible to get a night’s lodging. I
-pointed to the village, recommended them to go there, and repeated
-Werdy, the midwife’s name, two or three times, as a cottage where they
-would be comfortably lodged. But, yielding to the advice of their
-servant, who, as is the case with all travellers ignorant of the
-language in a strange country, seemed to lead his masters pretty much
-where he liked, they were induced to set off for Sayda, where they
-could not arrive in less than three hours, instead of passing the
-night at Jôon, where they would have been housed in ten minutes. So,
-presenting them with the wine, and having informed them of the name of
-the French consular agent at Sayda, where they would do well to demand
-a lodging, I wished them good night, and took my leave. They mounted
-their mules, and descended the bank by the narrow path that led under
-the hill to the Sayda road; when, as I was going back to the house, I
-heard one of the gentlemen calling out to me, “But the empty bottles?”
-Now the interview had been conducted, on my part, with all the
-etiquette I was master of, and on theirs, up to the moment of saying
-good night, with the politeness so natural to the French nation. But
-the exclamation, “What’s to be done with the empty bottles? you gave
-us the wine, but did you give us the bottles too?” sounded so comic,
-and in the vicinity of that residence too, where it was customary to
-give in a princely way, that the speaker fell a degree in the scale of
-my estimation on the score of breeding, how much soever he might be
-commended for his intended exactitude and probity.
-
-I returned to Lady Hester. During my short absence, one of her maids
-had informed her that the Franks, although they had made a show of
-going to Jôon when first they passed the gate, had in fact only
-retired into the valley between the two hills, where they had unpacked
-their saddle-bags and shifted themselves, in order to make a decent
-appearance before her. This increased her regret at the trouble they
-had so uselessly put themselves to. The rain came on soon after, and
-their unpleasant situation was the subject of conversation for a good
-half hour. The name of the other gentleman who accompanied Monsier
-Poujolat was Boutés.
-
-Much has been said of Lady Hester Stanhope’s rudeness to her
-countrymen and others in refusing them admittance when at the door,
-and probably Messrs. Poujolat and Boutés might have complained at
-Sayda of her inhospitable conduct: but it is scarcely necessary for me
-to say that her real motives for acting as she did were not from a
-dislike to see people, since nobody enjoyed half-a-day’s conversation
-with a stranger more than she did. A few days after,
-
-December 2.――I had taken a long ride in the morning, and had seen a
-frigate under her studding sails running towards Sayda. The arrival of
-a ship of war was always an event to set the house in commotion; for
-it was very well known that, if her colours were English or French,
-the chances were ten to one that either the captain or some of the
-officers would come up to Jôon. Accordingly, on returning home at
-about 4 o’clock, I told Lady Hester Stanhope of it: but she was not
-well, had passed the night badly, and all she said was,――“Well, if
-they come, I shall not see any of them.” Now, it is not improbable, if
-any of the officers had presented themselves, and had been told that
-her ladyship was unable to receive them, owing to the state of her
-health, that they would have gone away discontented, and disposed to
-attribute her refusal to any other cause than the real one: but let
-any one, who reads what follows, say if she was in a fit state to hold
-conversation with strangers.
-
-Her health was still very far from good, and this day was a day of
-sorrow. Her maids had been sulky and impertinent, and her forlorn and
-deserted situation came so forcibly across her mind, that she raised
-up her hands to heaven, and wept. “Oh!” said she, “if these horrid
-servants would but do as they are told, I could get on by myself, and
-should not want anybody to help me: but they are like jibbing horses,
-and the only good horse in the team is worked to death. Were I well, I
-would not care for a thousand of them; I should know how to manage
-them: but, sick as I am, hardly able to raise my hand to ring the
-bell, if anything were to happen to me, I might die, and nobody would
-come to my assistance.”
-
-I offered, as I had done almost daily, to have my bed removed to the
-room next to hers, and to sleep there, in order to be at hand if she
-should want my assistance: but she would not admit of it; and I could
-only use my best efforts to soothe her, which was no easy matter. I
-remained six hours with her, sitting the whole time in a constrained
-posture, that I might catch her words, so low was her voice. And I
-could not move without sensibly annoying her, as she was sure to
-construe it into a wish to be gone, or a disregard of her situation,
-and to say she was neglected by everybody.
-
-It is incredible how Lady Hester Stanhope used to torment herself
-about trifles. People, who never happened to meet with a person of her
-peculiar character, would be amazed at the precision with which she
-set about everything she undertook. The most trivial and fugitive
-affairs were transacted with quite as much pains and exactitude as she
-brought to bear upon the most important plans. This was, in fact, the
-character of her mind, exhibiting itself throughout her entire
-conduct. I have known her lose nearly a whole day in scolding about a
-nosegay of roses which she wished to send to the Pasha’s wife. For the
-purpose of sending nosegays safely to distant places, she had invented
-a sort of canister. In the bottom part was placed a tumbler full of
-water, in which the flower-stalks were kept moist; and the nosegay was
-thus carried to any distance, suspended to the mules, saddle, or in a
-man’s hand. The servants, who could not understand why such importance
-was attached to a few flowers, were remiss in keeping the canisters
-clean, nor would the gardener arrange the flowers as Lady Hester
-wished. For a matter like this she would storm and cry, and appeal to
-me if it was not a shame she should be so treated.
-
-December 3.――To-day, a servant, who was ill, had become the object of
-her immediate anxiety. “As for myself,” cried she, “I care not how
-ragged, how neglected I am; but I am in a fever if I think a poor
-creature is in want of such comforts as his illness may require. Such
-is my despotism: and I dread every moment of the day lest his
-necessities should not be attended to. Who is to see his room warmed,
-to take care he has proper drinks, to give him his medicine? I know
-nobody will do it, unless I see to it myself.” I assured her he should
-have every attention possible.
-
-It was in vain to expect any sentiment or feeling from servants and
-slaves, who had no prospect before them but one constant round of
-forced work, against their habits and inclinations. Although Lady
-Hester Stanhope had adopted almost all the customs of the East, she
-still retained many of her own: and to condemn the slaves to learn the
-usages of Franks was like obliging an English housemaid to fall into
-those of the Turks. Thus, the airing of linen, ironing, baking loaves
-of bread instead of flat cakes, cleaning knives, brightening pots,
-pans, and kettles, mending holes in clothes, and other domestic
-cleanly usages, were points of contention which were constantly fought
-over and over again for twenty years, with no better success at the
-last than at the first.
-
-Her conversation turned one day on Sir G. H. “What can be the
-reason?” said she, “I am now always thinking of Sir G. H. Seven years
-ago, when you were here, you spoke about him, and I thought no more of
-him than merely to make some remarks at the moment; but now I have
-dreamed of him two or three times, and I am sure something is going to
-happen to him, either very good or very bad. I have been thinking how
-well he would do for master of the horse to the Queen, and I have a
-good way of giving a hint of it through the Buckleys: for I always
-said that, next to Lord Chatham, nobody ever had such handsome
-equipages as Sir G.: nobody’s horses and carriages were so neatly
-picked out as theirs. Sir G. is a man, doctor, from what you tell me,
-that would have just suited Mr. Pitt. That polished and quiet manner
-which Sir G. has was what Mr. Pitt found so agreeable in Mr. Long. It
-is very odd――Mr. Pitt always would dress for dinner, even if we were
-alone. One day, I said to him, ‘You are tired, and there is no one but
-ourselves; why need you dress!’ He replied, ‘Why, I don’t know,
-Hester; but if one omits to do it to-day, we neglect it to-morrow, and
-so on, until one grows a pig.’”
-
-December 7, 1837.――Poor Lady Hester’s appearance to-day would have
-been a piteous sight for her friends in England. I saw her about noon:
-she was pale, very ill, and her natural good spirits quite gone.
-“Doctor,” said she, in a faint voice, “I am very poorly to-day, and I
-was still worse in the night. I was within that” (holding up her
-finger) “of death’s door, and I find nothing now will relieve me. A
-little while ago, I could depend on something or other, when seized
-with these spasmodic attacks; but now everything fails. How am I to
-get better, when I can’t have a moment’s repose from morning till
-night? When I was ill on former occasions, I could amuse myself with
-my thoughts, with cutting out in paper;――why, I have a closet full of
-models, in paper, of rooms, and arches, and vaults, and pavilions, and
-buildings, with so many plans of alterations, you can’t think. But
-now, if I want a pair of scissors, they can’t be found; if I want a
-needle and thread, there is none forthcoming; and I am wearied to
-death about the smallest trifles.”
-
-She here began to cry and wring her hands, presenting a most
-melancholy picture of despair. When she had recovered a little, she
-went on: “To look upon me now, what a lesson against vanity! Look at
-this arm, all skin and bone, so thin, so thin, that you may see
-through it; and once, without exaggeration, so rounded, that you could
-not pinch the skin up. My neck was once so fair that a pearl necklace
-scarcely showed on it; and men――no fools, but sensible men――would say
-to me, ‘God has given you a neck you really may be proud of: you are
-one of nature’s favourites, and one may be excused for admiring that
-beautiful skin.’ If they could behold me now, with my teeth all gone,
-and with long lines in my face――not wrinkles, for I have no wrinkles
-when I am left quiet, and not made angry: but my face is drawn out of
-its composure by these wretches. I thank God that old age has come
-upon me unperceived. When I used to see the painted Lady H. dressed in
-pink and silver, with her head shaking, and jumped by her footman into
-her sociable, attempting to appear young, I felt a kind of horror and
-disgust I can’t describe. I wonder how Lady Stafford dresses, now she
-is no longer young: but I can’t fancy her grown old.”
-
-She paused, and then resumed. “I have,” she said, “been under the saw”
-(drawing the little finger of her right hand backward and forward
-across the forefinger of her left) “for many years, and not a tooth
-but what has told; but it is God’s will, and I do not repine: it is
-man’s ingratitude that wounds me most. How many harsh answers have
-even you given me, when I have been telling you things for your good:
-it is that which hurts me.”
-
-I confessed my fault, and expressed my deep regret that I had ever
-caused her any pain.
-
-She went on. “When I see people of understanding moidering away their
-time, losing their memory, and doing nothing that is useful to
-mankind, I must be frank, and tell them of it. You are in darkness,
-and I have done my best to enlighten you: if I have not succeeded, it
-is not my fault. As for pleasing or displeasing me, put that out of
-your head: there is no more in that than in pleasing or displeasing
-that door. I am but a worm――a poor, miserable being――an humble
-instrument in the hands of God. But, if a man is benighted, and sees a
-light in a castle, does he go to it, or does he not? Perhaps it may be
-a good genius that guides him there, perhaps it may be a den of
-thieves: but there he goes.”
-
-In this mournful strain Lady Hester went on for some time. Every thing
-around me presented so affecting a picture, that, unable to restrain
-my emotions, I burst into tears. She let me recover myself, and then,
-making me drink a finjàn of coffee, with a little orange-flower water
-in it, to restore my spirits, she advised me to go and take a walk.
-
-An hour or two afterwards I saw her again. She was much better, and
-was sitting up in her bed, cutting out articles of clothing, and
-fixing on patterns for new gowns for her maids. “I hate money,” she
-said, “and could wish to have nothing to do with it but saying, ‘Take
-this, and lay it out so and so.’” Ever sanguine, she was forming plans
-of what she should do in the spring, when she purposed remodelling her
-household, and replacing her present servants by a fresh set. The
-world was to be convulsed by revolutions, nations were to be punished
-by sickness and calamities; and her object was to secure, for those in
-whose welfare she felt interested, an asylum in the coming days of
-trouble.
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-     [14] An abah is either a long cloak, or else a woollen
-          frock-coat, sometimes brocaded in a triangle of gold
-          thread (the base going from shoulder to shoulder, and
-          the apex pointing at the waist), on a marone-coloured
-          ground, as this was, and presenting a very brilliant
-          appearance.
-
-     [15] It was by such speeches as these that Lady Hester
-          sometimes left an impression on her hearers that she
-          was insane. The reader must judge for himself. There
-          are, however, strong reasons for believing that there
-          was a profound and deeply-planned method in all her
-          actions, and those who said she was unsound in her
-          intellects would have had great difficulty in proving
-          it before a competent tribunal. The vast combinations
-          of her mind, when it was possible to get a glimpse of
-          them, filled one with surprise, and set at naught all
-          previous conjecture or conception; whilst separate and
-          particular conversations and reasonings wore the stamp
-          of great oddity and sometimes of insanity. Let Mr.
-          Dundas, Lord Hardwicke, Mr. Way, Lord St. Asaph, Count
-          Delaborde, Count Yowiski, if still alive, Count de la
-          Porte, Dr. Mills, M. Lamartine, Count Marcellus, and a
-          hundred others who have conversed with her, say what
-          was the impression she left on their minds; and not
-          till then let persons who have never held intercourse
-          with her of late years pronounce her mad.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER VI.
-
-The Delphic priestess――Abdallah Pasha’s ingratitude――His cowardice――
-Lady Hester’s spies――Her emaciation――History of General Loustaunau.
-
-
-December 8.――A most violent storm of rain, thunder, and lightning,
-kept me prisoner. The courtyards were flooded. When all the house was
-in confusion from the wet, and clogs were heard clattering on all
-sides, I entered Lady Hester’s room, and remained for about an hour,
-talking on indifferent subjects, without hearing from her one word in
-allusion to the state of the weather. At last she said, “Doctor, I
-find myself better from the thunder!” And when I replied that there
-were many persons who felt oppressed from an electric condition of the
-atmosphere and were relieved by its explosion, she observed, with some
-sharpness, “that I must be a great booby to make such a remark to her,
-as there was not a servant in the house who did not know that she
-could always tell, three days beforehand, when a thunder-storm was
-coming on.”
-
-In the evening I sat with her about four hours. She was up, and had
-placed herself in a corner of her bed-room on a low ottoman (as it is
-called in England), which the Syrians name _terâahah_. The candle was
-put far back in the window recess, the light being thrown on my
-features, whilst it left hers in obscurity. This was her custom on
-almost all occasions, even when she had strangers visiting her, under
-pretence that she could not bear the light in her eyes, but, in fact,
-as I have reason to believe, to watch the play of people’s
-countenances.
-
-She resumed the subject of the preceding evening. I was too weary when
-I left her, and too busy next morning, to be able to write down her
-conversation, but, could I have done it, it must have left a profound
-impression on the reader’s mind, an idea of sublimity, whether he held
-her visionary opinions to be the mere rhapsodies of a disordered
-intellect, or the deductions of great reasoning powers, aided by
-remarkable foresight. Her language was so forcible and sublime, that I
-sometimes suspended my breath, and from time to time tried to assure
-myself that I was not hearkening to a superhuman voice. The smoke from
-our pipes by degrees filled the room, closely shut up as it was, and
-cast a deep gloom around us. The wind howled without, with now and
-then occasional echoes of the thunder among the mountains: and it
-required no great stretch of imagination to believe one’s self
-listening to the inspired oracles of the Delphic priestess, as she
-poured forth the warnings of what seemed a preternatural insight into
-futurity.
-
-December 9.――The morning was employed in writing letters, and in the
-evening I remained until half-past one with Lady Hester. She spoke of
-the alarm created in Mahomet Ali’s cabinet, by her affording
-protection to Abdallah Pasha’s people after the surrender of St. Jean
-d’Acre. “That impudent fellow C********,” said she, “sent me a packet
-of letters from Colonel Campbell, and told me I was to prepare a list
-of all the people in my house, giving their names, nation, a
-description of their persons, &c. I returned him the packet, and
-desired him to forward it to the quarter whence it came, adding,
-‘These are all the commands that Lady Hester Stanhope has at present
-to give to Mr. C********.’ To Colonel C. I wrote ‘that it was not
-customary for consuls to give orders to their superiors; that, as for
-the English name, about which he talked so much, I made over to him
-all the advantage he might derive from it.’ And my letter to Boghoz
-was to the effect that, ‘in confessing, as he did, that I rendered the
-state of this country unsettled by my measures, he acknowledged the
-weakness of his master’s cause; that I disdained all partnership in
-it; and that the column on which Mahomet Ali’s exaltation rested
-would, before long, sink beneath him, and his greatness melt like snow
-before the fire.’ I added, ‘there could be little honour for Mahomet
-Ali to make himself a gladiator before a woman;’ and here I meant
-that, as a gladiator was some criminal who descended into the arena to
-fight, so he was a malefactor too.
-
-“As for Abdallah Pasha, he was not worth the pains I took about him;
-but I did it for my master, the Sultan. I kept and maintained for two
-years two hundred of his people, wounded, sick, and proscribed; and
-when I wrote to him to know what I should do with them, as the expense
-was too great for me, the answer of this ungrateful wretch was to ask
-me for a loan of twenty-five purses, and not even to send his
-remembrance to one of those who had bled and suffered in his cause.
-His ingratitude, however, has partly met with its reward: for the
-Sultan himself has heard of his cold-hearted conduct, and has taken
-away half what he allowed him. This is the man whose head I saved by
-my intercession with a person in power.
-
-“He was a coward, after all. The last day of the siege of Acre he lost
-his senses quite. As Ibrahim Pasha had effected a breach, some of
-Abdallah Pasha’s officers forced him to come upon the ramparts to
-encourage the soldiers; for he had remained during the whole time shut
-up in a vault under-ground with his women and boys, and had never once
-appeared. Well, the first thing he did was to sit down amidst the
-fire, quite bewildered. He then asked for an umbrella: then he called
-for some water; and, when they presented to him an _ibryk_[16] as
-being the only thing they had near at hand, not supposing that at such
-a moment he would mind what it was he drank from, he would not drink
-out of it?”
-
-They fetched him a goblet, and he made them take it back, because it
-was a glass he drank sherbet out of, and not water. The very man who
-handed it to him told me the story. At last they placed him in one
-corner of the battery, and covered him with a cloak. All this time the
-bullets were flying about.[17]
-
-Lady Hester continued:――“Of all those to whom I gave an asylum and
-bread, after the siege, I can’t say there were many who showed the
-least gratitude――four perhaps: the rest robbed me, and abused my
-goodness in every possible manner. One family alone consisted of
-seventeen persons. Will it be believed, that when I had new clothes
-made for the women for the Byrám holyday, they had the baseness to
-grumble at the stuff, the make, and everything, complaining they were
-not good enough for them? But this did not hurt me half so much as the
-little credit I get for everything I do among my relations and the
-English in general. My motives are misconstrued, or not appreciated;
-and, whilst a mighty fuss is made about some public subscription for
-people in Jamaica, Newfoundland, or God knows where, I, who, by my own
-individual exertions, have done the like for hundreds of wretched
-beings, driven out of their homes by the sabre and bayonet, am reviled
-and abused for every act of kindness or benevolence.
-
-“I knew a pretty deal of what was going forward during the siege of
-Acre by my own spies. Hanah, your old servant――Giovanni, as he used to
-be called――was one of them. He carried on his trade of a barber, and
-was married in Acre; and, when the bombarding began, he got out
-somehow, and came to me. So I furnished him with a beggar’s dress. But
-first I made him take leave of the other servants, and set off from
-the door. Then, hiding himself under a rock, when he was at a
-distance, he dressed himself as a _fakýr_, and, so perfect was his
-disguise, that, when he came back to me, I did not know him. He was a
-poor timid fellow, and that was the reason why I chose him as fit for
-my purpose. In such a nice business as that, I wanted a man that would
-follow my instructions exactly, and do nothing out of his own head:
-and Giovanni was in such a fright, that I was sure of him in that
-respect. Well, he succeeded perfectly well. There was a poor devil of
-a _sacca_, or water-carrier, in the camp, who used to take water to
-Derwish Pasha’s tents. Meanly dressed, and with his head held down,
-like one in misery, nobody paid any attention to him; at night he
-would frequently creep between the ropes of the Pasha’s tent, and seem
-to sleep there like an unhappy being who had no hole to put his head
-in. Through a slit in the tent, he could see and hear much that
-passed, communicating whatever information he obtained to Giovanni,
-who brought it at convenient opportunities to me. But when I wanted a
-stout-hearted fellow to carry a letter through the entrenchments to
-the foot of the walls, to be drawn up, then I chose a different sort
-of a messenger; for I had them all ready.”
-
-December 16.――The last three days Lady Hester had suffered greatly.
-To-day she was in very low spirits, and sobbed aloud and wrung her
-hands, while she bitterly deplored her deserted state. “I believe it
-will do me good to cry,” she said, and she gave way freely to her
-emotions; but her weeping was not woman-like: it had a wild howl about
-it, that was painful to me to hear; she seemed not to be made of stuff
-for tears: and, if Bellona could have ever wept, she must have wept in
-this way. After she had given vent to her feelings, she gradually
-recovered, and her natural fecundity of language returned.
-
-December 17.――Christmas day was approaching, but the weather was of
-extraordinary mildness. Some idea may be formed of the climate of
-Syria from the circumstance that my house had no glass to the windows,
-and that the family sat always with the doors open. It was only during
-the heavy rains that the rooms felt chilly, and then a brazier, with
-lighted coals, was agreeable and quite sufficient to obviate the cold.
-
-Lady Hester made me observe how thin she had become. Her bones almost
-protruded through her skin, and she could not lie comfortably in any
-posture; so that it was difficult for her to get rest. Her fretfulness
-had increased to such a degree as to be equally distressing to herself
-and to those about her: yet the vigour of her mind never forsook her
-for a moment when anything called for its exertion.
-
-December 20.――was a rainy day, and, when I entered her ladyship’s
-chamber, I saw it would be a melancholy one. She was seated in the
-corner of the room, her features indicating great suffering. She burst
-into tears the moment I approached her. She had not slept the whole
-night, and had passed the hours, from the time I left her, in getting
-up and walking about supported by her women, and then lying down
-again, seeking relief from the feeling of suffocation and oppression
-which so much distressed her. The floor of the bed-room was covered
-with plates, pots, and pans, turnips, carrots, cabbages, knives and
-forks, spoons, and all other appurtenances of the table and kitchen.
-
-I must observe that, on the preceding day, at Lady Hester’s request, I
-had ridden over to Mar Elias to see General Loustaunau, the decayed
-French officer, who had now lived on her bounty for a period of more
-than twenty years. And although, from being of a choleric and violent
-temper, he had, on more than one occasion, embroiled himself with her,
-yet the only difference it made in her treatment towards him was
-merely to keep him at a distance from herself: but she had never, for
-one day, ceased to occupy herself with his wants and to provide for
-his comforts. He was now, as I was told, eighty years old, and his
-mind was possessed with hallucinations, which he fell into from a
-belief that he could interpret the prophecies in the Bible. He was
-constantly poring over that book, and he went very generally by the
-name of the Prophet: Lady Hester herself always called him so. He had
-a maid-servant to take care of him, a barber, on fixed days, to shave
-him. Lamb, mutton, or beef, flour for his bread, and wine, were sent
-as his consumption required, money being liberally furnished him for
-purchasing everything else from Sayda.
-
-Finding that he was very much neglected by the woman who was appointed
-to attend him, I mentioned the fact on my return to Lady Hester, and
-to this communication was to be attributed the extraordinary display
-on the floor of her bed-room; for, from her accustomed sensibility to
-the sufferings of others, she had fancied that the poor man was in
-want of everything. “See,” she said, “what I am reduced to: ever since
-daylight this morning” (and it was then nearly noon) “have I been
-handling pots and pans to make the Prophet comfortable. For on whom
-can I depend?――on these cold people――a pack of stocks and stones, who
-rest immoveable amidst their fellow-creatures’ sufferings? Why did not
-you give that woman a dressing? I’ll have her turned out of the
-village――an impudent hussy!”
-
-Here, from having raised her voice, she was seized with a spasm in the
-throat and chest, and, making a sudden start, “Some water, some water!
-make haste!” she cried, and gasped for breath as if almost
-suffocated. I handed her some immediately, which she greedily drank: I
-then threw the window open, and she became better. “Don’t leave me,
-doctor: ring the bell;――I can’t bear to be left alone a moment; for,
-if one of these attacks were to come on, and I could not ring the
-bell, what could I do? You must forgive me if I fall into these
-violent passions; but such is my nature: I can’t help it. I am like
-the horse that Mr. Pitt had. Mr. Pitt used to say, ‘You must guide him
-with a hair; if I only move my leg, he goes on; and his pace is so
-easy, it’s quite charming: but, if you thwart him or contradict him,
-he is unmanageable;’――that’s me.”
-
-But, to return to General Loustaunau, or the Prophet――as his name has
-already appeared several times, it may not be amiss to give a short
-outline of his life, the particulars of which he communicated to me
-himself. From a village in the Pyrenees, near to Tarbes, one day, a
-young man, about twenty-four years of age, sallied forth, he knew not
-whither, to seek his fortune. Sprung from a family of peasants, he had
-received little or no education, and had nothing to depend on but his
-well-knitted frame, an intelligent and handsome countenance, robust
-health, and activity. He directed his steps towards one of the great
-sea-ports of France, resolved to work his passage to America. But,
-when walking the quays and inquiring for a vessel bound across the
-Atlantic, he was told there was none; there was, however, a large
-merchant-ship freighting for the East Indies. Learning that the
-country she was chartered for was still more distant than the western
-colonies, he concluded, in his ardent and youthful mind, that it would
-open to him a still greater chance of meeting with adventures and of
-enriching himself. He accordingly got himself rated to work his
-passage as a seaman, and arrived in safety at the ship’s destination.
-
-It would be useless to occupy the reader’s time with the struggles
-which every man, unknown and without recommendations, has to make on a
-foreign shore, before he gets a footing in some shape congenial to his
-talents or his inclination. Natural talents Loustaunau had; for, in
-the space of a few months after his arrival on the Indian coast, he
-was spoken of as an intelligent young man to the French ambassador,
-Monsieur de Marigny, residing at Poonah, the Mahratta court, as far as
-I could understand: since it is to be borne in mind that Mr.
-Loustaunau, when he related all this, was eighty years old, had almost
-lost his memory, and was relapsing into second childhood. He soon
-after became an inmate of the embassy, on terms of some familiarity
-with Monsieur de Marigny, who discovered, in the young adventurer’s
-conversation, so much good sense and elevation of mind, that he used
-to say to him, “It strikes me that you are no common man.”
-
-It so happened that the war between the English and the Rajah of the
-Mahrattas brought the hostile armies into the field at no great
-distance from Poonah; and Mr. L. one day told the ambassador, that, as
-he had never seen what war was, and had not far to go to do so, he
-should be much obliged if he would permit him to absent himself for a
-short time to be spectator of the action, which, report said, must
-soon take place between the two armies. Monsieur de M. tried to
-dissuade him from it, asking him of what use it would be to risk his
-life for the satisfaction of an empty curiosity. Mr. L.’s reply was,
-“If I am killed, why then _bon jour_, and there will be an end of me:”
-M. de Marigny, therefore, complied with his wishes, and sent him with
-some of his own people and an introductory letter, to General Norolli,
-a Portuguese, who commanded the Rajah Scindeah’s artillery.
-
-He had not to wait long for the gratification of his curiosity. An
-action took place: the forces were warmly engaged, and Mr. L. walked
-about within musket-shot distance to observe the manœuvres of the two
-armies. The English had planted a battery on a rocky elevation, which
-made much havoc among the Mahratta forces. Between this battery on its
-flank and an opposite cliff there was a deep ravine, which rendered
-all access from one height to the other impracticable: but a sloping
-ground, by making a circuit in the rear of the Mahratta forces,
-afforded a practicability of bringing field-pieces to the summit of
-the cliff to bear on the English battery from the Mahratta side.
-
-Mr. L. took an opportunity of addressing himself to General N., and
-pointed out to him the probability of silencing, or, at least, of
-annoying the English battery from the cliff in question; but the
-general treated his remark in a slighting manner, and, riding to
-another part of the field, took no farther notice of him. Mr. L. had
-seated himself on a hillock, still making his reflections, when an old
-Mahratta officer, who had heard the conversation between Mr. L. and
-the general of the artillery, and had partly understood what Mr. L.
-proposed should be done, approached him. “Well, sir,” said he, “what
-do you think of our artillery?”――“If I were a flatterer,” replied Mr.
-L., “I should say that it was well served; but, as I am not, you will
-pardon me if I think it bad.” The officer went on――“You see the day is
-likely to go against us――what would you do if you had the
-command?”――“Oh! as for the command, I don’t know,” rejoined Mr. L.,
-“but this one thing I do know, that, if I had but two pieces of
-cannon, I would turn the day in your master’s favour.”――“How would
-you do that?” asked the officer: “perhaps I could put two field-pieces
-at your disposal.”――“If you could,” said Mr. L., “I would plant them
-on yonder height” (pointing at the same time to it), “and let my head
-answer for my presumption, if I do not effect what I promise.”
-
-The bearing of the Frenchman and his energetic manner of speaking,
-together with his evident coolness and self-possession on a field of
-battle, made a great impression on the Mahratta officer. “Come with
-me, young man,” said he, “I will conduct you to the rajah.”――“With all
-my heart,” replied Mr. L. When brought into his presence, Scindeah
-asked the officer what the stranger wanted, and the officer repeated
-the conversation that had just passed. “Well,” says Scindeah, “he does
-not ask for money, he only asks for guns: give them to him, and let
-them be served by some of my best gunners. The idea may be good: only
-be expeditious, or we may soon be where that infernal battery of the
-English can annoy us no longer.”
-
-Accordingly, without a moment’s delay, two field-pieces were dragged
-up by the back of the cliff to the spot pointed out, Mr. L. entrusting
-the command of one of them to another Frenchman, whose curiosity had
-brought him on the field also. The very second shot that was fired at
-the English battery blew up an artillery waggon (caisson) full of
-powder. The explosion dismounted some of the cannon, killed several
-men, and created so much confusion, that the English, in consequence
-of it, eventually lost the battle, and were forced to retreat. Mr. L.
-had two or three of his men killed. “There! you may take your cannon
-back,” said he, as soon as the explosion took place; “I have nothing
-farther to do;” and he and his brother Frenchman walked away to watch
-the result of the mischief they had done.
-
-When the day was over, an officer of the rajah’s conveyed to Mr.
-Loustaunau his master’s request that he would attend on him at his
-tent. Mr. L. presented himself, and Scindeah received him with marks
-of great consideration. Addressing himself to Mr. L., “You have done
-me, sir,” said he, “a most essential service to-day; and, as a small
-recompense for your gallantry and the military talent you have shown,
-I beg your acceptance of a few presents, together with the assurance
-that, if you like to enter my service, you shall have the command of a
-company immediately.” Mr. L. thanked him in proper language, and,
-declining the presents offered, said, “Your highness will excuse me if
-I refuse your gifts: I will, however, with pleasure accept the sword
-which I see among them, but nothing else. The offer of a commission
-in your army I must equally decline, as I am bound to return to our
-ambassador, to whom I owe too many obligations to take any step
-without his permission.” Scindeah could not but approve of this reply;
-and Mr. L., making his bow, returned towards the place where he was
-lodged.
-
-When night came, and General Norolli, having made his dispositions,
-had also returned to his quarters, whilst yet on horseback, and, as if
-moved by jealousy to repress the exultation which he imagined Mr. L.
-might have indulged in, he called out in a loud and angry tone, “Where
-is Mr. Loustaunau, where is that gentleman?” Mr. L., who was standing
-not far off, approached, and, as the general dismounted, said, “Here I
-am, general, at your command.”――“I saw,” observed Mr. L. (interrupting
-himself whilst relating this part of his story to me) “that the
-general was in a rage, which appeared more plainly as he
-continued.”――“Who, sir, authorized you to present yourself to the
-rajah without my leave? don’t you know that all Europeans must be
-introduced by me?”――“General,” replied Mr. L., “I was summoned by his
-highness, and I went: if you are angry because I have done some little
-service to your master, I cannot help it. You are not ignorant that I
-pointed out to you first of all the commanding position which struck
-me as fitted for planting a battery: you refused to listen to my
-suggestion; and, if it was afterward adopted by others, that is your
-fault, not mine.”――“Sir,” cried the general, irritated more and more
-by this remark, “you deserve to have this whip across your
-shoulders.”――“General,” retorted Mr. L., “you suffer your anger to get
-the better of your reason: if you have any whippings to bestow, you
-must keep them for your Portuguese――Frenchmen are not accustomed to
-take them.” The general’s fury now knew no bounds; he put his hand on
-one of the pistols in his girdle, intending to shoot Mr. L. “But I,”
-said Mr. L., “was ready; and, with my eyes fixed on him, would have
-seized the other, had he drawn it out, and I would have shot him; for,
-you know, in self-defence, one will not stand still to have a bullet
-through one’s body, without preventing it, if possible. However, some
-officers held the general’s arm, and shortly after I retired, and,
-remaining a day or two more in the camp, returned to the place where I
-had left our ambassador.
-
-“When I told him what had happened――‘Stay with me, Loustaunau,’ said
-he; ‘it is my intention to raise a few troops here, and, since you
-seem to like fighting, you shall be employed:’ but in a few weeks the
-ambassador was recalled to France, and he offered to take me with him,
-promising to get me employment at home. However, I considered that I
-had better chances in remaining where I was, than in going to my
-native country, where birth, patronage, and the usages of good
-society, are necessary for a man’s advancement, all which I wanted.”
-
-Mr. Loustaunau, left to his own exertions, recollected the rajah’s
-offer; and on applying to him, received a commission in the Mahratta
-army. Eminently qualified by nature for military command, his
-advancement was rapid; and, after distinguishing himself in several
-actions, and showing likewise a very superior judgment in political
-affairs, he finally became general of Scindeah’s troops, although I
-could not ascertain in how short a time. His reputation spread rapidly
-through the territory, and his noble conduct and intrepidity must have
-been very generally known, since, on one occasion, after having been
-severely wounded in his left hand, two fingers of which he had lost,
-the commander of the English forces sent a flag of truce and his own
-surgeon with an offer of his professional assistance, fearing that Mr.
-L. might not have a European surgeon to attend him. Scindeah, in his
-despatches to him, styled him a lion in battle, and a lynx in council.
-He consulted him in difficult negociations with the East India
-Company’s servants; and, in acknowledgment of his services, he gave
-him a village as an appanage to his rank. Mr. L. married the daughter
-of a French officer, by whom he had four or five children, one of whom
-is now living at Givet, in the department of the Ardennes.
-
-Mr. L. was fearless at all times, and inimical to despotism even in
-the centre of its worshippers. Scindeah had unjustly imprisoned an
-Armenian merchant, whose wealth he intended to confiscate for his own
-benefit. As the oppressive act was founded on no just grounds, and
-application had been made to General Loustaunau for his interposition,
-when he found that entreaties were of no avail, “one day,” said he, “I
-took fifty of my men, fellows _de bonne volonté_, and, marching strait
-to the rajah’s palace at a time when I knew he was in his divan, I
-entered, walked up to him, and in a mild, but pretty determined tone,
-said, ‘Your highness, be not alarmed, I am come to ask a favour of
-you: you must release the Armenian merchant, as I have sworn to set
-him free.’ Scindeah saw that I meant not to trifle, and, assuming a
-friendly air, he complied with my request. The guards were astounded
-at my audacity, but they dared not stir, for I and my men would have
-sabred them instantly.”
-
-After having covered himself with glory, as the French express it, he
-obtained his congé; and, being resolved to return to France, he
-visited some of the English settlements in his way to the place of his
-embarkation, where he was most honourably and hospitably treated. He
-always spoke of this period as the happiest of his life, and mentioned
-the names of some English gentlemen with the highest encomiums and
-most pleasing reminiscences.
-
-Having converted what property he could into money, he obtained bills
-on France, and set out for his native country. The revolution had
-broken out; and, on his arrival, his bills were all paid, but in
-assignats; so that in a few weeks he found himself almost penniless.
-Of this calamitous part of his history I could gather but few details.
-I have heard him say that some branch of the Orleans family assisted
-him. Certain it is that he had either money or friends yet left; for,
-with the wreck of his property, or by some other means, he established
-an iron-foundry near the place of his nativity. He was so close,
-however, to the frontiers of Spain, that, during the war with that
-country and France, in an incursion of the enemy, all his property was
-destroyed.
-
-How he got to Mahon, or for what purpose, I am equally ignorant: but,
-embarking from that port, he found his way to Syria, probably
-intending to make his way overland to India, there to reclaim his
-property. But his intellects must have been already somewhat
-disordered: for, when we heard him first spoken of in Palestine, in
-1812 or 1813, he was described as a man living almost on the alms of
-the Europeans, and generally to be seen with a bible under his arm,
-negligent of his person, housed in a hovel, and going, even then, by
-the sobriquet of the Prophet.
-
-At the time I am now speaking of, the bare mention of politics or
-catastrophes was sure to set him wandering on the prophetic writings,
-and then common sense was at an end. But I had known him for twenty
-years, when his lucid intervals were only occasionally interrupted by
-these hallucinations; and I had seldom met with a man who had such an
-independent character, such naturally noble sentiments couched in such
-appropriate language, and such an intuitive discernment of what was
-suitable in unlooked-for emergencies. He was bold as a lion; and, when
-in anger, had the physiognomy and expression of that noble animal. He
-had never served in diplomatic situations before his elevation, had
-never studied political economy, moral philosophy, literature, or
-anything else, that I could find; and yet, in all these, the innate
-dictates of his mind responded at once to the call, and he could see
-the right and wrong, the _utile et decorum_, the expediency and the
-evil, the loveliness and the ugliness of every subject presented to
-him. He had a strong memory, and retained many of the passages of the
-best French authors by heart. He was handsome in his person, rather
-tall, and his demeanour was suitable to his station in life. In a
-word, he was born to “achieve greatness.”
-
-General L. had now lived five and twenty years on Lady Hester’s
-bounty. His family, consisting of two or three sons and some
-daughters, were left with not very bright prospects in France. Lady
-Hester Stanhope had at different times employed persons to assist
-them, and, to my knowledge, had sent 1000 francs through a merchant’s
-hands at Marseilles, besides other sums, of which I have heard her
-speak. She also paid for the education of one daughter some years. In
-1825, one of the sons, who had by his military services obtained the
-rank of captain in Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, being left, by the fall
-of that Emperor, in inactivity, resolved to visit Syria, to see his
-father.
-
-General L.’s intellects were so far weakened, that nothing which
-happened to him personally seemed to affect him, only as it verified
-some of his favourite predictions, drawn from texts in the Bible. He
-therefore beheld his son’s arrival with indifference, as far as
-paternal affection went, but discovered in it other bearings, of
-immense importance in the political changes that were at hand. Not so
-Lady Hester Stanhope: she knew that the general had a right to the
-revenue of a whole village in the Mahratta country, which had been
-given to him by Scindeah; and she resolved to furnish Captain L. with
-money to enable him to go and recover his father’s possessions.
-
-The captain remained at Dar Jôon for some months: he had his horse,
-was lodged in a pavilion in the garden, and treated with every mark of
-respect. Restless, hasty in his temper, overbearing, and accustomed to
-the blustering manners of a camp, he occasionally got into
-difficulties with the natives, both Mahometans and Christians. Not
-aware of the necessity of much precaution in shunning checks of
-perspiration in hot climates, he one day caught a fever, which almost
-brought him to his grave. He recovered, however, and was convalescent,
-when his imprudence caused a relapse, and he died. He was buried in
-Lady Hester’s garden, where his tomb, ornamented with flowering
-shrubs, and entirely shaded by a beautiful arbour, still remains.[18]
-The poor father never would believe in his death. “He is not
-interred,” he used to say, “but is still alive and on the earth: do
-not be grieved about him; in the year 1847 he will join me here. I and
-my lady shall then be made young again, and your little daughter is
-destined to be my future wife.” The poor old general, it was observed
-by us, seemed to have no greater pleasure than watching our daughter
-whilst she watered her flowers or fed her _bulbuls_.
-
-The way in which Lady Hester herself sometimes sought to lighten the
-weight of the obligations she conferred on the general will serve to
-show the delicacy of her feelings. At different periods, several
-places had been chosen for his residence, according as he grew tired
-of one or the other: for he was a testy old man in some respects, and
-seemed to forget how much it was his duty not to put her ladyship to
-more trouble and expense than he could help. Once, when she had had a
-comfortable cottage fitted up for him in a village called Aynâaty
-(from taking in dudgeon something that happened to him), he suddenly
-quitted it, and went off to Beyrout. “He went off,” said Lady Hester,
-“with no less than five trunks full of clothes and other things, with
-two watches bought with the money I had given him, and with a good bag
-full of piasters: for he had little occasion to spend, as I sent him
-every two days fresh meat of my own killing, flour for his bread when
-it was wanting, sugar, tea, coffee――and everything, I may say, except
-milk and vegetables. He went to Beyrout, and there lived and talked
-away largely and foolishly, and gave out that he would sooner live
-with the devil than with such a woman as I was. After a time, his
-resources failed him, his friends grew cool, and he returned to
-Sayda, where he fastened himself on Monsieur Reynaud, who soon grew
-tired of keeping him, and little by little I heard he was reduced to
-great straits.” The fact is, he found no friend, except for an
-occasional invitation to dinner, and Lady Hester knew he must be in
-want; but she knew also, in the state of mind he was in, he would
-refuse assistance from her: she therefore made use of an expedient to
-furnish him with money.
-
-Sending for one of the Pasha’s Tartars, and putting a bag of gold into
-his hand, she told him he was to ride into Sayda, and proceed strait
-to the gate of the French khan (where Mr. Loustaunau was), dusty and
-sweating, as if from a long journey. There he was to inquire if they
-knew anything of a Frenchman, once a general in India; and, after
-apparently well ascertaining it was the man he was in search of, the
-Tartar was to desire to speak with him, and to say――“Sir, when on my
-road from Damascus, a Hindu mussulman on his pilgrimage to Mecca, who
-once served under you in India, but is now rich and advanced in years,
-learning that you were in these countries, and anxious to testify the
-respect which the natives of Scindeah’s territories still retain for
-you, has commissioned me to put this into your hands.”――“Having done
-so,” added Lady Hester Stanhope, “you are not to give him time to see
-what it is, but to ride away.” The vile fellow promised faithfully to
-execute his commission, received in advance a recompense for his
-trouble, and then rode off with the money, and kept it. But Lady
-Hester, who was careful to ascertain, by indirect means, whether a
-Tartar had made his appearance at the khan, on learning his perfidy,
-caused it to be spread among the Pasha’s and the government Tartars;
-and they were so indignant at his little trustworthiness, a quality on
-which, from the nature of their employ, they are obliged to value
-themselves, that they turned him out of their corps, and he never
-dared to show his face again.
-
-To finish what remains to be said of this once shining character, but
-now the pensioner of an English woman, he had resided for the last ten
-years at a distance from Lady Hester Stanhope’s residence, and they
-had not even seen each other for five or six years. “I have been
-obliged to keep him at a distance,” said her ladyship, “for the last
-ten years, in order that people might not think I had taken care of
-him to make him trumpet my greatness: for you don’t know what harm
-that man has done me. He used to go about preaching that all the
-queens in Christendom were a pack of women of the town, and that I was
-the only real queen. He told everybody he would not change situations
-with the first prince in Europe; for the day would come when, through
-me, he should be greater than any of them.”
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-     [16] An _ibryk_ is a common earthenware jug with a spout to
-          it, the usual drinking-vessel of the lower classes.
-
-     [17] This Pasha was so afraid, in the midst of all his
-          power, of being poisoned, that he had the dishes
-          brought to his table under padlock. When he travelled,
-          a horseman in his suite had the office assigned him of
-          carrying the implement that makes such a distinguished
-          figure in the farce of Pourceaugnac. When he was shaved,
-          he always had some of his guards standing round the
-          barber with their pistols cocked, and he himself had a
-          drawn sabre lying across his lap. Fancy the situation
-          of a man who, in the midst of these formidable
-          preparations, is obliged to keep his hand steady.
-
-     [18] In this same tomb Lady Hester herself was afterwards
-          interred.
-
-
-
-
-                               CHAPTER VII.
-
-Lady Hester like the first Lord Chatham――Her recollections of
-Chevening――Her definition of insults――Her deliberate affronts――Her
-warlike propensities――Earl C―――― Marquis of Abercorn――Logmagi――Osman
-Chaôosh――Letter from Colonel Campbell――George the Third’s flattering
-compliment to Lady Hester――Her Majesty Queen Victoria――Lord
-M.――Prophecy of a _welly_――Lady Hester’s poignant affliction――Her
-intractability――Her noble and disinterested benevolence.
-
-
-December 21, 1837.――I had sat up until two in the morning, despatching
-letters to Europe, which I had written by Lady Hester’s dictation,
-through the channel of M. Guys, the French consul at Beyrout, who,
-alone, among the Europeans there, had contrived to remain on friendly
-terms with her. In my letter to him, Lady Hester required that I
-should tell him she was in a state of convalescence. Alas! she was far
-from being so; for, on going to her, I found her labouring under many
-bad symptoms, against which she contended with a spirit that seemed to
-brook no control――not even from nature herself. As she could not talk,
-I read to her, out of the Speaker, a character of the first Lord
-Chatham. She recognized, and so did I, so many points of resemblance
-between herself and her grandfather, that she said, more than once,
-“That’s me.” At the words, “He reigned with unbounded control over the
-wilderness of free minds,” I observed that there was something
-contradictory in control and freedom. “No, there is not,” said she.
-“If you are walking on the road, and you inquire the way of some
-person you meet, he tells you the best road is in such a direction,
-and then takes his leave; you turn round, every now and then, as long
-as the person is in sight, to look at him to see if he points to you
-that you are going right; but you are free to go which way you will.”
-
-December 31.――I saw Lady Hester in the morning, after which I took a
-walk with my family: on my return, I went again to inquire how she
-was. One of her maids told me that, soon after I had left her, she
-suddenly burst into tears, and cried a great deal, they could not tell
-why; that she had called for Zezefôon to dress her, had, in a manner,
-rushed out of her bed-room, and had gone to the saloon, where, in
-consequence of her long confinement, she found all the sofa cushions
-piled up, and the sofa mattresses removed, so that she had not a place
-to sit down on; that then she had left the saloon abruptly, on seeing
-the state it was in, and returned to her bed-room, where she gave a
-loose to her sorrow.
-
-My presence being announced, I was admitted. “Doctor,” said she,
-“to-night in my father’s house there used to be a hundred tenants and
-servants sitting down to a good dinner, and dancing and making merry.
-I see their happy faces now before my eyes: and, when I think of that
-and how I am surrounded here, it is too much for me. When you left me
-this morning, things of former times came over my mind, and I could
-not bear to sit here, so I went out to break the chain of my thoughts.
-I would have gone into the garden, if it had not rained.”
-
-I endeavoured to say something consolatory to her. “Everybody,” she
-continued, “is unkind to me. I have sought to do good to everybody,
-either by relieving their distresses or purifying their morals, and I
-get no thanks for my pains. I sometimes make reproaches to myself for
-having spent my money on worthless beings, and think it might have
-been better otherwise; but God knows best. I had hoped to find some
-persons whose minds might have been enlightened, and who would have
-felt the importance of what I tell them. But you even, of whom I had
-some hope, are as bad as the rest; and, if you assent to the truth of
-what I say, you make so many hums and hahs that I don’t believe you
-care a farthing about it. I want nobody that has no conviction.”
-
-“I should think it a sin if I saw people acting foolishly, not to tell
-them of it. It does not signify who it is, you or the stable-boy; if I
-can make them aware of their folly, I have done my duty. Why do I
-scold you so much, but because I wish you to prepare yourself for the
-convulsions that will shortly take place. I always acknowledge your
-spotless integrity, and thank you for the care you bestow on my
-affairs, and in keeping things a little in order; but, in these times,
-something more is wanting: a man must be active, and prepared for
-great events. People are teaching their children to read and write,
-when they should be teaching them to drive a mule: for of what use are
-your reading men, who sit poring for hours over books without an
-object? I have a thorough contempt for them, and for all your
-merchants, and your merchants’ clerks, who spend their time between
-the counting-house and the brothel.”
-
-Lady Hester reverted again to Chevening, and spoke at great length of
-her grandmother Stanhope’s excellent management of the house, when she
-(Lady Hester) was a child. At all the accustomed festivals, plum
-puddings, that required two men to carry them, with large barons of
-beef, were dressed, &c., &c. All the footmen were like gentlemen
-ushers, all the masters and mistresses like so many ambassadors and
-ambassadresses, such form and etiquette were preserved in all the
-routine of visits and parties. Every person kept his station, and
-precise rules were laid down for each inmate of the family. Thus, the
-lady’s maid was not allowed to wear white, nor curls, nor heels to her
-shoes, beyond a certain height; and Lady Stanhope had in her room a
-set of instruments and implements of punishment to enforce her orders
-on all occasions. There were scissors to cut off fine curls, a rod to
-whip with, &c., &c.
-
-No poor woman lay-in in the neighbourhood, but two guineas in money,
-baby linen, a blanket, some posset, two bottles of wine, and other
-necessaries, were sent to her. If any one among the servants was sick,
-the housekeeper, with the still-room maid behind her, was seen
-carrying the barley-water, the gruel, the medicine, &c., to administer
-to the patient, according to the doctor’s orders. In the hopping time,
-all the vagrants and Irish hoppers were locked up every night in a
-barn by themselves, and suffered to have no communication with the
-household. A thousand pieces of dirty linen were washed every week,
-and the wash-house had four different stone troughs, from which the
-linen was handed, piece by piece, by the washerwomen from the scalder
-down to the rinser. In the laundry a false ceiling, let down and
-raised by pulleys, served to air the linen after it was ironed. There
-was a mangle to get up the table-linen, towels, &c., and three stoves
-for drying on wet days. The tablecloths were of the finest damask,
-covered with patterns of exquisite workmanship. At set periods of the
-year, pedlars and merchants from Glasgow, from Dunstable, and other
-places, passed with their goods. The housekeeper’s room was surrounded
-with presses and closets, where were arranged stores and linen in the
-nicest order. An ox was killed every week, and a sheep every day, &c.,
-&c. In the relation of these details, which I spare the reader, as
-being, probably, what he has observed in many other families, Lady
-Hester by degrees recovered her self-possession, whilst they only
-served to impress more forcibly on my mind the sad contrast which
-reigned in everything about her between her former and her present
-condition.
-
-January 10-15, 1838.――The cough continued, attended by spasms in the
-limbs. Yet, although she was thus exhausted and harassed by continued
-suffering, the elasticity of mind she exhibited in the few intervals
-of ease she enjoyed was astonishing. The moment she had a respite from
-actual pain, she immediately set about some labour for the benefit of
-others; and the room was again strewed over with bundles and boxes.
-But, in spite of these delusive appearances, I could not conceal from
-myself that a hectic spot occasionally marked the inroads which
-disease was now making on her lungs.
-
-January 17, 1838.――What a day of anxiety and sorrow for me, and of
-anguish for Lady Hester! From morning until midnight to see a
-melancholy picture of a never-dying spirit, in an exhausted frame,
-wrestling with its enemy, and daring even to set the heaviest
-infirmities of nature at defiance. Yet, who does not bend under the
-power of disease? Lady Hester held out as long as a human being could
-do; but at last her anguish showed that, like Prometheus bound, she
-was compelled to acknowledge the weight of a superior hand, and that
-resistance was vain.
-
-The reflections she made on her abandoned situation, neglected by her
-friends and left to die without one relation near her, were full of
-the bitterness of grief. In these moments, as if the excess of her
-indignation must have some object to waste itself upon, she would
-launch out into the most fierce invectives against me, and tell me I
-was a cannibal and a vulture that tore her heart by my insensibility.
-
-A day or two before, in defending myself against the accusation of
-coldness and want of feeling, I had inadvertently said that it was an
-insult to a person, whose intentions she could not but know were well
-meaning, to heap so much abuse on him. To this her ladyship said
-nothing at the time; but to-day, being in a state of excitement, the
-word _insult_ recurred to her recollection. “Do you not know,” she
-asked, “that people of my rank and spirit are incapable of insults
-towards their friends: it is only the vulgar who are always fancying
-themselves insulted. If a man treads on another’s toe in good society,
-do you think it is taken as an insult? It is only people like ―――― and
-―――― who take such things into their heads. I never have hurt a
-person’s feelings in my life intentionally, except, perhaps, by my
-wit. But if people expect that I should not tell them the truth to
-their face, they are much mistaken; and if you or anybody else act
-like a fool, I must say so. Such people as Lord Melville and Mr. Pitt
-would stop, perhaps, until a person was gone out of the room to say,
-‘That man is the most egregious ass I ever saw;’ but I, were he a
-king, must say it to his face. I might, if I chose, flatter and
-deceive you and a hundred others. There is no one whom I could not
-lead by the nose, if I chose to do it; I know every man’s price, and
-how to buy him: but I will not stoop to the baseness of making you run
-your head through a wall, even though I saw some advantage for myself
-on the other side. As for your saying, that’s your character, and that
-you can’t bear to be spoken to as I speak to you, what do you talk to
-me of character for? Everybody has a character, and so they have a
-behind: but they don’t go about showing the one any more than the
-other. Fools are always crying out, ‘That’s my disposition;’ but
-what’s their disposition to other people more than their anything
-else?
-
-“Let us have no more of that stuff; for, though not a man, I shall no
-more put up with it than if I were; and I warn you that, if you repeat
-that word, you stand a chance of having something at your head.”
-
-Let not the reader imagine that this was all, or even one half of what
-her ladyship said on this occasion: it is only a tissue of the most
-striking sentences. Never had I seen her so irritated as that one
-expression of mine had made her. She went on in this merciless way for
-four hours; and, although I frequently attempted to soothe her by
-assurances and explanations, she continued in the same strain until
-evening, when she subsided into a gentler tone. Being now restored to
-a calmer temper, she seemed desirous to atone by kindness for the
-wound she had inflicted on my feelings, and wanted, amongst other
-things, to get ponies for my children to ride. The generosity of her
-nature was obvious in all this, and I resolved, whatever language she
-might make use of in future, never to take the slightest notice of it.
-
-This haughty assumption of superiority over others on almost all
-occasions was a salient feature in her character. It must have created
-her a host of enemies, during the period when she exercised so much
-power in Mr. Pitt’s time; and probably those persons were not sorry
-afterwards to witness her humiliation and downfall.
-
-Once, at Walmer Castle, the colonel of the regiment stationed there
-thought himself privileged to take his wife occasionally to walk on
-the ramparts of the castle. I do not know the localities, and am
-ignorant how far, in so doing, these two persons might infringe on the
-privacy of Mr. Pitt and Lady Hester Stanhope: but, without intimating
-by a note or a message that such a thing was disagreeable, she gave
-orders to the sentry to stop them when they came, and tell them they
-were not to walk there. Let any one put himself in the place of
-Colonel W., and fancy how such an affront must have wounded his pride.
-
-Mr. B., a Frenchman, who for many years had been her secretary, and
-who afterwards held the post of French vice-consul at Damascus, paid
-her a visit at Jôon, and, in the leisure of the morning, took his gun
-and went out partridge-shooting. On his return to the house, he gave
-the birds he had shot to the cook, desiring they might be dressed for
-Lady Hester’s dinner; but, when they were served up, to his
-astonishment, she ordered them to be thrown out of the window;
-observing that it was strange he should presume to do that in Syria
-which he would not dare to do in his native country; for she thought
-that, at the restoration of the Bourbons, all the ancient game-laws
-were revived. She had a secretary afterwards who was an Englishman,
-who also went out shooting, and to whom she expressed her notions in
-much the same way, and wondered where he got his licence to carry a
-gun. Yet in Syria, every person, from the European stranger to the
-lowest Mahometan slave, is at liberty to go after the game wherever he
-likes.
-
-If any one expected from her the common courtesies of life, as they
-are generally understood, he would be greatly disappointed. In her own
-way, she would show them, that is, mixed up with so many humiliations,
-and with such an assumption of personal and mental superiority in
-herself, that much was to be borne from her, if one wished to live
-amicably with her. Her delight was to tutor others until she could
-bring them to think that nobody was worthy of any favour but by her
-sufferance. Where she had the means, she would assume the authority of
-controlling even thought. Her daily question to her dependants
-was――“What business have you to suppose? what right have you to think?
-I pay people for their hands, and not their stupid ideas.” She would
-say――“What business have people to introduce their surmises, and their
-‘probably this,’ and ‘probably that,’ and ‘Lady Hester Stanhope, no
-doubt, in so doing,’ and ‘the Pasha, as I conjecture, had this in
-view?’ how do they know what I intended, or what the Pasha thought? I
-know that newspapers every day take such liberties, and give their
-opinions on what ministers and kings intend to do; but nobody shall
-take such a liberty with me without my calling them out. My name is
-everything to me, and nobody shall say he presumes this was what I had
-in my mind, or that was what I intended to do. At least, if people
-must pick pockets, let them pick it of a clean pocket-handkerchief,
-and not of a dirty one. Others are not to be made responsible for
-their dirty opinions.”
-
-From her manner towards people, it would have seemed that she was the
-only person in creation privileged to abuse and to command: others had
-nothing else to do but to obey, and not to think. She was haughty and
-overbearing, impatient of control, born to rule, and more at her ease
-when she had a hundred persons to govern than when she had only ten.
-She would often mention Mr. Pitt’s opinion of her fitness for military
-command. Had she been a man and a soldier, she would have been what
-the French call a _sabreur_; for never was any one so fond of wielding
-weapons, and of boasting of her capability of using them upon a fit
-occasion, as she was. In her bed-room, or on her _divàn_, she always
-had a mace, which was spiked round the head, a steel battle-axe, and a
-dagger; but her favourite weapon was the mace. When she took it up,
-which sometimes was the case if vociferating to the men-servants, I
-have seen them flinch and draw back to be out of the reach of her arm;
-and, on one occasion, a powerful Turk, a man about forty, of great
-muscular strength, and with a remarkable black beard, on her making a
-gesture as if to strike him, flew back so suddenly that he knocked
-down another who was behind him, and fell himself. But, though
-fearless and unruffled in every danger, Lady Hester Stanhope was
-magnanimous, gentle to an enemy in her power, and ever mindful of
-those who had done her any service. Her martial spirit would have made
-a hero, and she had all the materials of one in her composition.
-
-Two more anecdotes may serve to show how she sometimes rendered
-herself disliked. Once, at a cabinet dinner, Lady Hester Stanhope
-entered the room in a way so as to pass the Earl C. who was ushered in
-just at the same moment; and, as she did not bow or speak to him, Mr.
-Pitt said, “Hester, don’t you see Lord C.?” Lady Hester replied, “No,
-I saw a great chameleon as I came in, all in pigeon-breasted colours,
-if that was Lord C;” this was because he was dressed in a
-pigeon-breasted coloured court-dress. “And,” she added, as she related
-the story, “I gave it him prettily once: I said his red face came from
-the reflection of red boxes; for, when at breakfast and dinner, he was
-always calling for his despatch-boxes, and pretending mysterious
-political affairs, although they were no more than an invitation to a
-party, or a present of a little Tokay, or something equally trivial.
-Lord C. had learned his manners, I suppose, from Lord Chesterfield, or
-some book or another. He attempted being pompous with his large
-stomach, and his garter on a bad leg, and his great whiskers sticking
-out as far as this,” (here Lady Hester put her fore-fingers indexwise
-to her cheeks to show how far) “and a forehead quite flat like the
-Bourbons. He would talk very loud in the lobby as he came in, or
-contrive to have his red box brought to him, as if he had papers of
-great importance in it.”
-
-“One day, at court,” continued Lady Hester, “I was talking to the Duke
-of Cumberland of Lord Abercorn’s going over to Addington, and saying I
-would give it to him for it, when Lord Abercorn happened to approach
-us. The prince, who dearly enjoyed such things, immediately cried
-out――‘Now, little bulldog, have at him.’ This was uttered at the
-moment I advanced towards him. You know, doctor, he had asked for the
-Garter just before Mr. Pitt went out, and, not having obtained it, had
-toadied Addington, and got it. I thought it so mean of him, after the
-numberless favours he had received from Mr. Pitt, to go over to
-Addington, that I was determined to pay him off. So, when I was close
-to him, looking down at the garter round his leg, I said――‘What’s that
-you have got there, my lord?’ and before he could answer, I
-continued――‘I suppose it’s a bandage for your broken legs:’ for Lord
-Abercorn had once had both his legs broken, and the remark applied
-doubly, inasmuch as it hit hard on Addington’s father’s profession.
-Lord Abercorn never forgot this: he and I had been very great friends;
-but he never liked me afterwards.”
-
-Tuesday, January 23, 1838.――I found Lady Hester to-day out of bed,
-seated on the ottoman. She wished me to talk or to read to her, so
-that she might not be forced to speak herself; but her cough, which
-was incessant, precluded the possibility of doing either. The
-accumulation of phlegm in her chest made her restless to a painful
-degree. Shortly afterwards, her spasms began, which caused her arms
-and sometimes her head to be thrown from side to side with jerks. Her
-irritability was excessive. Without consulting me, she had been bled
-the preceding night by a Turkish barber. Her conversation the day
-before had turned in a general manner on bleeding; and having
-ascertained my opinion that bleeding would not be proper for her, she
-said no more, but took the opposite course.
-
-The fear of remaining in a recumbent posture made her get up from her
-bed, and her figure, as she stalked about the room in a flannel dress,
-having thrown off her pelisse and abah, was strange and singular, but
-curiously characteristic of her independence.
-
-The only newspaper she received was “Galignani’s Messenger,” which,
-whether I was in Syria or in Europe, I had for some years caused to be
-sent to her from Marseilles, and a file generally came by every
-merchant-vessel that sailed for Beyrout, which, on an average, was
-about once a month. Sometimes there was much irregularity in the
-departure of vessels, as in the winter season, and then, in the
-solitude of Mount Lebanon, one might remain ignorant of every event in
-Europe for six weeks and even two months together.
-
-She had latterly shown a particular desire to have those passages read
-to her which related to the Queen, either as describing her court, her
-rides, or any other circumstance, however trivial, of a personal
-nature.
-
-Wednesday, January 24.――Lady Hester sent to me to say that she could
-see nobody, and requested that I would do nothing, as the day was an
-unlucky one.
-
-January 25.――Although suffering in a manner that would have
-incapacitated any other person from undertaking any occupation, Lady
-Hester was busily employed in making up a mule-load of presents for
-Logmagi. “You see, doctor,” said she, “how I act towards those who
-serve me: this man neglects his business in town for me, and I, in
-return, try to make him comfortable. I have packed up a few coloured
-glass ornaments to stick up in his cupboards, and some preserves and
-sweetmeats to treat his old messmates with, who would eat him out of
-house and home, I believe, if I did not take care of him. Only think,
-too, how he beat his breast and cried, and what signs of sorrow he
-showed at my illness, the last time I saw him!
-
-“I must have that stupid fellow, Osman, in, to talk to him about new
-roofing the dairy, but I shall stick him behind the curtain. Poor man,
-his mother is very ill, and I think I must let him go to Sayda. He,
-Mahjoob, and Seyd Ahmed, may have asses when they go to town, but all
-those other lazy fellows shall walk: I won’t have one of them ride,
-unless they have more than eight or ten rotoles in weight to bring
-back, idle beasts as they are!”
-
-Now Osman’s mother might be ill, and no doubt she was; the dairy, too,
-might be the ostensible cause of his being called in; but it is also
-more than probable that, besides all this, she wanted Osman for other
-purposes. The truth was, he was no stupid fellow, but a wily knave and
-a clever spy, and Lady Hester was often in the habit of employing him
-on secret missions――to find out the reason of any movement of the
-pasha’s troops for instance, or to get a clue to some intrigue of the
-Emir Beshýr’s. But she would say, “Osman is gone to town to see his
-sick mother;” and nobody dared to say otherwise.
-
-January 27.――To-day the secretary requested me to acquaint Lady Hester
-that he wished to see her on important business. He was admitted, and
-showed a letter from his father, the English consular agent at
-Sayda,[19] signifying that, in the course of the day, he should be the
-bearer of a letter to Lady Hester Stanhope, which had been sent by Mr.
-Moore, Her Britannic Majesty’s consul at Beyrout, which he was charged
-to deliver into her ladyship’s own hands himself. I had retired when
-the secretary entered; but, when he was gone, Lady Hester sent for me,
-and I found her in a violent passion. “There is that man, the old
-Maltese,” said she, “coming to pester me with his impertinence, but I
-have sent off his son to meet him on the road, and drive him back. If
-anything in the shape of a consul sets his foot within my doors, I’ll
-have him shot; and, if nobody else will do it, I’ll do it myself. See
-that he sets off this very instant, and tell him to return with the
-letter, without stopping.”
-
-I did so, and returned to Lady Hester. Conceiving that this letter was
-an answer she was expecting to one she had written to Sir Francis
-Burdett, about the property supposed to have been left her, her
-agitation and impatience rose to such a degree, that I thought she
-would have gone frantic, or that her violence would have ended in
-suffocation. She complained she could not breathe. “It’s here, it’s
-here,” she cried in extreme agitation, taking me by the throat to show
-me where, and giving me such a squeeze, that now, when I am writing,
-twenty-four hours after, I feel it still. I tried in vain to calm her
-impatience. I sent off a servant on horseback to hurry the secretary
-back, but he did not appear, and the day, until about four o’clock,
-was passed in this manner.
-
-To account for this extraordinary agitation, it must again be observed
-that, at the recurrence of the period of each steamboat’s arrival at
-Beyrout, Lady Hester anxiously expected an answer to her letter to Sir
-Francis Burdett; for it was on the strength of this property supposed
-to have been left her that she had intimated to some of her creditors
-her expectation of being soon enabled to satisfy all their demands. It
-was in reliance on this, too, that she had invited me to come over.
-And not doubting in the least the truth of the information secretly
-conveyed to her by some one of her friends, it may be supposed that a
-packet to be delivered into nobody’s hands but her own was readily
-conjectured to relate to this business.
-
-About four o’clock, Mr. Abella, the English agent, his son, and the
-servant, made their appearance. The secretary was called in. “Tell
-your father I shall not see him; and, doctor, go and take the letter,
-and bring it to me,” was Lady Hester’s exclamation. I went to Mr.
-Abella, but found him determined not to part with it, unless he gave
-it into Lady Hester’s own hand. I urged upon him the impossibility of
-his doing so, as she had seen nobody for some weeks; at last, on his
-still persisting, we became somewhat warm on the matter. This was
-better than going to Lady Hester to ask her what was to be done; for
-her answer probably would have been to desire two of her stoutest
-Turks to go with sticks, and take it from him by force. At last, Mr.
-Abella gave up his trust, upon condition that I would write a paper
-representing that he had done it forcibly; in such a fright was he
-lest Mr. Moore should turn him out of his place.
-
-Instead of being an answer from Sir Francis Burdett, the letter was
-from Colonel Campbell, signifying that, in consequence of an
-application made to the English government, by Mâalem Homsy, one of
-Lady Hester Stanhope’s creditors, an order had come from Lord
-Palmerston to stop her pension, unless the debt was paid.
-
-It might have been supposed that the double disappointment of not
-hearing from Sir Francis Burdett and of receiving such a missive from
-Colonel Campbell would have considerably increased her anger: but, on
-the contrary, she grew apparently quite calm, gently placed the letter
-on the bed, and read the contents:――
-
-
-          _Colonel P. Campbell, Her Majesty’s Consul-general for
-                Egypt and Syria, to Lady Hester Stanhope._
-
-                                            Cairo, Jan. 10, 1838.
-
-       Madam,
-
-          I trust that your ladyship will believe my sincerity,
-     when I assure you with how much reluctance and pain it
-     is that I feel myself again[20] imperatively called upon to
-     address you upon the subject of the debt so long due by you
-     to Mr. Homsy.
-
-     The Government of the Viceroy has addressed that of Her
-     Majesty upon the subject, and, by a despatch which I
-     have received from Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of
-     State for Foreign Affairs, I am led to believe that a
-     confidential friend of your ladyship will have already
-     written to you to entreat you to settle this affair.
-
-     Your ladyship must be aware that, in order to procure your
-     pension from Her Majesty’s Government, it is necessary to
-     sign a declaration, and to have the consular certificate,
-     at the expiration of each quarter.
-
-     I know that this certificate has hitherto been signed by M.
-     Guys, the consul of France at Beyrout; but, in strict
-     legality, it ought to be certified by the British, and not
-     by any foreign consul; and, should your ladyship absolutely
-     refuse the payment of this just claim, I should feel myself,
-     however deeply I may regret it, forced to take measures to
-     prevent the signature of the French, or any other consul but
-     the British, being considered as valid, and consequently
-     your bill for your pension will not be paid at home. I shall
-     communicate this, if your ladyship’s conduct shall oblige me
-     so to do, to M. Guys and the other foreign consuls of
-     Beyrout, in order that your certificate may not be
-     signed――and also send this under flying seal to Mr. Moore,
-     Her Majesty’s consul at Beyrout, in order that he may take
-     the necessary steps to make this known to those consuls, if
-     your ladyship should call on them to sign the quarterly
-     certificate for your pension.
-
-     I trust your ladyship will be pleased to favour me with a
-     reply, informing me of your intentions, and which reply will
-     be forwarded to me by Mr. Moore.
-
-     I beg your ladyship will be assured of the pain which I
-     experience in being obliged to discharge this truly
-     unpleasant duty, as well as of the respect with which I have
-     the honour to remain, your ladyship’s most obedient humble
-     servant,
-
-                                                P. CAMPBELL,
-                         Her Majesty’s Agent for Egypt and Syria.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-When she had finished, she began to reason on the enormity of the
-Queen’s and her Minister’s conduct. “My grandfather and Mr. Pitt,”
-said she, “did something, I think, to keep the Brunswick family on the
-throne, and yet the grand-daughter of the old king, without hearing
-the circumstances of my getting into debt, or whether the story is
-true (for it might be false), sends to deprive me of my pension in a
-foreign country, where I may remain and starve. If it had not been for
-my brother Charles and General Barnard, the only two who knew what
-they were about when the mutiny took place against the Duke of Kent at
-Gibraltar, she would not be where she is now; for her father would
-have been killed to a certainty.”
-
-She mused for some time, and then went on. “Perhaps it is better for
-me that this should have happened: it brings me at once before the
-world, and let them judge the matter. It would have looked too much
-like _shucklabán_” (the Arabic for charlatanism――and Lady Hester was
-accustomed now to interlard her conversation with many Arabic words)
-“if I had to go and tell everybody my own story, without a reason for
-it: but now, since they have chosen to make a bankrupt of me, I shall
-out with a few things that will make them ashamed. The old king[21]
-wrote down on the paper, ‘Let her have the greatest pension that can
-be granted to a woman:’――if he were to rise from his grave, and see me
-now!”
-
-“Did I ever tell you what he said to Mr. Pitt one day, on Windsor
-Terrace? The king and all the princes and princesses were walking, and
-he turned round to him――‘Pitt,’ says he, ‘I have got a new minister in
-your room.’ Mr. Pitt immediately replied――‘At your majesty’s pleasure;
-and I shall be happy that your majesty has found one to relieve me
-from the burden of affairs: a little retirement and fresh air will do
-me good.’ The king went on, as if finishing his sentence, and without
-heeding what Mr. Pitt had said――‘a minister better than yourself.’ Mr.
-Pitt rejoined――‘your majesty’s choice cannot be but a wise one.’ The
-king resumed――‘I tell you, Pitt, I shall have a better minister than
-you, and, moreover, I shall have a good general.’ The raillery began
-to grow puzzling, and Mr. Pitt, with all his courtly manners, was at a
-loss to know what it meant. So he said, ‘Do, pray, condescend to tell
-me who this unknown and remarkable person is, that I may pay him the
-respect due to his great talents and your majesty’s choice.’ The king
-relieved him from his embarrassment: ‘_There_ is my new minister,’
-said he, pointing to me, whom Mr. Pitt had under his arm. ‘There is
-not a man in my kingdom who is a better politician than Lady Hester:
-and’ (assuming an air of seriousness, which his manner made quite
-touching) ‘I have great pleasure in saying, too, there is not a woman
-who adorns her sex more than she does. And, let me say, Mr. Pitt, you
-have not reason to be proud that you are a minister, for there have
-been many before you, and will be many after you; but you have reason
-to be proud of her, who unites everything that is great in man and
-woman.’ Doctor, the tears came in Mr. Pitt’s eyes, and how the court
-ladies did bite their lips!
-
-“The _what what what?_ certainly did the old king harm, in point of
-dignity, when no subject of conversation interested him; but he
-sometimes was more serious, and could assume a manner and a tone
-befitting a king. A peer, who had never known the Duke of Cambridge,
-told me that, on the return of the Duke from the continent, the king
-presented him to H.R.H. with this short but fine compliment――‘This is
-my son, my lord, who has his first fault to commit.’ How fond the king
-was of him and the Duke of York![22] He was a fine man, and with a
-person so strong, that I don’t think there was another like him in
-England.
-
-“The king liked me personally. I recollect once, at court, when we
-were standing, as he passed round the circle, he stopped at Harriet
-E., my cousin, and said to her something about her dress; and then,
-coming to me, he remarked how well I dressed myself, and told me to
-teach H. E. a little. She was so vexed that she cried: but it was her
-own fault; for, with a good person, good fortune, and fine dresses,
-she never could get a husband.
-
-“I suppose the Queen is a good-natured German girl. Did you ever see
-Lord M――――? he has got fine eyes; and, if he is fattened out, with a
-sleek skin and good complexion, he may be a man like Sir Gilbert, and
-about his age: such men are sometimes still loveable. He used to be a
-prodigious favourite with some of the handsomest women in London: so
-that his friends used to say, when he married Lady M., though she was
-not a bad-looking woman――‘Poor fellow! what will he do? you know he
-can’t like her long?’ I recollect seeing her and Lady ―――― sitting at
-a party on the top of the stairs, like two figures in a pocket-book――
-both little creatures; those that you call delicate.
-
-“Lord M. is a very handsome man. His eyes are beautiful, and he has
-spent forty years of his life in endeavouring to please the women. I
-recollect, the last time I saw him, he was behind Sir G. H., as they
-came into Lord Stafford’s. I had dined there, _en famille_, and there
-was a party in the evening. I was in the second room, and the Prince
-was standing by the fire, showing his behind, as usual, to everybody,
-and there was Lord M., always looking about after somebody whom he did
-not find perhaps for three or four hours. They say he is filled out:
-he was slim when I knew him. Doctor, he is a very handsome man; but he
-must be sixty, or more.”
-
-Ever and anon, Lady Hester Stanhope would revert to Colonel Campbell’s
-letter. “Yes,” she said; “if he feels regret at being obliged to write
-it, I will say to him, ‘No doubt, he feels pain at having to do with
-one of the most blackguard transactions I ever knew;’ but I dare say
-he feels nothing of the sort.” Then, after a pause, she added, “I
-think I shall take the bull by the horns, and send a letter to the
-Queen. If getting into debt is such a crime, I should like to know how
-the Duchess of K―――― got into debt.
-
-“Doctor, would you believe it? a _welly_” (in Arabic, a sort of
-soothsayer) “foretold what has happened to me now so exactly, that I
-must relate the story to you. He was sitting in a coffee-house one
-day, with one of my people, and had taken from the waiter a cup of
-coffee; but, in carrying it to his mouth, to drink it, his hand
-stopped midway, and his eyes were fixed for some time on the surface
-of the liquor in silence. ‘Your coffee will get cold,’ said my
-servant:――the _welly_ heaved a deep sigh. ‘Alas!’ said he, ‘I was
-reading on the surface of that cup of coffee the fate of your lady,
-the _meleky_. There will rise up evil tongues against her, and a
-sovereign will try to put her down; but the voice of the people will
-cry aloud, and nations will assemble to protect her.’ Now, doctor,”
-said Lady Hester, “does not that mean just what has happened? Is not
-the Queen trying to put me down, and going to deprive me of my
-pension?――and you will see, when I have written my letter, how many
-persons will turn on my side. But isn’t it very extraordinary how that
-man in a coffee-house knew what was going to happen?――yet so it is:
-they have secret communications with spirits. A glass, or something,
-is held before their eyes, which nobody else can see; and, whether
-they can read and write or not, they see future events painted on it.”
-
-January 30, 1838.――Lady Hester was still very ill; the convulsive
-attacks returning now regularly every day. She began to be sensible
-that fits of passion, however slight, did her injury, and she was more
-calm for a continuation than I had ever known her to remain since I
-had been here. But a fresh occurrence, trifling in its nature,
-although she gave much importance to it, excited her anger
-considerably to-day, and did her mischief in proportion. She had
-reason to suspect that her secretary had been endeavouring to
-ascertain whether she was consumptive, and how long she was likely to
-live. To dispel such a suspicion, she made a great effort, got up, and
-went and sat in the garden. Before she left her room, her wailings
-were for some moments heart-rending. “Oh, God, have mercy! oh, God,
-have mercy!” she cried; “only keep those beasts away: who is to take
-care of me, surrounded as I am with those horrible servants?――only
-take care they don’t rob me.”
-
-While she remained in the garden, her chamber was put to rights (a
-process which it much required, in consequence of her long
-confinement); and, at her earnest request, I superintended the
-performance. “Overlook them,” she said, “or they will rob me.” But oh!
-what a sight!――such dust, such confusion, such cobwebs! Never was a
-lady’s room seen before in such a condition: bundles, phials, linen,
-calico, silk, gallipots, clothes, étuis, papers, were all lying about
-on the floor, and in the corners, and behind and under the scanty
-furniture; for all this while she had been afraid to get the chamber
-put into order, lest her servants should take advantage of the
-opportunity to plunder her.
-
-When she returned to her room from the garden, she was raving. “You
-had better leave me to die,” she cried, “if I am to die; and, if I am
-not, oh! God, only let me crawl to my own country” (by her own country
-she meant Arabia, among the Koreýsh), “and there, with not a rag on
-me, I may be fed by some good-natured soul, and not such cannibals as
-these servants! What are they good for? I will be obeyed; and you are
-not a man, to see me treated in this manner.”
-
-Thus she went on, walking up and down her room, until she worked
-herself up into a state of madness. I was afraid she would rupture a
-blood-vessel. All my attempts to pacify her were in vain――indeed they
-only excited her the more. Seeing her in this way, I left the room,
-and sent Fatôom to her; but, before Fatôom could get there, she rang
-her bell violently, and I heard her say, “Where’s the doctor?――where’s
-the doctor?” so I returned again to her. “Don’t leave me;” she cried;
-and she expressed her sorrow for the excess of her passion. “I am much
-obliged to you, very much obliged to you, for the trouble you take on
-my account; but you must not be angry with me. Perhaps, if I get
-worse, I shall ask you to let Mrs. M. come and sit with me.” Soon
-after, as if her very violence had relieved her, she grew calmer.
-
-Up to this time she had never seen my wife, since her second visit to
-Syria; nor my daughter nor the governess at all. I had, since her
-illness, said more than once that they would be happy to come and sit
-with her by day or by night, to relieve the tedium of her solitary
-situation. But her dismantled room, her ragged clothes, her altered
-appearance――and, above all, her pride, compromised as it was by these
-unfortunate circumstances――always made her turn off the subject,
-although her secret feelings must have often prompted her to avail
-herself of the solace thus frankly and cordially offered to her. The
-exclamation by which she usually evaded the proposal was, “Oh! how I
-hate everything Frankified! how I hate everything Frankified!” or, “I
-must not see them until I get into my saloon.” After about half an
-hour I left her. “I must see nobody this evening,” she added; “so good
-bye!”
-
-I went home, and, for the first time, told my family how ill Lady
-Hester was. Alas! I had not dared to do so before: she had enjoined me
-not. “To say I am ill,” she would observe, “would be bringing a host
-of creditors upon me, and I should not be able to get food to eat.”
-Consequently, I had kept them and everybody, as much as I could, in
-ignorance of the real state of her health; indeed, there was too much
-truth in what she said not to make me see the mischief such a
-disclosure would entail. She had now only twenty pounds left in the
-house to provide for the consumption of two months; and, as her
-pension was stopped, there was every probability she would be left
-penniless, with the exception of a few dollars which I had by me. Yet,
-in spite of all this, she commissioned me, a day or two before, to
-give 150 piasters to a leper, 150 to a distressed shopkeeper, and some
-other small benefactions to other pensioners on her inexhaustible
-bounty.
-
-It may be said that any one, like myself, might have represented, from
-time to time, the necessity of a little more economy――I did so once:
-but I received such a peremptory injunction never to give my advice on
-that subject again, that I took good care how I committed myself a
-second time. She fired up, and said, “You will give me leave to judge
-what I ought to do with my own money. There are various ways of
-spending: you may think it best to be just before being generous; but
-I, with my character and views, must be even munificent, and trust to
-God, as I have hitherto done, for helping me on in my difficulties.
-Never touch on that subject again: I will have no human being
-interfere with me as to what I am to do with my money.”
-
-All I can say is that, like her grandfather, she was so intractable,
-that I never yet saw the mortal who could turn her an inch from her
-determinations. It was easy to lead the current of her bounty into
-one’s own pocket; for I believe any person who knew her foibles might
-have kept it flowing in that direction until he had enriched himself.
-It was only necessary to encourage her dreams of future greatness, to
-say the world was talking of her, to consider her as the associate of
-the _Mahedi_, the Messiah of nations, to profess a belief in visions,
-in aërial beings, in astrology, in witchcraft, and to bear witness to
-apparitions in which her coming grandeur was prognosticated, and then
-she would refuse nothing: but that was not my forte, and I never did
-so. I went to her with a small patrimony; was with her, off and on,
-for thirty years; and left her somewhat poorer than I went.
-
-But it is not to be supposed that knaves, such as some I have alluded
-to above, were the only objects of her bounty. No; the widow, the
-orphan, the aged, the proscribed, the sick, the wounded, and the
-houseless, were those she sought out in preference: and time will
-show, when gratitude can speak out, the immeasurable benevolence of
-her nature.
-
-It may not be useless to observe here that many stories have been
-circulated of Lady Hester’s harshness to petitioners who presented
-themselves at her door, which, if explained, would wear a very
-different aspect. Sometimes a suppliant, apparently unworthy of her
-commiseration, would gain admittance to her presence, and be dismissed
-with a handful of piasters; and sometimes another, known to be a fit
-object of benevolence, would receive nothing but a rude repulse. Lady
-Hester said to me, “Do you suppose, doctor, I don’t know that many
-people think I fool away my money in giving it to adventurers? that
-others say I am capricious? that some call me mad? Why, let them: I am
-not bound to give reasons for what I do to anybody. The good I do,
-first of all, I don’t wish to be known: and, again, many times the
-publicity of an act of charity would be injurious to him it was
-intended to serve. I’ll give you an instance. There was a merchant at
-Acre, who was _avanized_[23] by Abdallah Pasha, to whom he was
-obnoxious, until all his property was squeezed out of him, and nothing
-was left but a house, of which he was not generally known to be the
-proprietor――for, had it been known that the house was his, the Pasha,
-who fancied he had reduced him to beggary, would have persecuted him
-until he had got that also. The man wished to sell his house, and then
-to retire into Egypt; he therefore came to me, and told me his story,
-begging my assistance. As I was obliged to use an interpreter, who, I
-feared, would talk of any act of kindness of mine for the man, it
-appeared to me that the best thing I could do was to turn the
-applicant roughly out of doors, which I did at once, bawling out as he
-went, that I did not want to be pestered with beggars. Well, my
-strange harshness, of course, was talked of, and of course was
-repeated to the Pasha, who, thinking the object of his oppression was
-now an object of contempt also, was perfectly satisfied, and left the
-man, as he supposed, to utter ruin and degradation. But, after a few
-days, I privately sent to the poor distressed merchant, provided a
-purchaser for his house, smoothed the difficulties in the way of the
-sale, and, furnishing him from my own purse with a sum of money
-sufficient to begin the world with again, I shipped him off with his
-family to Egypt.”
-
-Lady Hester was indeed generous and charitable, giving with a large
-hand, as Eastern kings are represented to have given. She would send
-whole suits of clothes, furnish rooms, order camels and mules to
-convey two or three quarters of wheat at a time to a necessitous
-family, and pay carpenters and masons to build a poor man’s house: she
-had a munificence about her that would have required the revenue of a
-kingdom to gratify. Hence, too, sprung that insatiable disposition to
-hoard――not money, but what money could buy: she seemed to wish to have
-stores of whatever articles were necessary for the apparel, food, and
-convenience of man. Beds, counterpanes, cushions, carpets, and such
-like furniture, lay rotting in her store-rooms. Utensils grew rusty,
-wine spoiled; reams of paper were eaten by the mice, or mildewed by
-the damp; carpenters’ work lay unserviceable from an over-supply; mats
-rotted; candles, almonds, raisins, dried figs, cocoa, honey,
-cheese――no matter what――all was laid by in destructive profusion; and
-every year half was consumed by rats, ants, and other vermin, or
-otherwise spoiled. One store-room, which was filled with locked-up
-trunks, full of what was most valuable, had not been entered for three
-years: and, oh! what ruin and waste did I not discover!
-
-When I told her of all this, and suggested that it would be better to
-give them to her poor pensioners, she said――“Such things never cause
-me a moment’s thought: I would rather they should have been used to
-some good purpose; but, if I have got such rascals about me, why, let
-the things all rot, sooner than that they should profit by them. Money
-can replace all that; and, if God sends me money, I will do so; if he
-does not, he knows best what should be: and it would not give me a
-moment’s sorrow to lie down in a cottage with only rags enough to keep
-me warm. I would not, even then, change places with Lord Grosvenor,
-the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Buckingham, or any of them: they
-can’t do what I can; so of what use are all their riches? I have seen
-some of them make such a fuss about the loss of a ten guinea ring or
-some such bauble:――not that they cared for it, but they could not bear
-to lose it. But if I want to know what is passing at Constantinople,
-or London, or anywhere, I have nothing to do but to turn my thoughts
-that way, and in a quarter of an hour I have it all before me, just as
-it is; so true, doctor, that if it is not actually passing, it will be
-in a month, in three months――so true: isn’t it extraordinary?”...
-
-Upon some occasions, her munificence wore the appearance of
-ostentation. She would bestow on strangers, like dervises, sheykhs,
-and fakyrs, large sums of money, and yet drive hard bargains with
-those about her neighbourhood; and would sometimes make presents,
-apparently not so much to comfort those who received them as to
-display her own superiority and greatness over others.
-
-I have said, in a preceding chapter, that she used to give new suits
-of clothes to her people on Byràm day, and at Easter, according to
-their religion: but it should be mentioned that, on those days, every
-servant was called in, and received forty piasters; and one thousand
-piasters were divided by Logmagi among the persons in Sayda who in any
-way were occasionally useful to her or her people. These were the
-porter of the French khan and the janissary there; the porters of the
-town-gate; the harbour-master; the gardener who supplied vegetables;
-the fisherman who sent her choice fish, &c. Two hundred piasters were
-paid annually to old Jacob, a tailor; fifty here and there to the
-imàms of particular mosques; as much to the mistress of the bath to
-which she sent her maids to be washed. Mr. Loustaunau generally had
-about five hundred piasters a quarter. Of many of her benefactions I
-never knew anything. Had I kept a list of the sums which, besides
-these customary donations, she gave to the distressed, few would
-wonder that she was so beloved and so generally lamented. Thus, when
-the _ferdy_ and _miri_, two onerous taxes, fell due, she commonly paid
-them for such of her servants as were burdened with families, or whose
-means were scanty: she did the same when unusual contributions were
-levied, as during the conscription. On the 8th of December, I find a
-note that I gave fifty piasters and a counterpane to a poor shepherd
-boy, labouring under anasarca from an indurated spleen, a most common
-complaint in the country, the effect of protracted agues; and eighty
-to an old man, who had some years before been her _asackjee_. To
-Logmagi mostly fell the distribution of all these sums, and it was
-only occasionally that I was the almoner to this truly noble and
-disinterested woman; else I should have been able to have cited more
-examples.
-
-January 31.――Being Wednesday, it was a rule with Lady Hester Stanhope
-to shut herself up from Tuesday at sunset until the sunset of
-Wednesday, during which time she saw nobody, if she could avoid it,
-did no business, and always enjoined me to meddle in no affairs of
-hers during these twenty-four hours. Wednesday was an unlucky day with
-her, a _dies nefastus_. After sunset, I waited on her, and found her
-languid, moaning, and still visibly suffering from her yesterday’s
-exertion; for it appeared, although I had not seen her, that she had
-walked about her garden, forcing her strength so far as to deceive the
-gardeners, who had given out that she would soon be as well as ever;
-and this was what, no doubt, she aimed at, for the purpose of
-confounding the secretary.
-
-Reminding her of the wish she had expressed to have Mrs. M.’s company,
-I now proposed that she, my daughter, and the governess, should sit
-with her by turns, suggesting that, by this means, much of the
-disagreeable service of the maids, whom she constantly complained of,
-might be dispensed with. But to this she answered, “No, doctor, it
-will not do: you must tell them how very much obliged to them I am for
-their kind offers and intentions, but that their presence will only be
-an embarrassment to me. You don’t consider the matter in its true
-point of view, as you never do anything. In the first place, it kills
-me to talk; I can’t fatigue myself by giving them information about
-the country, and be a Pococke: and, as for giving them good advice,
-the world is so turned topsy-turvy, that everything one says is lost
-on everybody. Then, as for being of any use to me, they could be of
-none: if I wanted anything, they don’t know where it is; and how are
-they to tell the nasty wretches, who only speak Arabic? Besides, I am
-not sure their _nijems_ would suit me; and then they would do me more
-harm than good. Poor little Eugenia! I had thought that I might derive
-some consolation from looking on her innocent face whilst she sat
-working at my bedside; but some one told me her star perhaps would not
-agree with mine: is it so, doctor? I am like Mr. Pitt: he used to say,
-‘I hear that man’s footsteps in the passage――I can’t bear it; do send
-him away to town, or to Putney:’ so it is with me. There was my
-grandfather, too――how he felt the effect of the peculiar star of those
-people who did not suit him!――he could bear nobody near him, when he
-was ill, but Lady Chatham, and an old woman who had been a sort of
-woman of the town: he sent all his children to Lyme Regis; and even
-his tutor, Mr. Wilson, he could not bear. I know the reason of it now,
-from my recollection of them, but I did not at the time. My
-grandfather was born under Mars and Venus; Lady Chatham was born under
-Venus, and so was the old woman, but both in different _burges_
-[houses]: and that is why their sympathies were the same.”
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-     [19] The English consular agent at this time was Signor
-          Abella, whose father was a Maltese: hence Mr.
-          Abella was known as El Malty. The noble family of
-          Testaferrata and Abella is the stock from which Signor
-          Abella is descended; but in Turkey, _Stemmata quid
-          faciunt_?
-
-     [20] At the word “again,” Lady Hester made the following
-          remarks:――“He never addressed me on the subject,
-          neither has any one else. Nearly two years ago,
-          there was a report in the Bazar that my debts had
-          been spoken of to the King; that my pension was
-          to be seized; that I was to be put under consular
-          jurisdiction; and a set of extravagant things that
-          nobody ever heard the like; and certainly those
-          who had ventured to charge themselves with such a
-          message would have found that I was a cousin of Lord
-          Camelford’s.
-
-          “Another version was, that the King talked very good
-          sense upon the subject, and had taken my part, and had
-          been much surprised that I had been so neglected by my
-          family, to whom he said some sharp and unpleasant
-          things. There the matter rested, and I heard no more of
-          it, until Colonel Campbell’s letter.”
-
-     [21] Lady Hester means George III.
-
-     [22] The Duke of York’s behaviour is incomparable; he
-          is their great and only comfort and support at the
-          Queen’s house, and without his manly mind and advice
-          neither the Queen nor Princesses would be able to
-          bear up under their present distress.――_Diaries and
-          Correspondence_, p. 20, v. 4.
-
-          It is pleasing to find in persons so entirely different
-          in every respect a corresponding testimony to the
-          merits of an excellent prince.
-
-     [23] To _avanize_ is the expression used throughout the
-          Levant to signify oppressive and forcible exactions of
-          money from individuals, without right or claim.
-
-
-
-
-                              CHAPTER VIII.
-
-Lady Hester’s system of astrology――Sympathies and antipathies――
-People’s _nijems_ or stars――Mesmerism explained――Lord Suffolk――Lady
-Hester’s own star――Letter to the Queen――Letter to Mr. Speaker
-Abercrombie――Messieurs Beck and Moore――Letter to Colonel Campbell――The
-Ides of March――Lady Hester’s reflections on the Queen’s conduct to
-her――Letter to Sir Edward Sugden――What peers are――Junius’s
-Letters――Spies employed by the first Lord Chatham――Mr. Pitt’s opinion
-of the Duke of Wellington――Lady Hester’s letter to his Grace, &c.
-
-
-In order to render intelligible to the reader many passages which have
-occurred, and will occur again, in Lady Hester’s conversations,
-respecting what she called people’s _nijems_ or stars, it may not be
-amiss to give an outline of her system of astrology, and of the
-supposed influence that the position of the stars in the heavens at
-our nativity has on our future fate and on our sympathies. I must
-preface what follows by observing that she had a remarkable talent for
-divining characters by the make of a person. This every traveller will
-testify who has visited her in Syria; for it was after she went to
-live in solitude that her penetration became so extraordinary. It was
-founded both on the features of the face and on the shape of the head,
-body, and limbs. Some indications she went by were taken from a
-resemblance to animals; and, wherever such indications existed, she
-inferred that the dispositions peculiar to those animals were to be
-found in the person. But, independent of all this, her doctrine was,
-that every creature is governed by the star under whose influence it
-was born.
-
-Every star has attached to it two aërial beings, two animals, two
-trees, two flowers, &c.; that is, a couple of all the grand classes in
-creation, animal, vegetable, mineral, or etherial, whose antipathies
-and sympathies become congenial with the being born under the same
-star. She would say, “My brother Charles vomited if he ate three
-strawberries only: other people, born under the same star as his, may
-not have such an insurmountable antipathy as his was, because their
-star may be imperfect, whilst his was pure; but they will have it,
-more or less. Some persons again will have as much delight in the
-smell of particular flowers as cats have in the smell of valerian,
-when they sit and purr round it.
-
-“The stars under which men are born may be one or more. Thus Mr.
-H*****, an English traveller, who came to see me, was born under four
-stars, all tending to beauty, but of no good in other respects. His
-forehead was as white as snow; his mouth” (I think she said) “was
-good, with a handsome small black beard; but his stars were otherwise
-dull: for you know the stars in the heavens are not always bright and
-twinkling, but sometimes heavy and clouded. It is like engravings――some
-of them are proofs, and those are perfect. Some persons may have a
-good star, but it may be cracked like a glass, and then, you know, it
-can’t hold water.
-
-“The influence of stars depends, likewise, on whether they are rising,
-or in their zenith, or setting; and the angle at which they are must
-be determined by calculations, which good astrologers make very
-readily. But a clever man will, from his knowledge of the stars, look
-even at a child and say, ‘That child will have such and such diseases,
-such and such virtues, such and such vices;’ and this I can do: nay,
-what is more, I can give a description of the features of any person I
-have never seen, if his character is described to me, and vice versa.
-There is a learned man at Damascus, who possesses the same faculty in
-an extraordinary degree. He knew nothing of me but by report, and had
-never seen me: but a friend of his, having given him a description of
-my person and features, he noted down my virtues, vices, and qualities
-so exactly, that he even said in what part of my body I had got a
-mole, and mentioned the small mark on my shoulder, where Mr. Cline
-removed a tumour. There’s for you? do you believe these things, or do
-you not?
-
-“A man’s destiny may be considered as a graduated scale, of which the
-summit is the star that presided over his birth. In the next degree
-comes the good angel[24] attached to that star; then the herb and the
-flower beneficial to his health and agreeable to his smell; then the
-mineral, then the tree, and such other things as contribute to his
-good; then the man himself: below him comes the evil spirit, then the
-venomous reptile or animal, the plant, and so on; things inimical to
-him. Where the particular tree that is beneficial or pleasurable to
-him flourishes naturally, or the mineral is found, there the soil and
-air are salubrious to that individual; and a physician who understood
-my doctrines, how easily could he treat his patients!――for, by merely
-knowing the star of a person, the simples and compounds most
-beneficial to him in medicine would be known also.
-
-“How great the sympathies and antipathies are in stars that are the
-same or opposite I have told you before in my grandfather’s case, in
-Mr. Pitt’s, and in my own. Lord Chatham, when on a sick bed, could
-bear three people only to wait on him――Lady Chatham, Sarah Booby, and
-somebody else. My grandmamma’s star and Sarah Booby’s star were the
-same――both Venus――only grandmamma’s was more moderate; she could keep
-it down. Mr. Pitt, when he was ill at Putney, had such an aversion to
-one of the footmen, that he was nervous when he heard his step; for
-you know people, when they are sick, can hear a pin drop: he said to
-me, ‘Hester, do send that fellow to town.’ I did not let him know why
-he was sent to town, but I got him off as quickly as possible: he was,
-notwithstanding, a good servant, clean, and had otherwise good
-qualities; but Mr. Pitt’s and his star were different. As to myself,
-since I have been here, I had a professed French cook, called
-François――the people named him _Fransees el Franjy_. His skill was
-undoubted; yet, whenever he dressed my dinner, I was always sending
-for him to complain, and sometimes threw the dish in his face: a
-sweetmeat from his hand turned bitter in my mouth. But, what is most
-extraordinary of all, Miss Williams’s star was so disagreeable to me
-that I could not bear her to be near me when I was ill:――if I was in a
-perspiration, it would stop the moment she came into the room. You
-know how many good qualities she had, and how attached she was to me,
-and I to her: well, I always kept her out of my sight as much as I
-could, when anything was the matter with me.
-
-“Such is the sympathy of persons born under the same star, that,
-although living apart in distant places, they will still be sensible
-of each other’s sufferings. When the Duke of York died, at the very
-hour, a cold sweat and a kind of fainting came over me, that I can’t
-describe. I was ill beyond measure, and I said to Miss Williams,
-‘Somebody is dying somewhere, and I am sure it is one of my friends:
-so I made her write it down. Some time after, when she was poking over
-a set of newspapers, she came to me, and said, ‘It’s very singular, my
-lady; but, the time you were so very ill, and could not account for
-it, corresponds exactly with the date of the Duke of York’s death――the
-hour, too, just the same!’ Now, doctor, wasn’t it extraordinary? You
-drawl out ‘Y――e――s,’ just as if you thought I told lies: oh, Lord! oh,
-Lord! what a cold man!
-
-“The proof of sympathy between the stars of two persons, or, in other
-words, of the star of another being good for you, is, when a person
-puts his finger on you and you don’t feel it. Zezefôon, when
-Mademoiselle Longchamp touches her with her fingers in examining the
-Turkish dress, shudders all over: that is a proof that her star is not
-good for her, and yet Miss L. uses more kind expressions to her than
-anybody; but that makes no difference; there is no sympathy in their
-stars.
-
-“Animal magnetism is nothing but the sympathy of our stars. Those
-fools who go about magnetizing indifferently one person and another,
-why do they sometimes succeed, and sometimes fail?――because, if they
-meet with those of the same star with themselves, their results will
-be satisfactory, but with opposite stars they can do nothing. Some
-people you may magnetize, some you cannot; and so far will the want of
-sympathy act in some, that there are persons whom it would be
-impossible to put in certain attitudes: they might be mechanically
-placed there, but their posture never would be natural; whilst others,
-from their particular star, would readily fall into them. Oh! if I had
-your friend, Mr. Green,[25] here, I could give him some useful hints
-on choosing models for his lectures.
-
-“There are animals, too, under the same star with human beings. I had
-a mule whose star was the same as mine; and, at the time of my severe
-illness, this mule showed as much sensibility about me, and more, than
-some of the beasts who wait on me. When that mule was first foaled, I
-had given orders to sell the foal and its mother; but, happening to
-see it, I countermanded the order immediately. It received a hurt in
-its eye, and when, with my hand, I applied some eye-water with camphor
-in it, which, of course, made the eye smart, it never once turned its
-head away, or showed the least impatience of what I was doing. When
-this mule was dying some years afterwards, she lay twenty-four hours,
-every minute seeming to be going to breathe her last; but still life
-would not depart. They told me of this, and I went to the stable. The
-moment she saw me, she turned her eyes on me, gave an expressive look,
-and expired. All the servants said she would not die until my star,
-which was hers, had come to take her breath: isn’t it very
-extraordinary? Serpents never die, whatever you can do to them, until
-their star rises above the horizon.[26]
-
-“Some can do well only when under the guidance of another person’s
-star. What was Lord Grenville without Mr. Pitt? with him to guide him
-he did pretty well; but, as soon as Mr. Pitt was dead, he sunk into
-obscurity: who ever heard of Lord Grenville afterwards? So again Sir
-Francis Burdett has never been good for anything since Horne Tooke’s
-death. So long as Napoleon had Josephine by his side he was lucky:
-but, when he cast her off, his good fortune left him. You know you
-sent me her portrait: well, it was a good engraving, and I have no
-doubt was a likeness. I observed in her face indications of much
-falsity, and a depth of cunning exceedingly great: it was her _sâad_
-(luck) that held him up. You may see so many examples of such good
-fortune depending on men’s wives. Mahomet Ali owes all to his wife――a
-woman without a nose. What saved the Shaykh Beshýr but the sâad of the
-Syt Haboos? Hamâady told the Emir Beshýr, ‘You will never do anything
-with the Shaykh Beshýr until you get rid of her, and then the Shaykh
-is in your power.’ So what did he do? he sent his son――the little Emir
-Beshýr, as they call him――who surrounded her palace with twenty
-horsemen, and, when she attempted to escape, drove her into her own
-courtyard, and stabbed her: her body was cut in pieces, and given to
-the dogs to eat.
-
-“What is to account for some people’s good fortune but their star?
-There was Lord Suffolk, an ensign in a marching regiment, and
-thirteenth remove from the title――see what an example he was! It was
-predestined that he should arrive at greatness, although, when the
-news was brought him that he was come to the title, he had not money
-enough to pay for a post-chaise: but nothing could hinder what his
-good star was to bring him. Lady Suffolk, the daughter of a clergyman
-of a hundred a-year, was a very clever, shrewd woman, and filled her
-elevated station admirably.”
-
-I have embodied thus much in Lady Hester Stanhope’s own words of what
-may give a tolerable idea of her notion of planetary influence. What
-her own star was may be gathered from what she said one day, when,
-having dwelt a long time on this, her favourite subject, she got up
-from the sofa, and, approaching the window, she called me to
-her――“Look,” said she, “at the pupil of my eyes; there! my star is the
-sun――all sun――it is in my eyes: when the sun is a person’s star, it
-attracts everything.” I looked, and replied that I saw a rim of yellow
-round the pupil.――“A rim!” cried she; “it isn’t a rim――it’s a sun;
-there’s a disk, and from it go rays all round: ’tis no more a rim than
-you are. Nobody has got eyes like mine.”[27]
-
-Lady Hester Stanhope, in a letter she wrote to Prince Pückler Muskau,
-describes her system briefly as follows; and she desired me to keep a
-copy of it, that I might not, as she said, substitute my own ideas
-for hers.
-
-“Every man, born under a given star, has his aërial spirit, his
-animal, his bird, his fruit-tree, his flower, his medicinal herb, and
-his dæmon. Beings born under any given star may be of four different
-qualities and forms, just as there may be four different qualities of
-cherries, having little resemblance one to another, but being
-nevertheless all cherries. Added to this, there may be varieties in
-the same star, occasioned by the influence of other stars, which were
-above the horizon in particular positions at the hour of a man’s
-birth: just as you may say that a ship is more or less baffled by
-certain winds, though she is standing her course. Again, a man being
-born under the same star with another man, whilst that star is in one
-sign of the zodiac, changes somewhat the character and appearance when
-in another sign of the zodiac: just as two plants which are alike,
-when one grows where there is always shade and the other where there
-is constantly sunshine, although precisely of one and the same kind,
-will differ slightly in appearance, odour, and taste.
-
-“A man born under a certain star will have, from nature, certain
-qualities, certain virtues and vices, certain talents, diseases, and
-tastes. All that education can do is merely artificial: leave him to
-himself, and he returns to his natural character and his original
-tastes. If this were better known, young people would not be made to
-waste their time uselessly in fitting them for what they never can be.
-
-“I have learned to know a man’s star by his face, but not by
-astrological calculations, as perhaps you fancy; of that trade I have
-no knowledge. I have been told that the faculty which I possess is
-much more vague than the astrological art, and I believe it: but mine
-is good for a great deal, though not for calculating the exact epoch
-of a man’s maladies or death.
-
-“You will ask me how it is possible to know mankind by looking at
-their features and persons; and so thoroughly too. I answer――a
-gardener, when he sees twenty bulbs of twenty different flowers on the
-table before him, will he not tell you that one will remain so many
-days under ground before it sprouts, then it will grow little by
-little, very slowly, and in so many days or weeks will flower, and its
-flowers will have such a smell, such a colour, and such virtues: after
-so many days more, it will begin to droop and fade, and in ten days
-will wither: that other, as soon as it is out of the ground, will grow
-an inch and a half in every twenty-four hours: its flowers will be
-brilliant, but will have a disagreeable smell; it will bloom for a
-long time, and then will wither altogether in a day and why may not
-I, looking on men, pronounce on their virtues, qualities, and duration
-in the same way? This may not be well explained, but a clever person
-will divine what I mean.”
-
-Such were, in the main, the opinions of Lady Hester on astrology, to
-which several travellers have alluded, but which, from defective
-information, they have hitherto misrepresented. It will be seen that
-there was at least method in her belief. We will now return from this
-digression.
-
-Our narrative broke off in the middle of a conversation on the evening
-of January 31, 1838.
-
-Tea was ordered; but so simple a process as getting tea ready was now
-a painful business. If it did not come immediately, Lady Hester grew
-so impatient, that it was distressing to see her agitation. She would
-then ring for a pipe, and perhaps send it back to be fresh filled or
-changed four or five times in succession, each one being, for some
-trifling reason, rejected. Alas! it was not the tea nor the pipes that
-were in fault; it was Colonel Campbell’s letter that had given a stab
-to her heart, from which she never recovered; and, in proportion to
-the apparent calm which she endeavoured to assume, when speaking on
-that subject, did the feeling of the supposed indignity which she had
-received prey on her spirits and on her pride.
-
-She reverted to the letter. “The thing to be considered,” she said,
-“is whether I shall write a letter to the Queen, and ask the Duke of
-Wellington to give it to her, or whether I shall put it in the
-newspapers: for I am afraid, if I send it to him, he will not give it
-to her; or, if he does, they will say nothing about it. I should like
-to ask for a public inquiry into my debts, and for what I have
-contracted them. Let them compare the good I have done in the cause of
-humanity and science with the D――――s of K――――’s debts. When I am
-better, I’ll set all this to rights. I wonder if Lord Palmerston is
-the man I recollect――a young man just come from College, that was
-hanging about, waiting to be introduced to Mr. Pitt. Mr. Pitt used to
-say, ‘Ah! very well; we will ask him some day to dinner.’ Perhaps it
-is an old grudge that makes him vent his spite. He is an Irishman, I
-think.”
-
-February 1.――To-day Lady Hester was much the same as on the preceding
-days: her pulse was low; her lungs were loaded with phlegm; aphthæ had
-shown themselves on her tongue; her nails were cracked from the
-contraction of the surrounding integuments; the tips of her fingers
-were cold; her back, as she sat up in bed, was bent; her bones almost
-protruded through the skin, from being obliged to lie always on one
-side. Speaking of her inability to sleep, except in some particular
-position, she observed that she was like those little figures of
-tumblers; place her as you would, she rolled over to the left side, as
-if there was a weight of lead there.
-
-After the usual preliminaries of smoking a pipe and a little
-conversation, she dictated her letter to the Queen and to Mr.
-Abercrombie, speaker of the House of Commons.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-
-                   _Lady Hester Stanhope to the Queen._
-
-                                         Jôon, February 12, 1838.
-
-     Your Majesty will allow me to say that few things are more
-     disgraceful and inimical to royalty than giving commands
-     without examining all their different bearings, and casting,
-     without reason, an aspersion upon the integrity of any
-     branch of a family who had faithfully served their country
-     and the house of Hanover.
-
-     As no inquiries have been made of me what circumstances
-     induced me to incur the debts alluded to, I deem it
-     unnecessary to enter into any details upon the subject. I
-     shall not allow the pension given by your royal grandfather
-     to be stopped by force; but I shall resign it for the
-     payment of my debts, and with it the name of English
-     subject, and the slavery that is at present annexed to it:
-     and, as your Majesty has given publicity to the business by
-     your orders to consular agents, I surely cannot be blamed in
-     following your royal example.
-
-                                            HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-
-            _Lady Hester Stanhope to Mr. Speaker Abercrombie._
-
-                                         Jôon, February 12, 1838.
-
-          Sir,
-
-     Probably the wheel-horse has forgotten his driver, but the
-     latter has not forgotten him.[28] I am told that the chief
-     weight of the carriage of state bears upon you; if so, it
-     must be a ponderous one indeed, if I can judge by a specimen
-     of the talent of those who guide it.
-
-     You, who have read and thought a great deal upon men and
-     manners, must be aware that there are situations almost
-     unknown in Europe from which persons, in what is called a
-     semi-barbarous country, cannot extricate themselves with
-     honour without taking a part either for or against humanity:
-     besides, there are extraordinary gusts of knowledge――of
-     extraordinary information――which, if you do not take
-     advantage of them at the moment, are lost to you for ever. I
-     have, therefore, exceeded my pecuniary means, but always
-     with the hope of extricating myself without the assistance
-     of any one; or at least (and ever before my eyes, should the
-     worst come to the worst) with that of selling the reversion
-     of what I possess. Your magnificent Queen has made me appear
-     like a bankrupt in the world, and partly like a swindler;
-     having given strict orders that _one_ usurer’s account must
-     be paid, or my pension stopped, without taking into
-     consideration others who have equal claims upon me. Her
-     Majesty has not thrown the gauntlet before a driveller or a
-     coward: those who are the advisers of these steps cannot be
-     wise men.
-
-     Whatever men’s political opinions may be, if they act from
-     conscientious motives, I have always respected them; and you
-     know that I have had friends in all parties. Therefore,
-     without any reference to the present or past political
-     career of ministers, or her Majesty’s advisers, their
-     conduct would appear to me, respecting myself, identically
-     as it was, gentlemanlike or blackguard. But, having had but
-     too strong a specimen of the latter by their attempting to
-     bully a Pitt, and to place me under consular control, it is
-     sufficient for me to resign the name of an English subject;
-     for the justice granted to the slave of despotism far
-     exceeds that which has been shown to me. Believe me, with
-     esteem and regard, yours,
-
-                                            HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Friday, February 2.――To-day, I found her ladyship busied in sorting
-out certain articles of apparel, which had just before been brought
-home for herself: they had been made by the wife of Lufloofy, the
-person at Sayda who generally lodged English travellers. As the fair
-sex may like to know what the texture of ladies’ under-garments is in
-the East, these were made of half cotton and half silk, and, to the
-appearance and touch, not unlike crape. Some women have them all silk.
-Either kind is favourable for absorbing perspiration, and, under any
-circumstances, never strikes cold to the body.[29]
-
-There had arrived, also, from Marseilles six cases of claret, two of
-brandy, one of rum, twelve baskets of champagne, one case of Kirsch
-water; and from Leghorn six cases of Genoese _pâte_, two Parmesan
-cheeses, some Bologna sausages, pots of preserve, one barrel of salmon
-and tunny, one ditto of anchovies, brooms, scuppets, perfumery, two
-chests of tea, and numberless other good things, to meet the wants of
-her expected guest, the Baroness de Fériat, who was coming from the
-United States. It was sad enough that Lady Hester herself, with
-abundance of choice provisions and wines, was unable to partake of
-any. However, when samples of them were brought in, as the cases were
-opened one after another, to be shown her, her usual (what shall I
-call it?) greediness of manner manifested itself. She tasted
-everything, and swallowed a great deal: the natural consequence of
-which was that she threw herself back in her bed, gasping for breath,
-and suffering horribly. On these occasions, her favourite plan was to
-relieve the succession of momentary symptoms by a host of palliatives,
-never leaving her stomach empty or her digestive organs at rest, and
-always fancying that it was want of nourishment that generated
-uneasiness or caused the oppression on her chest, from both of which
-she never was free; nor would she listen to any arguments that tended
-to show she was in error.
-
-February 4, Sunday.――This morning it was discovered in my house that a
-silver spoon had been lost. I had a man-servant and a boy, the former
-a Greek, the latter a Mahometan. The Greek had one of the most
-sinister countenances I ever beheld: he was the same man who had
-accompanied Mr. Moore and Mr. Beck to the Dead Sea,[30] and had been
-sent to me from Beyrout by the innkeeper there: he was a knave, a
-drunkard, and a liar. Suspicion fell on him, and he, to throw it on
-others, first accused the milk-girl, and then the water-carrier.
-
-Theft, in houses in Turkey, where many are suspected, generally leads
-to the punishing of them all; and Logmagi suggested that he should
-apply the korbàsh to all three, to elicit the truth. However, I
-thought it more just to resort to the European way, saying if the
-spoon were not found, the two servants must pay for it, not doubting
-the innocence of the water-carrier, a hard-working fellow of good
-repute. Logmagi objected to this. “You must flog that Greek,” said he,
-“or you will lose, one by one, everything of value you possess.”
-
-Here the matter rested, as the morning had been fixed for answering
-Colonel Campbell’s letter: so I wrote from her ladyship’s dictation
-the following laconic epistle to him, and the friendly one to Mr.
-Moore, British consul at Beyrout. When I had finished them, I asked
-Lady Hester what she would have me put at the close, and how she chose
-to subscribe herself. “Say nothing,” replied she: “how many times I
-have said I could never call myself the humble servant of any body. I
-hate and detest all those compliments so unmeaning and so false: but
-to Mr. Moore you may express my esteem and regard. I know I shall have
-a great liking for Mrs. Moore, if ever I see her: is she so very
-handsome as they say? When you go to Beyrout, you must tell her that I
-consider it a duty to like her: she does not know why, no more do
-you.”
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-
-               _Lady Hester Stanhope to Colonel Campbell._
-
-                                          Jôon, February 4, 1838.
-
-          Sir,
-
-     I shall give no sort of answer to your letter of the 10th of
-     January (received the 27th), until I have seen a copy of her
-     Majesty’s commands respecting my debt to Mr. Homsy, or of
-     the official orders from her Majesty’s Secretary of State
-     for Foreign Affairs, as also of Mr. Homsy’s claim, as well
-     as of the statement sent to England――to whom, and through
-     whom――in order that I may know whom I have to deal with, as
-     well as be able to judge of the accuracy of the documents.
-
-     I hope in future that you will not think it necessary to
-     make any apologies for the execution of your duty; on the
-     contrary, I should wish to recommend you all to put on large
-     Brutus wigs when you sit on the woolsack at Alexandria or at
-     Beyrout.
-
-                                            HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-
-          _Lady Hester Stanhope to Mr. Moore, British Consul at
-                                Beyrout._
-
-                                          Jôon, February 4, 1838.
-
-          Sir,
-
-     The sacrifice which I have made of your acquaintance and
-     your society, that you might stand quite clear of everything
-     that affects me, appears to be to little purpose. You will
-     have some very disagreeable business to go through, as you
-     will be made Colonel Campbell’s honourable agent, and he the
-     agent of the wise Lord Palmerston, and he the agent of your
-     magnificent Queen. There is Colonel Campbell’s answer, which
-     I leave open for your perusal, as he did his.
-
-     If in the end I find that you deserve the name of a true
-     Scotchman, I shall never take ill the part that you may have
-     taken against me, as it appears to be consistent with your
-     duty in these dirty times.
-
-     I remain with truth and regard, yours,
-
-                                          HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-Besides these letters, I wrote others for England and for Beyrout――in
-all about a dozen. What with waiting and listening to her
-conversation, I was with her five hours before dinner and five hours
-after. I had to seal and put covers to all these; and just at the
-moment when I was about to retire to my study, a little room set apart
-for me in her house, to do this, Lady Hester stopped me, and returned
-to the subject of the silver spoon. After some consideration, she
-recommended also the use of the korbàsh.[31]
-
-“How am I to live,” cried she, “with thirty servants in my house, and
-such a man as you are that can’t say boh! to a goose? How do you
-expect they will mind me, if you don’t keep them under? Hamâady is
-coming to-morrow to Jôon: he must be sent for, and shall interrogate
-the rascal; I warrant you, he’ll soon bring it to light.”
-
-When I left her for dinner, she had said to me, “Send me word a
-quarter of an hour before you return to say you are coming.” This, in
-my hurry to get through so much writing for her, I had neglected to
-do; and it, therefore, served now as the text for a new grievance.
-“Didn’t I say,” she asked me, “let me know a quarter of an hour
-beforehand when you are ready to come to me? that quarter of an hour
-was everything to me: I wished to have more candles brought in on
-account of your eyes, to have the paper and ink got ready, and to
-collect my thoughts; but no! everybody must do as they like, and poor
-I be made the sacrifice.――I _will_ live by the rule of grandeur.”
-
-Then she called her maids in, one after another, poured on them a
-torrent of abuse for their laziness, dirt, and insolence. My heart
-sickened to think what would be the consequence of all this to
-herself; for I knew very well that her whole frame, the next morning,
-would be debilitated from such excitement: yet all this time her
-passion was sublimely eloquent, and, sick though she was, terrible.
-Her maids tumbled over each other from fright, and the thunder that
-rolled in the sky (for a storm was raging at the time) was but a faint
-likeness of her paroxysm. When it was over, we drank tea, and at
-half-past one separated for the night.
-
-February 5. The weather was still stormy. Snow fell in abundance on
-the higher chains of Mount Lebanon, where it lay apparently very
-thick.
-
-When I paid my morning visit, Lady Hester held out her hand to me the
-moment I approached her bedside. “I said too much last night,” she
-observed; “think no more about it, doctor; but you know my
-irritability, and you must bear with it.” She was pale, languid, and
-extenuated: her hands and arms were jerked in convulsive flings.
-Strong electrical shocks could not have shaken her so much. Alas! I
-sympathised too deeply with her wrongs not to forget all her
-ebullitions of anger the moment they were over.
-
-When she found herself a little easier, she asked me to explain to her
-Julius Cæsar’s calendar, which she had on some occasion lighted on in
-Ainsworth’s dictionary. “When I was a girl,” said she, “I knew all the
-constellations in the heavens, and was so quick at astronomy, that
-they took my books and maps away, fearing I should give myself up to
-it, to the neglect of my other studies. I had it all before my eyes,
-just like a pocket-handkerchief. What day are the ides of March?” I
-told her. “I think,” she continued, “the word Ides must be derived
-from _âayd_, [Arabic: عيد].” I guessed at once what was passing in her
-mind. It was an illusion with her that her destiny and Cæsar’s, or her
-character and his, had some resemblance: and, when she mentioned
-Brutus-wigs in her letter to Colonel Campbell, it had a reference to
-the stabs they were giving her from England in depriving her of her
-pension, and putting insults upon her.
-
-She was deeply wounded in her pride by the treatment she had received
-from home. “The Queen,” she would say, “should have desired her
-ministers to write to me, and say, ‘It grieves me that you should have
-exceeded your income, and incurred debts, which you know, when
-complaints are made to me, I cannot countenance; endeavour to pay them
-by instalments, and all may yet be well,’ or something to that
-effect―― * * * * * * But no! she shall have my pension, and, if they
-make me a bankrupt, why, let them pay the usurers themselves.”
-
-February 9.――I did not see Lady Hester the whole of the preceding day:
-she had sent me a message to say she did not wish to trouble me. I
-attributed this to the state of the weather; for the wind was high,
-the atmosphere wet and cold, and everything about the residence
-uncomfortable. To go from my house to Lady Hester’s, I was obliged to
-wear high wooden clogs and a thick Greek capote with a hood to it.
-Umbrellas, from the gusts of wind, were out of the question. The
-ground was like soap. But it was not the weather that made her decline
-my visit: she had been closeted with a doctor of the country from Dayr
-el Kamar, the son of that _Metta_ of whom mention has been made in a
-former part of these pages as having bequeathed his family as a legacy
-to her. He was come, as it was supposed, to give his opinion on her
-case. I took no umbrage at this. Lady Hester and I differed _toto
-cœlo_ on medical points; and she told me very often, after discussions
-of this sort, that she had invited me to come this time, not as her
-physician, but as a friend; one in whom she had confidence to settle
-her debts.
-
-The muleteers had been sent on the 7th of February to Mar Elias, to
-bring away the effects which had been lying there, rotting and
-spoiling, since Miss Williams’s death. I accompanied them to
-superintend the moving, as also to pay a visit to General Loustaunau.
-Heavens! what waste was I witness to! In one closet was a beautiful
-wax miniature of Mr. Pitt, a portrait of the Duke of York, some other
-pictures, stationery, glass, china, medicines, &c., enough for a
-family. In one room were carpets, cushions, counterpanes, mattresses,
-pillows, all completely destroyed by mould and damp. In a store-room
-were large japan canisters with tea, preserves, sugar, wine, lamps,
-&c. From another room, (the roof of which had fallen in at the time of
-the great earthquake,) had disappeared, according to Lady Hester’s
-account, 3 cwt. of copper utensils, in cauldrons, boilers, saucepans,
-kettles, round platters, called _sennéyah_, and many other things. A
-leather portmanteau lay with the lock cut out; a trunk had its hinges
-wrenched off; and both were emptied of their contents. Everywhere
-proofs of pillage were manifest, and the village of Abra was
-notoriously thriving by it. For ten years this plundering system had
-been going on, and yet what still remained would have almost filled a
-house. Among other things were papers and boxes of seeds, roots, dried
-plants, and a variety of such matters, which Lady Hester had
-collected: “for,” she would say, “the importance of people’s pursuits
-is judged in a different way by different individuals. For example,
-Sir Joseph Banks would think I had done wonders if I found a spider
-that had two more joints than another in his hind-leg; and Sir Abraham
-Hume would embrace me if I had got a coin not in his collection; but I
-have hoarded up something for everybody. And yet, whether I have done
-good for humanity or for science, those English give me credit for
-nothing, and never even once ask how I got into debt.”
-
-February 10.――I spent four hours with Lady Hester Stanhope this
-evening. She was very ill, and greatly convulsed during the greater
-part of the time:――she moaned a good deal――yet, in the intervals of
-ease that she got, she had two baskets of good things packed up as a
-present to an old French widow, and two for an infirm old man, her
-pensioner, residing at Sayda.
-
-Monday, February 13.――Lady Hester to-day dictated the following letter
-to Sir Edward Sugden:――
-
-
-               _Lady Hester Stanhope to Sir Edward Sugden._
-
-                                         Jôon, February 12, 1838.
-
-          Sir,
-
-     Born an aristocrat (for this assurance I received from your
-     father, whom it appeared to annoy as much as it delighted
-     me), with these genuine feelings it will not be necessary
-     for me to make any excuses for bringing so abruptly before
-     you a subject, which relates to this cause as well as that
-     of justice.
-
-     I will not bore you with long details; for it will be
-     sufficient for you to know that after my arrival in the East
-     I was not regarded by any class of persons with the same
-     eyes of suspicion as strangers generally are. I have had it
-     in my power, without making use of intrigue or subterfuge on
-     my part, or hurting the religious or political feeling of
-     others in any way, to hear and investigate things which had
-     never yet been investigated. This fortunate circumstance
-     does not relate to those who profess Islamism alone, but to
-     all the curious religions (not sects) which are to be found
-     in the different parts of the East. Not that I have learned
-     the secrets of one religion to betray them to another――on
-     the contrary, I have observed an inviolable silence with
-     all; but it has served to enlighten, as well as consolidate
-     my own ideas, and given me an opportunity of seeking
-     corroboratory evidence of many wonderfully important and
-     abstract things, which has been hitherto very satisfactory.
-
-     The revolutions and public calamities, which often take
-     place in what is called a semi-barbarous country, call for
-     great presence of mind and energy, and a degree of humanity
-     and liberality unknown in Europe. To have unfortunate
-     sufferers starving at your gate until you have had an
-     opportunity of inquiring into their private life and
-     character, and of investigating how far it is likely to
-     endanger your own life, or risk your property, in receiving
-     them――these reflections are not made in the East. One takes
-     one’s chance; and if one wishes to keep up the character of
-     either an Eastern monarch or an Eastern peasant, you must
-     treat even an enemy in misfortune _avec les mêmes égards_
-     that you would do a friend. Starting upon this principle
-     (which is, indeed, a natural one, and was always mine),
-     there were times in which I have been obliged to spend more
-     money than I could well afford, and this has been the cause
-     of my incurring debts; not that I owe a farthing to a poor
-     peasant or a tradesman, but all to usurers and rascals, that
-     have lent their money out at an exorbitant interest. You may
-     judge of their conscience. In the last levy of troops, made
-     about two months ago by Ibrahim Pasha, some rich peasants
-     gave 100 per cent. for six months for money to buy off their
-     sons who were conscripts.
-
-     I often abuse the English; and for why? because they have
-     nearly lost their national character. The aristocracy is a
-     proud, morose, inactive class of men, having no great
-     fundamental principles to guide them, and not half the power
-     that they give to themselves――very little more worthy of
-     being trusted by their Sovereign than by the people――full of
-     ideas, all egotistical, and full of their own importance and
-     weight in a country, which may differ from an ounce to a
-     pound in twenty-four hours by the wavering political line of
-     conduct that they may observe during that time, and which
-     neither secures the confidence of the people, nor the
-     friendship of their Sovereign. And these columns of state
-     may be reckoned a sort of ministers without responsibility,
-     but who ought to be willing at all times to make every
-     possible sacrifice for the honour of the crown and for the
-     good of the people in cases of emergency and misfortune.
-
-     Had I been an English peer, do you suppose I would have
-     allowed the Duke of York’s debts to remain unpaid? I should
-     have laid down a large sum, and have engaged my brethren to
-     have done the same. If I had not succeeded, I should have
-     broken my coronet, and have considered myself of neither
-     greater nor smaller importance than the sign of a duke’s
-     head in front of a public-house. But, ever willing to come
-     forward with my life and property, I should expect that the
-     Sovereign would treat me with respect, * * * * * *
-
-     I have been written to by the Consul-General for Egypt and
-     Syria, Colonel Campbell, that, if I do not pay _one_ of my
-     numerous creditors, I shall be deprived of my pension. I
-     should like to see that person come forward who dares to
-     threaten a Pitt! Having given themselves a supposed right
-     over the pension, they may take it all. In the early part of
-     my life, there was nothing I feared so much as plague,
-     shipwreck, and debt; it has been my fate to suffer from them
-     all. Respecting my debts, of course I had expectations of
-     their being settled; but if I was deceived in these
-     expectations, I kept in view the sale of my pension, as well
-     as of an annuity of £1500 a-year, left me by my brother, if
-     the worst came to the worst. The importance of the plan I
-     was pursuing must, as you can easily imagine, have appeared
-     most arbitrary, from my coolly deliberating that the moment
-     might arrive when I should make myself a beggar; but I
-     should have done my duty. What sort of right, then, had the
-     Queen to meddle with my affairs, and to give orders, in
-     total ignorance of the subject, upon the strength of an
-     appeal from a man whose claims might be half fabulous, and
-     to offer me the indignity of forbidding a foreign consul to
-     sign the certificate that I was among the number of the
-     living, in order to get my pension into her hands? * * I
-     have written a few lines on the subject, and there is my
-     final determination:――“I shall give up my pension, and with
-     it the name of an English subject, and the slavery that is
-     entailed upon it.” I have too much confidence in the great
-     Disposer of all things, and in the magnificent star that has
-     hitherto borne me above the heads of my enemies, to feel
-     that I have done a rash act. I can be anything but ignoble,
-     or belie the origin from which I sprang.
-
-     I have been assured by those not likely to deceive me, that
-     a large property has been left me in Ireland, which has been
-     concealed from me by my relations. I have put this business
-     into the hands of Sir Francis Burdett; but should I in
-     future require a law opinion upon the subject, _the little
-     aristocratical rascal_ (whose acquaintance I was about to
-     make when a child, had not a democratical quirk of my
-     father’s been the reason of shutting up his family for some
-     time in the country, and preventing the execution of your
-     father’s intention of presenting you to me) will not, I
-     hope, take it ill that I should apply to his superior
-     talents for advice.
-
-     There is a horrible jealousy respecting the friendship that
-     exists between me and Mr. Henry Guys, the French Consul at
-     Beyrout. His grandfather, a learned old gentleman, was in
-     constant correspondence with the great Lord Chesterfield. It
-     is natural, therefore, that his son, the present Mr. Guys’
-     father, should feel interested about me when I first came
-     into the country, and Mr. Henry Guys has always put into
-     execution his father’s friendly intentions towards me. He is
-     a very respectable man, and stands very high in the
-     estimation of all classes of persons: and, as at one time
-     there was no English consul or agent at Sayda, the French
-     agent sent a certificate of my life four times a-year to
-     England. At the death of this man, Mr. Guys sent it himself.
-     If you honour me with a reply, I request you to address your
-     letter to him (_aux soins de M. le Chevalier Henri Guys,
-     Consul de France à Beyrout_), notwithstanding he has been
-     named for Aleppo; as it is the only way I am likely to
-     receive my letters unopened, or perhaps at all.
-
-                       Believe me, with esteem and regard, yours,
-
-                                                  H. L. STANHOPE.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-I was much exhausted to-day. I had written six hours to her dictation
-the preceding day, and now sat talking until midnight; but, from the
-late hour at which I left her, it was as usual impossible for me to
-note down even a hundredth part of what she said. For example, it is
-now nearly one o’clock in the morning; and much as I could wish,
-whilst my recollection is fresh, to make a few memorandums of the many
-things she has been saying, my eyelids droop, and I am forced to lay
-down my pen: yet one anecdote I must try to commit to paper. In
-reading over the letter to Sir Edward Sugden, she made the following
-remark: “The peers in England may be compared to doctors who have made
-their fortunes: if they continue to practise, they do it out of regard
-to some particular families, or from humane motives. They know better
-than those who are sick what is good for them, because they have had
-long practice; and, if their sons are no doctors, they have heard so
-much talk about the matter, that they sit in a corner, and watch the
-effect of the medicine.”
-
-I was struck with the resemblance of Lady Hester’s style to Junius’s
-in her letter to Sir Edward. This led me to reflect, as I had observed
-on many occasions, that Lady Hester’s language was the counterpart of
-her grandfather’s, whether Lord Chatham might not have been the author
-of Junius’s Letters; but it has since been suggested to me that there
-would be an absurdity in such a supposition (for I had no opportunity
-of consulting books where I was), because some of the most eloquent
-passages of Junius are his panegyrics on Lord Chatham, and it is not
-likely that he would have been guilty of writing a eulogium on
-himself; however, I mentioned it to her. She answered, “My grandfather
-was perfectly capable and likely to write and do things which no human
-being would dream came from his hands. I once met with one of his
-spies,” continued she, “a woman of the common class, who had passed
-her life dressed in man’s clothes: in this way she went, as a sailor,
-to America, and used to write him letters as if to a sweetheart,
-giving an account of the enemy’s ships and plans in a most masterly
-way, in the description of a box of tools, or in something so unlike
-the thing in question that no suspicion could be had of the meaning of
-the contents. This woman by accident passed me at a watering-place,
-whilst I was sitting near the sea-side talking to my brother, and
-stopped short on hearing the sound of my voice, which was so much like
-my grandfather’s that it struck her――and there is nothing
-extraordinary in this: I have known a horse do the same thing. My
-father had two piebald horses: they were very vicious, and hated one
-of the grooms so, that, one day, whilst he was taking them out for
-exercise, one threw him, and the other flew at him, and attempted to
-strike him with his fore-feet; but, as he could not succeed, the
-other, that had run off, turned back, seized the groom with his teeth,
-and bit him and shook him: that very horse went blind, and got into an
-innkeeper’s hands, who made a post-horse of him. One day, on the high
-road, I saw him, and made an exclamation to somebody who was with me.
-The horse, although blind, knew my voice, and stopped short, just like
-the woman. I too was struck with the woman’s manner; and, without
-saying anything, went next morning at daylight, before anybody was
-about, to the same spot, and, finding the woman there again, inquired
-who and what she was. A conversation ensued, and the woman was
-delighted, she said, to behold once again something that reminded her
-of her old employer. As for the ministers of the present day, she
-observed, they are good for nothing: when I went to prefer my claim
-for a pension, one called me Goody-two-shoes, and told me to go about
-my business.
-
-“A government should never employ spies of the description generally
-chosen――men of a certain appearance and information, who may be
-enabled to mix in genteel society: they are always known or suspected.
-My grandfather pursued quite a different plan. His spies were among
-such people as Logmagi*  *――a hardy sailor, who would get at any risk
-into a port, to see how many ships there were, and how many effective
-men――or a pedlar, to enter a camp――and the like. This was the way he
-got information as to the state of the armament at Toulon: and such a
-one was the woman I have just told you about, who knew me by the sound
-of my voice.
-
-“There were two hairdressers in London, the best spies Buonaparte had.
-A hairdresser, generally speaking, must be a man of talent――so must a
-cook; for a cook must know such a variety of things, about which no
-settled rules can be laid down, and he must have great judgment.
-
-“Do you think I did not immediately perceive that those four Germans
-we met at ―――― were spies?――directly. I never told B**** and Lord
-S**** because they would have let it out again: François was the only
-one who knew it besides myself. He took an opportunity one day of
-saying to me, when nobody was by, ‘My lady, one of those
-Germans....’――‘Yes, yes, François, I understand you,’ answered I,
-before he had said three words: ‘you need not put me on my guard, but
-I am much obliged to you.’――‘Why, my lady,’ said François, ‘when I was
-one day standing sentry at Buonaparte’s tent, there was one of those
-very gentlemen I have seen go in and out: I recollect his face
-perfectly.’ François was right, doctor: there they were――there was
-the sick one, and the learned one, and the musician, and the
-officer――for all sorts of persons.
-
-“You recollect, when we were at Constantinople, one day I went to meet
-the Count de la Tour Maubourg on the banks of the Bosphorus, and he
-intimated to me that I had kept him waiting. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘there was
-a spy following my boat: I knew him directly, and wanted to prevent
-his dogging me.’ ‘Pooh! nonsense,’ replied Mr. de la T. M.: but we had
-not talked for half an hour, when, lo! there he was, taking a look at
-us. Next day, when I saw Mr. Canning, ‘Oh! Lady Hester,’ said he, ‘how
-did you spend your day yesterday?’――‘Why,’ answered I, ‘your spy did
-not spoil it.’――‘Ah!’ rejoined he, laughing――for he perceived at once
-it was of no use to make a mystery of what he had done――‘you should
-not do such things――I must write it home to government.’――‘Yes,’ said
-I, ‘I’ll write a letter, too, in this way:――My lord, your excellent
-young minister, to show his gallantry, has begun his diplomatic career
-by watching ladies in their assignations, &c., &c.’ and then I laughed
-at him, and then I talked seriously with him, till I worked on his
-feelings in a way you can’t think!
-
-“Spies, as I said before, should never be what are called gentlemen,
-or have the appearance of such; for, however well they may be paid,
-somebody else will always pay them better;――unless fortune should
-throw in your way a man of integrity, who, from loyalty or a love of
-his country, will adventure everything for the cause he is engaged in:
-such a man is another sort of a thing!”
-
-February 14.――Being Wednesday, I was, as usual, deprived of the honour
-of seeing Lady Hester until night; I therefore remained with my
-family, and, having recovered the lost spoon, which my servant
-produced out of fear of Hamâady’s examination, pretending to have
-found it, I took the opportunity of settling his wages and turned him
-away.
-
-After sunset I waited on her. She was in low spirits. “I am very
-weak,” said she. “Look at my veins――they did not use to be so: look at
-my arms, too――mere skin and bone.” She pointed to the state of her
-room: “See how filthy it is again already,” she observed; “and if I
-say a word, those wretches seem not to mind me――they snub me, doctor.”
-
-She attempted to dictate the letter she proposed writing to the Duke
-of Wellington, but was unable. We drank tea. “Do you know,” she said,
-“when old Malti” (this was the name Mr. Abella, the English agent, was
-generally designated by) “came in such a hurry, the other day, with
-Colonel Campbell’s letter, and made such a fuss about delivering it
-with his own hand, people fancied I was going to die, and that he was
-come up to seal my effects the moment the breath should be out of my
-body. But, if I do die, they sha’n’t seal anything of mine, I’ll take
-care of that; for I am no longer an English subject, and therefore
-they have nothing to do with me.”
-
-Again she asked me to take my pen and paper, and returned to the Duke
-of Wellington’s letter. “I can’t collect my ideas,” she said: “one
-while I am thinking of what Mr. Pitt said of him; then of the letter
-he wrote when invited down to the country ball; then of what he is
-now: so put down your paper, and ring for a pipe. The duke is a man
-self-taught, for he was always in dissipation. I recollect, one day,
-Mr. Pitt came into the drawing-room to me――‘Oh!’ said he, ‘how I have
-been bored by Sir Sydney coming with his box full of papers, and
-keeping me for a couple of hours, when I had so much to do!’ I
-observed to him that heroes were generally vain: ‘Lord Nelson is so.’
-‘So he is,’ replied Mr. Pitt; ‘but not like Sir Sydney: and how
-different is Arthur Wellesley, who has just quitted me! He has given
-me details so clear upon affairs in India! and he talked of them, too,
-as if he had been a surgeon of a regiment, and had nothing to do with
-them; so that I know not which to admire most, his modesty or his
-talents: and yet the fate of India depends upon them.’ Then, doctor,
-when I recollect the letter he wrote to Edward Bouverie, in which he
-said that he could not come down to the ball which Bouverie had
-invited him to, for that his only corbeau coat was so bad he was
-ashamed to appear in it, I reflect what a rise he has had in the
-world. Bouverie said――‘You would like to dance with him amazingly,
-Lady Hester: he is a good fellow.’
-
-“He was at first, doctor, nothing but what hundreds of others are in a
-country town――a man who danced, and drank hard. His star has done
-every thing for him; for he is not a great general.[32] He is no
-tactician, nor has he any of those great qualities that make a Cæsar,
-or a Pompey, or even a Buonaparte. As for the battle of Waterloo, both
-French and English have told me that it was a lucky battle for him,
-but nothing more. I don’t think he acted well at Paris: nor did the
-soldiers like him.”
-
-Thursday, February 15.――This morning, the letter to the Duke of
-Wellington was written.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-
-            _Lady Hester Stanhope to the Duke of Wellington._
-
-                                         Jôon, February 13, 1838.
-
-          My dear Duke,
-
-     If you merit but half the feeling and eloquent praise I
-     heard bestowed upon you shortly before I saw you for the
-     first time, you are the last man in the world either to be
-     offended or to misconstrue my motives in writing to you upon
-     the subject in question, or not to know how to account for
-     the warmth of the expressions I may make use of, which are
-     only characteristic of my disposition.
-
-     Your Grace’s long residence in the East will have taught you
-     that there is no common rate character in England an
-     adequate judge what manner of living best answers among a
-     semi-barbarous people, and how little possible it is to
-     measure one’s expenses where frequent revolutions and petty
-     wars are carried on without any provision for the sufferers,
-     from its being considered the duty of every one to assist
-     them as his humanity may dictate or as his circumstances may
-     afford.
-
-     Acre besieged for seven months! some days, 7,000 balls
-     thrown in in twenty-four hours!――at last, taken by storm,
-     and little more than 200 of the garrison remaining!――then
-     the wretched inhabitants, who expected to find succour from
-     their old friends in the country, finding their backs turned
-     upon them in the dread and awe they stood in of Ibrahim
-     Pasha; nay, it is very strange to say that the Franks
-     likewise held back in a most extraordinary manner.
-     Therefore, these unhappy people had no resource but in me,
-     and I did the best I could for them all. Mahomet Ali,
-     Ibrahim Pasha, Sheriff Pasha, all set at me at once, in
-     order to make me give up certain persons, who immediately
-     would have lost their heads for having fought well in the
-     cause which they were engaged in. I opposed them all round
-     single-handed, and said that I neither protected these
-     persons in the English or French name, but in my own, as a
-     poor Arab, who would not give up an unhappy being but with
-     his own life; that there was no other chance of making me
-     bend by any other means than by attempting mine. In this
-     manner I saved some unfortunate beings, whom I got rid of by
-     degrees, by sending them back to their own country, or
-     providing for them at a distance in some way or another. Can
-     you, as a soldier, blame me for what I have done? I should
-     have acted in the same way before your eyes to the victims
-     of your own sword. Then the host of orphans, and widows, and
-     little children, who, to feed or clothe for nearly two
-     years, took away all the ready money with which I ought in
-     part to have paid my debts, and caused new ones!――yet I am
-     no swindler, and will not appear like one. Your Queen had no
-     business to meddle in my affairs. In due time, please God, I
-     should have known how to arrange to satisfy everybody, even
-     if I left myself a beggar. If she pretends to have a right
-     to stop my pension, I resign it altogether, as well as the
-     name of an English subject; for there is no family that has
-     served their country and the crown more faithfully than mine
-     has done, and I am not inclined to be treated with _moins
-     d’égards_ than was formerly shown to a gentleman-like
-     highwayman.
-
-     I have been every day in expectation of a reply from Sir F.
-     Burdett respecting a large property which is said to have
-     been left me in Ireland, and which has been concealed from
-     me for many years. In case of its coming into my hands, I
-     shall still not keep my pension, in order to cut off every
-     communication with the English Government, from whom only
-     proceed acts of folly, which any moment may rebound upon an
-     individual. I chose Sir Francis Burdett to look into my
-     affairs, because I believe him to be a truly conscientious
-     honest man. Although we always disagreed upon politics, we
-     were always the best friends, and it appears to me that he
-     is beginning to see things in their proper light. * * * *
-     All that I have to entreat of your Grace is to allow me to
-     appear in the light in which I really stand――attached to
-     humanity, and attached to royalty, and attached to the
-     claims that one human being has upon another. Nor can I
-     allow myself to be deemed an intriguer; because I have said
-     here, in all societies, that persons who abet those who
-     attempt to shake the throne of Sultan Mahmoud shake the
-     throne of their own sovereign, and, therefore, commit high
-     treason: and among that class of persons I do not choose to
-     rank myself. Nor am I to be reckoned an incendiary, when I
-     seek to vindicate my own character, that never was marked
-     with either baseness or folly:――it may have been, perhaps,
-     with too little consideration for what are called by the
-     world my own interests, and which I, in fact, despise, or at
-     least only consider in a secondary point of view. There is
-     nobody more capable of making the Queen understand that a
-     Pitt is a unique race than your Grace: there is no trifling
-     with them.
-
-     I have sent a duplicate of the enclosed letter to Her
-     Majesty to my Lord Palmerston, through the hands of the
-     English Consul, Mr. Moore. If it has not reached her safe, I
-     hope that you will see that this one does: or otherwise I
-     shall put it in the _Augsburg Gazette_, or in an American
-     newspaper.[33]
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-                                            HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
-
-       *       *       *       *       *
-
-At eleven at night I joined her at tea in her bed-room. She then asked
-me to read all the letters over, to see if anything wanted correction.
-After that, calling for her old parchment-covered blotting-book, she
-took them one by one, and folded them herself, “in order,” as she
-said, “to give me instructions on that head.” Generally speaking, she
-never seemed more happy than when she had a huge packet of despatches
-to put up: I dare say it reminded her of former times.
-
-She began――“Now, doctor, a letter to a great man should fold over
-exactly to the middle――thus. Lord! what counting-house paper have you
-got here?――this will never do” (it was the thin paper common in France
-as letter-paper). I told her it was the very best there was in the
-house, and added, to quiet her, that thick paper, when fumigated in
-quarantine, as this must be, generally seemed to me to suffer more
-than thin; which is the fact. “Humph――ah! well, it is too late now to
-alter it; so it must go as it is.” She then folded the cover with
-great exactitude; but, looking round her, she cried, “There, now, that
-black beast has not given me the seal!” (ding, ding). “Zezefôon,
-where’s the seal?” Zezefôon was the only servant who was permitted to
-touch the seal, and she always had orders to put it away carefully, so
-that the other maids should not know where it was, for fear they
-should lend it to some rascal, (like Girius Gemmel, she would say,)
-who would put her signature to some forged letter or paper: and
-Zezefôon, as is customary with uneducated persons, hid it very often
-so carefully that she could not find it herself. After turning books
-and papers upside down, at last she produced it.
-
-Whilst melting the wax in the candle, Lady Hester went on:――“Doctor,
-you never now can seal a letter decently: you once used to do it
-tolerably well, but now you have lost your memory and all your
-faculties, from talking nothing but rubbish and empty nonsense to
-those nasty women; and that’s the reason why you never listen to
-anything one says, and answer ‘yes,’ and ‘no,’ without knowing to
-what.”
-
-I gave her the letters in succession to seal, until exhausted by the
-effort――for now the least thing was too much for her――she fell back in
-her bed. She roused herself again, and said, “Now let’s direct them:
-where is the one to the Queen? Write Victoria Regina――nothing else――in
-the middle ... that will do very well. Whose is that?――the Speaker’s:
-very well. I wonder if it _is_ the brother I used to play driving
-horses with; for there were several brothers. Now, look for his
-address――James――ah! that’s him: direct ‘To the Right Hon. Speaker’ ...
-no, stop: put ‘To the Right Hon. James Abercrombie, with three et
-ceteras, Carlton Gardens.’”
-
-The next letter was the Duke of Wellington’s. Lady Hester said, “Let
-me see――he’s a field marshal――ah, never mind: you must begin――‘To His
-Grace the Duke of Wellington, K.G.’” I accordingly did so, and, not
-knowing how much more was coming to complete the superscription, I put
-it all, for fear of wanting room, into one line. Her eye was on me as
-I wrote. “What’s that?――show it me?” she cried out; and, taking the
-letter in her hands, she put on her spectacles. What an exclamation
-burst from her! “Good God, doctor! are you mad?――what can you
-mean?――what is this vulgar ignorance, not to know that ‘His Grace’
-should be in one line, and ‘The Duke of Wellington, K.G.’ in the
-other: what people will he fancy I am got among! why, the lowest clerk
-in the Foreign Office would not have made such a blunder: this is your
-fine Oxford education!” and then she gave a deep sigh, as if in utter
-despair, to think that a letter should go forth from her hands so
-different in paper, seal, and address, from those of her early days,
-when she reigned in Downing Street, co-equal with Mr. Pitt. Now it was
-a rickety old card-table, a rush-bottomed chair, a white pipe-clay
-inkstand, wax that would not be used in a counting-house in Cheapside;
-and both the Sultaness and her vizir (for so I shall presume to style
-her and myself), fitting their spectacles on their noses, equally
-blind, equally old, and almost equally ailing.
-
-I finished the address to the Duke. “How many et ceteras have you
-put?” asked Lady Hester:――“what! only two? I suppose you think he’s a
-nobody!” The remaining letters were directed without farther trouble,
-but, by some unaccountable blunder, Sir Edward Sugden was made a Sir
-Charles of. A long deliberation ensued, whether the letter to Her
-Majesty should be enclosed in a cover to Lord Palmerston, or whether
-it should be left to be seen by the English consul at Beyrout, to
-frighten him.
-
-It was now three o’clock in the morning. I quitted Lady Hester, and
-had Ali Hayshem, the confidential messenger, called out of his bed. I
-repeated to him Lady Hester’s instructions as follows:――“You are to
-take this packet, and start at sunrise precisely――not before, and not
-after――and to take care you deliver the letters into M. Guys’s hands
-before sunset: for it is Friday, and Friday is an auspicious day.
-There are ten piasters for your two days’ keep, and let no one know
-where you are going, nor for what.”
-
-Ali was accustomed to this business――laid his hand on his head to
-signify that should answer for his fidelity――made a low salàam――went
-to the cook for his five bread-cakes――turned in again upon his
-libàd――pulled his counterpane over his body, face and all, and, I dare
-say, was punctual to his hour and his instructions. Men of this sort,
-who are generally chosen from the peasantry, are invaluable as
-foot-messengers. With a _naboot_ or small bludgeon, well knobbed at
-one end, and with a few bread-cakes in their girdle, they will set off
-at any hour, in any weather, for any place, and go as quick as a
-horseman. They sleep anywhere and anyhow, and deliver their messages
-and letters with exceeding punctuality. Ali was a handsome fellow, the
-picture of health, fearless of danger, and a great favourite with Lady
-Hester, to whose service he was devoted; therefore, at every Byràm,
-Ali was sure to be seen in a new suit of clothes, the envy of the men,
-and the admiration of all the girls of Jôon: but he knew how to make a
-proper use of his money. Already he had begun to trade with some
-success in silk, advancing small sums in the winter to the poor women
-who breed silkworms, for which he received silk in payment: this he
-resold in the city; and those who may chance to meet with Ali ten
-years hence might find in him a warm tradesman, smoking his pipe in
-the midst of his obsequious dependants, and dignified with the title
-of Shaykh or Maalem.
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-     [24] Lady Hester one day said, “I have a little angel under
-          my command, the angel of my star――such a sweet little
-          creature!――not like those ridiculous ones who are
-          fiddling in Italian pictures. What fools painters are,
-          to think angels are made so!”
-
-     [25] Mr. Joseph Green, lecturer on anatomy at the Royal
-          Academy.
-
-     [26] There is a passage in an interesting domestic
-          tale recently published (_The History of Margaret
-          Catchpole_, by the Rev. Mr. Cobbold), which has a
-          strange coincidence with the superstitious belief of
-          the Syrians, considering how widely the English are
-          separated from them. It is as follows: “He told me he
-          was the most venemous snake in the country. His bite
-          is attended with swelling and blackness of the body,
-          and, _when the sun goes down_, death ensues.”――Vol.
-          ii., p. 188.
-
-     [27] I once showed Lady Hester Stanhope Raphael’s Madonna
-          della Seggiola, to hear what she would say about it.
-          “The face,” she observed, “is congruous in all the
-          lineaments; they all belong to the same star; but I
-          don’t like that style of face――that is not the star
-          that pleases me;” and she returned me the engraving,
-          with some signs of impatience. I imagined, as there
-          was a maid in the room, that she did so, lest the girl
-          should report that she adored the Virgin Mary. I then
-          showed her a painting of the Nozze Aldobrandini. “Ah!”
-          said she, after examining it, “that figure,” pointing
-          to the one farthest on the spectator’s right hand,
-          “is the star I like, only the eyes do not belong to
-          that countenance: if the eyes were as they ought to
-          be, that figure would be charming.” There was much
-          truth in the observations she made on the blunders
-          of artists and sculptors in giving incongruous
-          features to their works. An ordinary observer has
-          only to look at the statues of the ancients, and he
-          will find that the forehead, nose, mouth, ears, and
-          limbs of a Minerva, are such as he will see in grave
-          and dignified women, totally different from the same
-          features in a Diana or a Venus. Each temperament, each
-          class of beings in nature, has its external marks,
-          which never vary in character, but only in degree. But
-          painters are accustomed to make a selection of what
-          they suppose the most perfect Grecian lines, and to
-          clap them on to a body, whether it be for a muse, an
-          amazon, a nymph, or a courtezan: this is obviously
-          false. “There are some women who are born courtezans,”
-          Lady Hester would say, “and whatever their station
-          in life is, they must be so. Thus, Lady ―――― was so
-          by nature; from the time she first came out, she had
-          the air of a woman of the town: Mademoiselle de ――――,
-          who married one of the ――――, nothing could have ever
-          altered her. There was a woman for great passions! it
-          was almost indecent to be where she was.”
-
-     [28] This alludes to the childhood of Lady Hester Stanhope,
-          when she had played at horses with Mr. Abercrombie.
-
-     [29] Lady Hester one day showed me fourteen of these
-          articles of ladies’ apparel, six or seven of which
-          were in slits and holes, so that a maid-servant in
-          England would not have accepted them as a gift: she
-          said her maids had torn them by their rough handling
-          in dressing her. I had them sent to my house, and they
-          were all mended. She expressed herself as grateful for
-          this little service to my daughter and the governess,
-          as if she had been a pauper clothed at their door!
-
-     [30] I was once speaking of the great results which might
-          be expected from Messrs. Beck and Moore’s successful
-          investigation of the natural phenomena of the Dead
-          Sea: but Lady Hester damped my admiration of those
-          gentlemen’s hazardous undertaking, by exclaiming that
-          all English travellers were a pack of fools, and
-          that they entirely neglected the objects that ought
-          to be inquired into. “There are none of them,” said
-          she, “that know half as much as I do. I’ll venture to
-          say they never heard of the forty doors, all opening
-          by one key, in which are locked the forty wise men
-          who expect the Murdah. Didn’t I tell you the story
-          the other day?” I answered, if she had, I must have
-          forgotten it, which was fortunate, as I was always
-          reluctant to show my dissent from her opinions;
-          having, by experience, learned how necessary it was
-          to proceed cautiously in doing so. “Yes, so it is,”
-          rejoined Lady Hester: “I talk for half a day to you,
-          wasting my breath and lungs, and there you sit like a
-          stock or a stone――no understanding, no conviction!”
-
-     [31] The korbàsh is a thong of the raw hide of the buffalo
-          or rhinoceros, about the length of a hand-whip, and
-          cut tapering in a similar form. In the hand of a
-          powerful flagellant it becomes an instrument of great
-          torture.
-
-     [32] There is a strong resemblance between Lady Hester’s
-          character of the Duke of Wellington and that of
-          Frederick the Great of Prussia: for see what Lord
-          Malmesbury says of the latter, in his _Diaries and
-          Correspondence_, vol. i., p. 8:――
-
-          “His _fort_ is not so much his courage, nor what we
-          generally understand by conduct; but it consists in a
-          surprising discernment, in the day of battle, how to
-          gain the most advantageous ground, where to place the
-          proper sort of arms, whether horse or foot, and in the
-          quickest _coup d’œil_ to distinguish the weak part of
-          the enemy.”
-
-     [33] Several lines are here wanting, owing to a half sheet
-          of paper having been lost in the confusion created
-          by fumigating papers in quarantine. They were highly
-          complimentary to his grace, and their omission is to
-          be regretted.
-
-
-
-
-                               CHAPTER IX.
-
-Lady Hester in an alcove in her garden――Lucky days observed by
-her――Consuls’ rights――Mischief caused by Sir F. B.’s neglect in
-answering Lady Hester’s Letters――Rashes common in Syria――Visit of an
-unknown Englishman――Story of Hanah Messâad――Lady Hester’s love of
-truth――Report of her death――Michael Tutungi――Visit from the Chevalier
-Guys――His reception at Dayr el Mkhallas――Punishment of the shepherd,
-Câasem――Holyday of the Korbàn Byràm――Fatôon’s _accouchement_――Lady
-Hester’s aversion to consular interference――Evenings at Jôon――Old
-Pierre――Saady.
-
-
-Friday, February 16, 1838.――About two in the afternoon, on going to
-pay my visit to Lady Hester Stanhope, I proceeded to her bed-room,
-thinking, as usual, to find her there, but was told by her maids she
-was gone into the garden. The day was overcast, and there was every
-appearance of rain. I found her standing in one of the garden-walks,
-leaning on her stick (such as those which elderly ladies were
-accustomed formerly to use in England, and perhaps may now), and pale
-as a ghost. “Doctor,” said she, “I have got out of my room that those
-beasts may clean it? but, if you don’t go to them, they’ll steal
-everything.” After expressing my fears that she had chosen a bad day
-to come out, I left her. I saw her room put into as much order as the
-confusion in it would admit of. It was crowded with bundles one upon
-another, as before, which she dared not put into any other part of the
-house, lest they should be stolen.
-
-Independent of her desire to be more clean and comfortable, I guessed
-at once why she had left her bed-room to go into the garden. It was
-the struggle which the sick often make――the resolution of an unsubdued
-spirit, that finds corporeal ailments weighing down the body, whilst
-the mind is yet unsubdued. It was Friday too, the day in all the week
-she held as most auspicious.
-
-When I returned into the garden, I found her lying on a sofa, in a
-beautiful alcove, one of three or four that embellished her garden,
-and an attendant standing with his hands folded across his breast, in
-an attitude of respect before her. At these moments, she always wore
-the air of a Sultaness. In this very alcove, how often had she acted
-the queen, issued her orders, summoned delinquents before her, and
-enjoyed the semblance of that absolute power, which was the latent
-ambition of her heart! Hence it was that she at last got rid of all
-European servants, because they would not submit to arbitrary
-punishments, but would persist in raising their voices in
-self-justification. With the Turks it was not so. Accustomed, in the
-courts of governors and Pashas, to implicit obedience and submission,
-they resigned themselves to her rule as a matter of course. In
-transferring, however, their servility to her, as their mistress, they
-also transferred the vices and dangers which servility engenders:
-namely, lying, theft, sycophancy, intrigue, and treachery.
-
-Saturday, February 17.――During the whole of this day I did not see
-Lady Hester, and I was not sorry for it. Her thoughts were now
-constantly running on the inexplicable silence of Sir Francis Burdett.
-“He is a man of honour,” she would say. “I suppose he has to write to
-Ireland, and to the right and left about my property; or perhaps they
-have got hold of him, too;――who knows? I am sure something must have
-happened.” As each succeeding steamboat arrived, a messenger was sent
-to Beyrout, but still no answer. Then she reflected what she should
-do, if Sir Francis at last should furnish her with proofs that no
-property had been left her:――beggary stared her in the face. In the
-mean time she had no means of raising a single farthing before the
-first of March, when she could draw for £300. But of this sum £200
-were due to Mr. Dromacaiti, a Greek merchant at Beyrout, who had lent
-her money at an exorbitant interest, but on her word, and this,
-therefore, she would pay, I knew, if possible. During all this time,
-my family remained in almost total ignorance of what was going on
-within Lady Hester’s walls as much as if they had been living in
-China. I was also, as I have said above, obliged to conceal, in a
-great measure, her illness from them. They rode and walked out on the
-mountains, fed their bulbuls, enjoyed the fine climate, and wondered
-what made me look so thin and careworn: for thought and care preyed on
-my spirits, and I wasted away almost as perceptibly as Lady Hester
-herself.
-
-Sunday, February 18.――To-day Lady Hester was sitting up in the corner
-of her bed-room. Her look was deadly pale, and her head was wrapped up
-in flannels, just like her grandfather the last day he appeared in the
-House of Lords. Without intending it, everything she did bore a
-resemblance to that great man.
-
-Ali had returned from Beyrout without a letter. “Did Ali Hayshem,” she
-asked me, “set off at sunrise on Friday? I am glad he did. Do you
-know, I once sent Butrus to Beyrout to fetch money; and I said to him,
-‘If you get in on Monday night, don’t come away on Tuesday or
-Wednesday; for those are unlucky days; loiter away those two days, and
-be here on Thursday night. However, he paid no attention to my
-instructions, and on Wednesday evening he made his appearance. ‘Why
-did you come before Thursday?’ I asked him. He answered, ‘That the bag
-of money having been delivered to him, he had brought it immediately,
-and you see, Mylady, here it is: nobody, thank God! has robbed
-me.’――‘That does not signify,’ I told him; ‘you will see there is no
-_bereky_ [blessing] in it.’ Do you know, doctor, I paid the people’s
-wages immediately, and it was well I did; for some ten or twelve
-thousand piasters, chest and all, disappeared the next day. ‘There,
-look!’ said I to him; ‘I told you that money never would turn to
-account.’”
-
-The conversation reverted to Colonel Campbell’s letter. “I have told
-the secretary,” said she, “to tell his father, that, if he dares make
-his appearance here again, I’ll send a bullet through his body. Not
-one of them shall lay their vile hands on me or mine. I have strength
-enough to strangle him, and I would do it, though it should cost me my
-life. As for Mr. Moore, he may perhaps have a _habeas corpus_ by him;
-but it is good for twenty-four hours only, and I should know how to
-manage. Consuls have no right over nobility; they may have over
-merchants, and such people: but they never shall come near me, and I
-would shoot the first that dared to do it. The English are a set of
-intermeddling, nasty, vulgar, odious people, and I hate them all. The
-very Turks laugh at them. Out of ridicule, they told one, if he was so
-clever, to straiten a dog’s tail. Yes, he might straiten and straiten,
-but it would soon bend again; and they may bend me and bend me, if
-they can, but I fancy they will find it a difficult matter: for you
-may tell them that, when I have made up my mind to a thing, no earthly
-being can alter my determination. If they want a devil, let them try
-me, and they shall have enough of it.
-
-“When the steamboat came, and brought no letter to-day from Sir
-Francis Burdett, you thought I should be ill on receiving the news:
-but I am not a fool. I suppose he is occupied with his daughter’s
-legacy, or with parliamentary business.”
-
-I had received a letter from a lady, which I had occasion to read to
-her. When I had done, and she had expressed her thanks for the
-flower-seeds sent her, she added, “What I do not like in Mrs. U.’s
-letter is that foolish way of making a preamble about her not liking
-to leave so much white paper in all its purity, and all those turns
-and phrases which people use. That was very well for a Swift or a
-Pope, who, having promised to write to somebody once a fortnight, and
-having nothing to say, made a great number of points to fill up the
-paper; but a letter that has matter in it should be written with a
-distinct narration of the business, and that’s all. Do you think such
-people as Mr. Pitt or Lord Chatham, my grandfather, liked those
-nonsensical phrases? No, they threw the letter aside, or else cast
-their eyes over it to see if, on the other page, there was anything to
-answer about.”
-
-February 19.――I was riding this morning with my family beyond the
-village, which is separated by a deep valley from Lady Hester’s
-residence, when I saw two servants on the verge of the opposite hill,
-vociferating――“Come directly, come instantly!” and waving their white
-turbans. I reflected that, if I put my horse into a gallop, the people
-of the village would immediately conclude that Lady Hester was dying;
-and the news (as news always gains by distance) would be the next day
-at Sayda that she was dead: I therefore continued the same pace; and,
-although the servants redoubled their signs and cries, I steadily
-retraced my steps. When I had dismounted, I was told her ladyship was
-in a deplorable way, unlike any thing they had ever seen. I hurried to
-her bed-room. She was sitting on the side of her bed, weeping and
-uttering those extraordinary cries, which I have before compared to
-something hardly human. She clasped her hands and exclaimed
-repeatedly, “Oh God! oh, God! what misery! what misery!” When she was
-a little calmed, and I could collect from her what was the matter, she
-told me that, having fallen into a doze, she awoke with a sense of
-suffocation from tightness across her chest, and, being unable to ring
-or call, she thought she should have died: “thus,” said she, “am I
-treated like a dog, with nobody to administer to my wants;” and so she
-went on in the usual strain. I was suffering at this time from the
-nettlerash, but treated it lightly, and thought Lady Hester would do
-so too: until, having unluckily alluded to it, a fresh source of
-uneasiness was inadvertently started. “Good God, doctor!” she cried,
-“to come out of doors with a nettlerash on you! go to your house
-immediately; get to bed, keep yourself warm, and remain there until it
-is cured. After four or five days, take such and such things; then go
-to the bath, then take some bark, &c., &c. How many persons have I
-known go mad and die from it! You treat it as nothing? why, you will
-drive me crazy. In God’s name, never mind _me_; only go and take care
-of yourself. You will act in your own usual inconsiderate manner, and
-I shall have to bury another in this house. Oh, God! oh, God! what am
-I doomed to!” and then followed fresh cries and fresh lamentations.
-
-Could Sir Francis Burdett have seen all this, and have known that five
-words of a letter, sent a month or two sooner, in answer to her
-inquiries about the property she thought was left her, would have
-probably saved all this excitement, he would have found reason to
-reproach himself for his long silence. I knew the workings of her mind
-full well, and that her proud spirit, wounded by the general neglect
-she met with, vented itself in tears, seemingly, for other causes than
-the real ones. I recollected a succession of similar scenes about
-twenty years before at Mar Elias, when she was expecting letters from
-the Duke of Buckingham; but then she was sounder in bodily health, and
-could better bear such convulsive paroxysms of grief: now, she was
-labouring under pulmonary disease, was old, was in distress, and the
-consequences might prove fatal.
-
-I left her before dinner. “Good by, doctor!” she said, in a kind tone:
-“I cannot tell you how much I am obliged to you for everything you do
-for me; and send me a servant twice a day to let me know how you are.
-I shall be uneasy about you: I can’t help it: from my childhood I have
-been so. How many times in my life have I spent days and days in
-trying to make others comfortable! I have been the slave of others,
-and never got any thanks for it.”
-
-I went to my house, collected all the money that remained, which was
-about eleven pounds, and sent it to her to meet the current expenses
-of the household: for so she wished, that I might not be annoyed, she
-said, and have the rash driven in on my brain.
-
-I experienced no ill effects from the nettlerash. Few persons, new to
-the climate of Syria, escape a rash of some description, sometimes
-pustular, sometimes miliary, but most frequently in the form called
-prickly heat, which generally attacks them in summer or autumn, and is
-truly distressing by the pricking sensation it produces on the skin,
-as if thousands of needle-points were penetrating the cuticle. Little
-is required in such cases but cool diet, fruit, and diluents. I
-performed my quarantine of four days, in compliance with Lady Hester’s
-wishes, and then returned to my customary mode of life.
-
-Saturday, February 24.――As I had anticipated, a report had become very
-general in Beyrout and in the Mountain that Lady Hester was dead, and
-I received a letter from M. Guys acquainting me with it. This report
-was confirmed by an English gentleman, who presented himself at my
-gate this day after breakfast. I was carpentering at the time, and
-went down the yard to him with my hatchet and chisel in my hand. He
-seemed not to know what to make of me, dressed as I was in Turkish
-clothes, with a beard, and with my sleeves turned up like a mechanic.
-He held out a letter to me, addressed in a fair hand to Lady Hester: I
-told him this was not her gate, and that a little beyond he would find
-it. He said he had heard she was dead: I assured him that was not the
-case, but that she was greatly indisposed. I regretted to myself that
-I could not ask him in, or enter into conversation with him; but Lady
-Hester had exacted from me a solemn promise that I never would hold
-any parley with English travellers, until I had first conferred with
-her on the subject, and had described them, so that she might obtain
-the necessary indications to enable her to guess what their business
-was, or until she had read their letter of introduction, if they bore
-one. So he quitted me, first asking whether I was an Englishman; to
-which I answered that I left him to judge. He appeared to be about
-twenty-one years of age: he had with him for his servant a Ragusan,
-whom my servant knew, and who, he assured me, was a drunken reprobate.
-Short as the stop at the gate was, the Ragusan found time to tell the
-other that he had famous wages: I think it was eight dollars a month.
-Now I gave mine, who was also a European, four, which was considered
-good pay, the rate being, in Lady Hester’s house, from one to three.
-Europeans, however, always get more than people of the country, and
-have more wants to satisfy. How many travellers are obliged, on their
-landing in these countries, to take fellows into their service without
-a character, outcasts of society, and who in England would hardly be
-allowed to see the outside of a gaol!
-
-Of this English gentleman Lady Hester never spoke to me, nor did she
-ever even allude to his visit: he did not see her, and, I presume,
-continued his road; but, if these pages ever meet his eye, he may be
-assured that he would have met with a hospitable reception, had she
-been well enough to receive him, or had I been at liberty to entertain
-him.
-
-Whilst at dinner, a servant came to say Lady Hester would be glad to
-see me in the evening. I found her weak and wan: her cheeks were
-sunken, and her voice was less distinct than usual; for never was
-there a person who spoke generally with so clear an enunciation.
-Logmagi was with her. Instead of receiving her welcome, and those
-obliging expressions which she usually employed even after the most
-trifling ailment, she addressed me harshly, and seemed to take pains
-to mortify me by using slighting expressions in Arabic that Logmagi
-might understand what she said. The theme of her conversation was the
-debasement of men who suffered themselves to be controlled by their
-wives. Although to mortify people was one of her constant practices
-through life, whether in action, correspondence, or conversation, yet
-it never was done to gratify any malignant feelings of her own, but
-from a fearless disregard of the conventional rules of civilized
-society, where she hoped to rescue an individual from debasement, or
-counteract the machinations of designing and wicked men. On this
-principle it is true, likewise, that she would deliberately inflict
-those incurable insults which cover a man with a sort of shame for
-life; as may be shown, for example, by the case of Mr. Hanah Messâad,
-the son of the British agent at Beyrout, one of whose whiskers and
-eyebrows was shaved off before the whole village, for having made an
-assertion then supposed to be false, but which was afterwards, by her
-own confession to me, admitted to be true.
-
-Hanah, or John Messâad, a handsome young man, a native of Beyrout, and
-the son of a former English vice-consul, was interpreter and secretary
-to Lady Hester for some time, and her ladyship has since bestowed
-great praise, in my presence, on his capacity, usefulness, and
-knowledge of languages. There was in her service also Michael Tutungi,
-son of an Armenian, who had been under-dragoman, as I understood, to
-the English embassy at Constantinople. Messâad, it was thought, was
-jealous of Michael.
-
-It was reported in the family that Michael had been seen under a tree
-in very close conversation with a peasant girl, and the report was
-traced to Messâad. Now, the Emir Beshýr affected, or really felt, a
-great horror of all licentiousness, and never failed to bastinado
-severely every man detected, in his principality, in any such conduct.
-Lady Hester knew what imputations might be cast on her establishment,
-if such things were left unnoticed; and, fearing that Messâad’s
-intrigues (of which she thought this report but a link) might injure
-Michael’s character, and destroy his prospects of getting a place in
-the English embassy at Constantinople, to which he had some
-pretensions from his father’s services, she resolved to save him by
-making a signal example of Messâad.
-
-She, therefore, ordered all the villagers from Jôon to be assembled on
-the green in front of her house, and sent for Mustafa, the barber,
-from Sayda, with two or three other tradesmen to be witnesses. Seating
-herself on a temporary divan, with all the assembly in a circle around
-her, not a soul dreaming what was going to take place, and Michael and
-Messâad standing in respectful attitudes, with their arms crossed, and
-covered, down to the fingers’ ends,[34] with their benyshes, by her
-side, she began: “That young man,” said she, pointing to Michael, “is
-accused of irregularities with” (here she mentioned the girl’s name,
-and the place and time of the meeting). “Now, if any one of you knows
-him to have been guilty of similar actions, or if, from his general
-conduct, under similar circumstances, any one of you thinks the thing
-probable, speak out, for I wish to do justice. Messâad is his accuser:
-they are both my people, and equally entitled to impartiality.” As
-nobody answered, she appealed to them all again, and all replied they
-did not believe it.
-
-She then turned to Messâad, and said: “Sir, you have accused this
-young man, who is about to be launched into the world, and has only
-his good name to help him on, of abominable things: where are your
-witnesses?” Messâad, frightened out of his senses, replied, “that he
-had no witnesses; that he had seen, with his own eyes, what he had
-asserted, and, therefore, knew it to be so: but, as he was alone, it
-must rest on his own word.” Her ladyship told him his word would not
-do against the concurring testimony of all the servants, and of a
-whole village; and she added, in a judge-like tone, “As your mouth and
-your eye have offended, the stigma shall remain on them. Servants,
-seize and hold him; and, barber, shave off one side of his mustachios
-and one eyebrow.”
-
-This was done. Michael was kept about a month or two, in order that
-the protection he enjoyed might seal his unblemished reputation, and
-then was packed off to Constantinople. “Thus,” said Lady Hester, “I
-saved a young man from destruction. Messâad has now a good place under
-the Sardinian consul at Beyrout; his eyebrows and mustachios are grown
-again; he has married, and has a family; and I dare say the Sardinian
-consul, if he knows anything of the story, thinks not a bit the worse
-of him.”
-
-The above are the words in which Lady Hester, on the 20th of January,
-1831, related this singular punishment, inflicted with the best
-intentions on poor Messâad. One evening, in 1837, when writing a
-letter to the same Messâad, for certain commissions which he had to
-execute for her ladyship, who was in the habit of employing him to buy
-pipes, cloth, and sundry other articles found in the shops at Beyrout,
-she spoke to me as follows. “You know, doctor, all that affair about
-Michael and Messâad, and how I had one side of his face shaved. Well,
-I found out afterwards that what Messâad had said was every bit of it
-true. I have made it up to him since as well as I could: he does not
-want abilities, and kept my house in excellent order whilst he was
-with me.”
-
-But this was not the first time Lady Hester had resorted to this
-singular mode of punishment; some years before, a chastisement for
-similar frailties, not unlike that which Messâad underwent, as far as
-regarded the eyebrows, fell to the lot of a peasant girl in her
-ladyship’s service at a village called Mushmôoshy. This was in the
-year 1813. How fallible are the most clearsighted persons is the only
-comment which can be made on such unintentional errors!
-
-For those who were not exempt from the common weaknesses of our nature
-she was a dangerous person to hold intercourse with. “Live at a
-distance from my lady,” General Loustaunau used to say to Mrs. M.
-(when she wanted to remove from Mar Elias to Dar Jôon, in order to be
-near me); “live at a distance, or you will find, to your cost, that
-her neighbourhood is a hell.” But be it said, to her honour, that it
-was from an unfeigned horror of everything mean, dishonest, or
-vicious, she so resolutely refused to keep terms with people who
-suffered themselves to be led into the commission of such acts; and
-her indignation descended with equal impartiality on friends and foes
-when they happened to deserve it. Her disposition to utter the truth,
-whether painful or disagreeable, overruled all other considerations.
-
-Few people conversed with her, or received a letter from her, without
-being sensible of some expression or innuendo, which they were obliged
-to treat as a joke at the moment, but which was sure to leave its
-sting behind. Of upwards of a hundred letters which I have penned for
-her at her dictation to correspondents of every rank in life, there
-were few which did not contain some touch of merited sarcasm or
-reproof; except those which were expressly written to alleviate
-distress, or encourage the hopeful efforts of modest worth. Never was
-there so inflexible a judge, or one who would do what she thought
-right, come what would of it. _Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum_, might have
-been written on her escutcheon.
-
-Sunday, February 25.――Having recovered her tranquillity, she was
-to-day all kindness. I mentioned to her the report rife in Beyrout
-respecting her death, as M. Guys had written it. She observed on it,
-“If I do die, those consuls, thank God, can have nothing to do with
-me! I am no English subject, and they have no right to seal up my
-effects. Why do I keep some of my servants, although I know them to be
-desperate rascals, but because they have one or two qualities useful
-to me? It would not do for every one to run the risk, but it will for
-me, who know how to manage them. For example: I have got two that I
-can depend upon for shooting a man, or giving a consul a good blow, if
-he dares to set his foot within my doors, so as to prevent his ever
-coming again; and such are what I want just now.”
-
-She turned over in her mind how she could raise a little money, and
-bethought herself of Mr. Michael Tutungi, the Armenian, of
-Constantinople, who had formerly served her in the capacity of
-dragoman. To him she had written in 1836, offering him the same
-situation he had held before, and, on his promise to come, had
-forwarded to him 500 dollars for the expenses of his journey and for
-some commissions: but he subsequently declined the engagement, neither
-had he executed the commissions. She therefore desired me to draw a
-bill on him, payable to M. Guys’s order, and to request M. Guys to
-discount it; for, during my nettlerash, Lady Hester had given away the
-greatest part of the 1,190 piasters to a family ruined by the
-earthquake. It was in vain to represent to her that she was in want of
-the money herself: “I can’t help it,” she would say; “I am not
-mistress of myself on such occasions.”
-
-Tuesday, February 27.――Lady Hester got up, went into her garden, and
-felt better. She had at last found out that repletion, arising even
-from what would be called small quantities of food and drink in
-health, was very injurious in sickness; and she had grown more
-moderate in her diet, not swallowing one liquid upon another, nor
-eating four or five times a day. Honey and butter mixed was now what
-she derived most benefit from, and spermaceti linctuses. The moment
-she found anything soothed her cough, she immediately sent off an
-order to Beyrout for an immense quantity of it, or to Europe, if at
-Beyrout it was not to be had: she was never satisfied that her
-medicine-chest was full enough. It will hardly be credited that of
-Epsom salts she had a cask full, of the size of a firkin. She
-masticated aniseeds as a remedy against dyspepsia, and smoked them
-sprinkled on the tobacco of her pipe: of course, they were very
-injurious to her, but it was idle to remonstrate.
-
-February 29.――Lady Hester’s first topic of conversation to-day was her
-maids. “What a _hywán_ [beast] is that _Sâady_!” she said: “when she
-awakes in the morning, she crawls on all-fours exactly like an animal.
-I am convinced she is nothing more: her back is only fit to carry a
-pair of panniers.” I agreed with her ladyship, and told her what I had
-seen her do the day before. With one springing lift she raised from
-the floor to her head a circular _mankàl_ or chafingdish, two feet in
-diameter, and piled up with live coals――and, without holding it, but
-merely balancing it on her head, she stooped perpendicularly, and
-seized with her two hands another mankàl of baked earth of equal size,
-filled with live coals also, and, lifting it, carried them both at
-once into the drawing-room to warm the apartment. These are the feats
-of dexterity and strength in which Syrian women excel, and in which
-they far surpass all European maids.
-
-March 1.――Monsieur Henry Guys, the French consul, having been advanced
-to the superior situation of Aleppo, and being about to quit our part
-of the country, arrived unexpectedly at Jôon to take his leave. It was
-Tuesday, and just after sunset, when he entered the gate. Lady Hester
-had, about a quarter of an hour before, hurried me away from her, as
-the sun was going to set, and it would have been unlucky, had I left
-her a minute after the sun was down. “I shall not see you to-morrow,”
-said she, “as it will be Wednesday:” therefore, when she was told that
-Monsieur Guys was come, it discomposed her very much, and she sent
-word that, whatever his business was, she could not see him until
-after sunset next day.
-
-As M. Guys was thus transferred to me for twenty-four hours, I took
-the opportunity of letting him know how disquieted I felt at having
-such great responsibility on my shoulders, whilst Lady Hester was so
-ill, and surrounded by a set of servants whom I considered as so many
-cut-throats.
-
-My position was extremely uncomfortable. Should Lady Hester die, I
-foresaw that I should be exposed, alone as I was, to many difficulties
-and dangers. The Druze insurrection afforded every facility to an
-assassin or robber for putting himself beyond the reach of justice:
-since, in about five or six hours, he could find a sure refuge from
-capture. He revived my spirits by assuring me I need be under no
-alarm. “All of them are known,” said he, “and have their families and
-relations hereabouts: that one circumstance must always be a check
-upon them. If they were not natives of the province, then I should
-say you were not safe among them. As for Lady Hester, you know her
-determined character――if she is resolved to keep them, you cannot help
-it. There is one,” added he, “whom I could wish not to be here; I
-thought him gone a year ago:” this was the one whom Lady Hester relied
-on for sending a bullet through the consul’s body.
-
-There is a large stone edifice of great extent, distant about
-three-quarters of a mile, as the crow flies, from the village of Jôon,
-more like a fortress than the peaceable habitation of cenobites. It is
-the monastery of _Dayr el Mkhallas_, or the Saviour, and contains
-about fifty friars of the Greek Catholic church, which repudiates the
-pope, recognizing as its spiritual head its own patriarch. M. Guys
-enjoyed the unlimited confidence of these people as the well-tried and
-efficient friend of the Catholic church throughout Syria; and it was
-no sooner known that he was in the neighbourhood, than the superior of
-the monastery gave him to understand that a visit from him would be
-received as a great honour by the monks. M. Guys devoted the morning
-to this gratifying object, and his reception was in the highest degree
-flattering. When he arrived at the foot of the Mount, on the summit of
-which the monastery stands, he was saluted by a merry chime of
-church-bells, and then the whole body of the friars, with the cross
-borne before them, came out in procession to meet him. The greatest
-ceremony was observed on the occasion, and sherbet, coffee, pipes,
-aspersion of rose-water, and homage, were lavished on him, not less in
-the hope of securing a continuation of his good offices, than as
-expressive of gratitude for past kindnesses: for no man holding
-official rank in Syria has ever enjoyed more popularity, or obtained
-more general consideration, than the Chevalier Guys. Descended from an
-ancient family of Provence, in which the consular rank may be almost
-said to have become hereditary, the Levant saw, at the beginning of
-the present century, the rare occurrence of three brothers holding
-consulships at the same time.
-
-After dinner, M. Guys was summoned by Lady Hester Stanhope, and I
-availed myself of the opportunity it afforded me of remaining at home
-for the evening. The next morning he departed before I was up; but,
-being anxious to ascertain his opinions of Lady Hester’s situation, I
-mounted my horse, and, by taking a short but somewhat dangerous path
-down the mountains, I overtook him. Nothing particular, however, had
-transpired in their conversation, which lasted for four hours; but he
-told me that he was shocked to find her so much altered, and that he
-had never heard such a hollow sepulchral cough. He added that,
-frequently during the time he was with her, she fell back on the sofa
-from exhaustion. She spoke, too, a good deal, and in rather an odd
-way, of extraordinary sights she had seen, of two apparitions that had
-appeared to her, and of serpents near Tarsûs, which go in troops
-devouring all before them, and with a tone of conviction as if she
-believed it all. “What does it mean,” he asked me――“and why do you let
-her smoke so much?”
-
-March 2.――Lady Hester was now getting better slowly, but, as usual,
-her strength no sooner began to return than it brought out all the
-unmanageable points of her character in full relief. Something
-happened in the house which ruffled her, and produced a discussion
-between us, I hardly know how; but it ended by her calling me a
-crabbed old fool: upon which I observed, that I never heard such
-expressions from the lips of ladies before. This set her off upon her
-inexhaustible theme of fearless speaking. “If you were a duke,” said
-she, “I would use exactly the same expressions.”――“Your ladyship’s
-talents,” I ventured to observe again, “are inexpressibly great, but,
-without questioning that, I only lament the intemperate use of them.”
-Taking up this observation, she dwelt at great length upon the
-“sweetness of her temper,” and I made my peace at last, by saying that
-a physician should be the last person to complain of the irritability
-of his patients. Apophthegms of this submissive character were never
-lost upon her, provided they were true, as well as apologetic; so
-pipes were ordered, and we entered into an armistice for the rest of
-the evening.
-
-A curious but characteristic incident occurred about this time. In the
-ravines of the mountains, where the few living creatures that are to
-be found may be supposed to be drawn into closer communion by a common
-sense of loneliness, a shepherd named Câasem, who was nearly fifty
-years old, formed a _liaison_ with a village girl, whose occupation
-consisted in leading a cow about in the solitary green nooks where any
-scanty herbage was to be secured. The circumstance reached Lady
-Hester’s ears before it was known to anybody else, and she immediately
-ordered the man to be flogged at break of day, with instructions that
-nobody should tell him why or wherefore. “He will know what it is
-for,” she exclaimed; then turning reproachfully to Logmagi, to whom
-the execution of the order was entrusted, she added:――“How is it you
-leave me to be the first to discover these disgraceful acts, giving
-the Emir Beshýr an excuse to say that I encourage depravity in my
-servants, when it is your duty to know everything that passes about my
-premises?” Logmagi went, gave the shepherd a beating, and sent him
-about his business. Lady Hester used to justify severities of this
-description on the ground that it prevented the recurrence of similar
-licentiousness, and “kept the fellows in order.”
-
-March 5.――This being the vigil of the _Korbàn Byràm_, or the Mahometan
-Easter, which is their great holyday, Lady Hester, who had previously
-given her orders to a person who had some reputation as a pastrycook,
-despatched at twelve at night three servants, each with a _sennýah_,
-or round tray, on which they were to bring back from Sayda by daylight
-the _baklâawy_, _mamool_, and _karýby_, three delicious sorts of sweet
-cakes, which are scarcely exceeded in delicacy by the choicest pastry
-of Europe.
-
-At noon, the servants, dressed in all their new finery, sat down to a
-copious dinner composed of the most luxurious Eastern dishes. But
-there was no wine; for, whatever transgressions these people may
-commit in that way in private, they never touch wine in public.
-Logmagi and some others were known not to be much troubled with such
-scruples, when they could indulge themselves in secret: but Logmagi
-always excused himself on the score of being a Freemason, which is
-held in Turkey to be equivalent to a jovial fellow who does not care
-much what he does. The women, also, had their own feast, and a piece
-of gold the value of twenty piasters was presented to each of the
-servants. The day was literally abandoned to pleasure; but what a
-contrast do the sober manners of Mahometans form to those of
-Europeans? Gambling and noisy revels are out of the question in the
-tranquil and easy delights in this simple race. Dancing is generally
-confined to the boys, or to some buffoon who gets up and wriggles
-about to the music of a small tambourine, beaten with a single stick
-and producing a dull sound, which they consider musical, and which
-habit renders not disagreeable even to European ears. Every man smokes
-his pipe; and a good story-teller (for such a one is rarely wanting in
-a party of a dozen,) relates some traditionary tale, which absorbs for
-the time all the faculties of his hearers. The cook was one of this
-sort, a Christian of the village of Abra, a shrewd fellow, who went by
-the name of _Dyk_, or the Cock, from his rather strutting air, or from
-the vigorous exercise of his authority over his wife, whom he beat
-every now and then to keep her in proper discipline――a redeeming
-quality in the eyes of Lady Hester, who otherwise would have dismissed
-him from her service.
-
-Lady Hester’s astrological powers were put to a practical test to-day.
-Fatôom, one of her maid servants, whose name has frequently occurred
-in these pages, required my medical services, under the following
-circumstances. About six years before, having, in league with Zeyneb,
-a black girl, and some men of the village, robbed her mistress of
-several valuable effects, she was turned away: but, upon exhibiting
-great repentance, she was taken back again. Lady Hester found no
-difficulty, as may be supposed, in extracting from her a confession of
-the system of plunder that had been carried on, and the names of her
-accomplices. “I could hang them all,” was her constant expression in
-speaking of them. Fatôom had been in her ladyship’s service ten or
-eleven years, and was not yet twenty; and, being very pretty, and
-decked out in the finery to which she was enabled to help herself by
-her share of the plunder, she had vanity enough, when she was turned
-away, to hope that she should get at least an aga for a husband: but
-she was disappointed, and was obliged to put up with a small farmer.
-She consequently came back a married woman, in poor plight as to
-circumstances, with the prospect of having her difficulties aggravated
-by a speedy increase to her cares. On this day, 5th March, Fatôom
-complained of pains. There was not a moment to be lost: the midwife
-was instantly sent for; Fatôom was hurried away to her mother’s in the
-village, and, before the expiration of a quarter of an hour, she gave
-birth to a boy.
-
-As soon as Lady Hester learned the result, she requested me to go and
-see her. I found Fatôom sitting on a mattress on the floor (for nobody
-in the East has a bedstead) with from fifteen to twenty women squatted
-around her, the midwife supporting her back, and the child lying by
-her, covered with a corner of the quilt. Fatôom, very yellow, looked
-as if she had been in a great fright, and was astonished there was so
-little in it. After feeling her pulse, and delivering to her mother a
-basket of good things, such as lump sugar, six or eight sorts of
-spices, &c., with which it is customary to make the caudle upon these
-occasions, as also a new counterpane, and two silk pillows, for her
-lying-in present, I took a glance at the village gossips. There they
-were, holding forth much in the same way as the peasantry in other
-countries, with this difference, that here my presence was no
-restraint, and the minutest details of the recent event were discussed
-with as little reserve as if they had been talking of the ordinary
-incidents of the day.
-
-Having returned to Lady Hester with an account of what I had seen, she
-immediately set about casting the infant’s nativity, first
-ascertaining accurately the hour at which he was born――a quarter
-before two. “He will have,” said she, “arched eyebrows, rolling eyes,
-and a nose so and so: he will be a devil, violent in his passions, but
-soon pacified: his fingers will be long and taper, without being
-skinny and bony:” and thus she went on, in a manner so impressed with
-faith and earnestness, that it is not to be wondered at how persons of
-good judgment have lent their ears to astrologers, where the study has
-been fortified by a previous knowledge of man, his temperaments, and
-the innate and external characteristics of passions, of virtue, and of
-vice. She gave him the name of Selim, and sent word to say his star
-agreed with hers very well. This was good news for Fatôom, as it was
-equivalent to Lady Hester’s taking charge of the infant.
-
-The cradle had already been prepared: it was of wood, painted green,
-something like a trough, and perforated at the bottom, as is usual in
-the East. A tube of wood with a bowl to it, exactly of the form of a
-tobacco-pipe, is tied to the child’s waist, a rude but ingenious
-contrivance to save trouble to the nurse, the bowl serving as the
-immediate recipient, and the tube passing through the side of the
-cradle.[35]
-
-March 7.――This being Wednesday, Lady Hester, as usual, was invisible.
-What she did on these mysterious days I never heard: for a person
-once away from her might as well divine how the man in the moon was
-employed as guess how she was passing her time.
-
-Thursday, March 8.――I saw Lady Hester about four o’clock: she was in a
-very irritable state: she complained bitterly, as usual, of her
-servants――of their neglect, ignorance, and heartlessness: she said she
-would rather be surrounded by robbers; for there is some principle
-amongst thieves. “Oh!” she exclaimed, “that I could find one human
-being who knew his Creator!”
-
-She went on:――“I have had a very bad night, and whether I shall live
-or die, I don’t know: but this I tell you beforehand, that, if I do
-die, I wish to be buried, like a dog, in a bit of earth just big
-enough to hold this miserable skin, or else to be burnt, or thrown
-into the sea. And, as I am no longer an English subject, no consuls,
-nor any English of any sort, shall approach me in my last moments;
-for, if they do, I will have them shot. Therefore, the day before I
-die, if I know it, I shall order you away, and not only you, but
-everything English; and if you don’t go, I warn you beforehand, you
-must take the consequences. Let me be scorched by the burning
-sun[36]――frozen by the cold blast――let my ashes fly in the air――let
-the wolves and jackals devour my carcase;――let”――here the agitation
-she was in, and which had kept increasing, brought on a severe fit of
-coughing, and it was a quarter of an hour before she could recover
-strength enough to speak again. Her exhaustion reduced her to a little
-calm.
-
-After dinner I saw her again, but now her irritability had passed
-away. “Take your chair,” said she, “here by the bed――turn your back to
-the window to save your poor eyes from the light――never mind me:
-there――I am afraid I have overworked them by so much writing. But I
-know, if you did not write for me, you would be writing or reading for
-yourself: you are just like my sister Griselda.”
-
-She went on:――“You are angry with me, I dare say, because I told you I
-would not have you near me when I am dying: but I suppose I may do as
-I please. No English consul shall touch me or my effects: no: when I
-was going, sooner than that, I will call in all the thieves and
-robbers I can find, and set them to plunder and destroy everything.
-But I shall not die so:――I shall die as St. Elias and Isaac did; and,
-before that, I shall have to wade through blood up to here” (and she
-drew her hand across her neck), “nor will a spark of commiseration
-move me. The _bab el tobi_ [gate of pardon] will then be shut; for
-neither king, nor priest, nor peasant, shall enter when that hour
-comes. You and others will then repent of not having listened to my
-words.”
-
-Saturday, March 10.――Let us take this night as a sample of many
-others, to show sometimes what was doing in a solitary residence on
-Mount Lebanon, in which the vivid fancies of European writers had
-conjured up an imaginary mode of existence wholly different from the
-sad reality. From eight o’clock at night until one in the morning,
-Lady Hester Stanhope had kept the house in commotion, upon matters
-which would seem so foreign to her rank, her fortune, and her supposed
-occupations, that, when enumerated, they will hardly be believed.
-First, there was a deliberation of half an hour to decide whether it
-would be best to send the mules on the next day or the day after for
-wheat: then several servants were to be questioned, one after another,
-in order to compare their conflicting testimony, whether her fields of
-barley had come up, and how high, and what crops they promised; next,
-whether the oranges, now fit to be gathered, should be put under the
-gardener’s care, or into a store-room in the house. Then ensued a
-conversation with me, whether Fatôom was not playing some deep game in
-pretending to be separated from her husband; and so on, with a score
-of other topics equally unimportant, but with all of which she worried
-herself so effectively, that it seemed as if she wilfully sought
-refuge in such petty annoyances, for the sake of escaping from secret
-heart-burnings, which she did not choose to betray. In this way she
-had the secretary called up twice from his bed, and the bailiff once,
-keeping the rest of the servants in continual motion, whilst I was
-obliged, in civility, to sit and listen to it all.
-
-Old Pierre had been sent for from Dayr el Kamar. As a person who
-figures occasionally in these domestic scenes, I must make the reader
-a little acquainted with his history. In the year 1812, when Lady
-Hester was travelling from Jerusalem along the coast towards Damascus,
-we reached Dayr el Kamar, where Pierre came and offered himself to me
-as a servant. I took him; but his various talents as a cook, a guide,
-and an interpreter, and most of all as an adventurer, who had an
-extraordinary fund of anecdotes to relate, soon brought him into
-notice with Lady Hester, and she asked him of me for her own service.
-He accompanied us to Palmyra and through different parts of Syria,
-resided with her at Latakia and Mar Elias, and remained in her service
-many years. Having amassed a little money, he obtained permission to
-retire to Dayr el Kamar, where he kept a cook’s-shop, or, if you will,
-a tavern.
-
-But Lady Hester never lost sight of him. From time to time, when any
-traveller left her house to traverse Mount Lebanon, or to journey to
-Damascus and Aleppo, or even to Palmyra, Pierre was recommended as
-interpreter and guide, and, I understand, always discharged his duties
-to the satisfaction of his employers. He is known to many Englishmen,
-among the rest to the Rev. Mr. Way, who seems to have been very good
-to him; and Pierre, on his side, retains a most grateful remembrance
-of that gentleman’s bounty.
-
-Pierre springs from a good family, by the name of Marquis or Marquise,
-originally of Marseilles, and afterwards established as merchants in
-Syria. When he was a boy, he accompanied an uncle to France, who took
-him to Paris. The uncle wore the Levantine dress; and, having some
-business to transact connected with government, was on one occasion
-summoned to Versailles, where the court was. Chance or design threw
-Pierre in the way of the king, Louis XVI., who talked to him about the
-Levant, as did also Monsieur, afterwards Louis XVIII. Of this
-conversation Pierre never failed to make considerable boast.
-
-On his return to Syria, Pierre lived with his relations, until
-Buonaparte laid siege to Acre, where his knowledge of the French
-language recommended him to the notice of that general. He bore a
-commission in his army; and, on the retreat of the French into Egypt,
-accompanied them, and remained there until the final evacuation, when
-he obtained a pension; but of which, he declared, he had never touched
-a sou, in consequence of residing abroad.
-
-Mons. Urbain, a contributor to the _Temps_, happening to meet with
-Pierre when he was travelling in Syria, was so highly diverted with
-his anecdotes, that, on his return to France, he wrote no less than
-three _feuilletons_, or notices on _Le Vieux Pierre_; at least, so I
-was informed by Monsieur Guys.
-
-Pierre had been sent for by Lady Hester Stanhope, and she assigned him
-a room close to the doors of her own quadrangle, that he might be
-always within call. Pierre was a man exceedingly thin, with an
-aquiline nose, and a steady eye, full of gasconade to be mistaken for
-courage, wonderfully loquacious, and deeply imbued with all the mystic
-doctrines that Lady Hester sometimes preached about. But Pierre’s
-chief merit lay in his star, which, she assured me, was so propitious
-to her, that it could calm her convulsions, and lay her to sleep, when
-books, narcotics, and everything else failed.
-
-Glancing in these desultory memorials from one person to another, I
-may here mention, that one of the maids, named Sâady, incurred the
-particular aversion of Lady Hester, just as strongly as Pierre was
-favoured with her partiality. Poor Sâady never entered her presence
-without being saluted by some epithet of disgust or opprobium: yet
-Sâady worked from morning till night, and seldom got to bed until
-three, four, or five o’clock in the morning. But Lady Hester insisted
-on the necessity of treating her servants in this way for the purpose
-of keeping them on the alert; and she would frequently quote her
-grandfather’s example to prove how powerful particular aversions were
-in people of exalted minds――such as hers and his. In this way she kept
-herself in a state of constant irritation, as if she were determined
-obstinately to oppose the inroads of disease by increased exertion,
-exactly in proportion as her physical strength became more and more
-weakened and reduced.
-
-Monday, March 12.――Two servant boys were flogged by Logmagi for having
-quitted the courtyard both at the same time, when one at least was
-wanted to carry messages from the inner to the outer courts. These
-punishments were inflicted by making the delinquent lie at his full
-length flat on the ground, his head being held by one servant, and his
-feet by another while the stripes were administered. My disposition
-revolted at these whippings; although perhaps they were necessary, as
-Lady Hester said. The servants would not have borne them, but that
-they had in fact no choice, knowing well that they must either remain
-and be flogged, or be sent to the Nizàm, where they would be flogged
-twice as much, with the risk of being killed to boot.
-
-Wednesday, March 14.――Lady Hester was in very low spirits this
-evening, and, as night advanced, she had a paroxysm of grief, which
-quite terrified me. With a ghastly and frenzied look, she kept crying
-until my heart was rent with her wretchedness. When I left her for the
-night, although she was somewhat composed, her image haunted me, even
-when sleep had closed my eyes.
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-     [34] No dependant stands before his superior in the East
-          without covering his hands with his robe or with the
-          hanging sleeves customary among Orientals. In sitting,
-          the feet and legs are likewise hidden; at least, so
-          good-breeding requires, and persons alone who are on
-          terms of familiarity would thrust them out, or let
-          them hang pendent.
-
-     [35] In the cottages of Mount Lebanon there are many things
-          occurring daily which would greatly surprise an
-          English practitioner. A luxation of the shoulder-joint
-          in an infant, real or supposed, was cured, they told
-          me, by taking the child by the wrist and swinging it
-          round with its feet off the ground, until the bone got
-          into place again. I assisted, for the second time, at
-          the cure of a sore throat, in a man thirty-six years
-          of age, who suffered a pocket-handkerchief to be drawn
-          tightly round his neck until his face turned black
-          and he was half strangled. The man declared the next
-          day he was well, and the operator assured me it was a
-          never-failing remedy.
-
-     [36]    “Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis
-              Arbor æstivâ recreatur aurâ,” &c.
-
-          Yet Lady Hester had never read Horace.
-
-
-
-
-                                CHAPTER X.
-
-Visit of Mr. Vesey Forster and Mr. Knox――Lady S. N.’s pension and Mr.
-H.――Lady Hester undeservedly censured by English travellers――Mr. Anson
-and Mr. Strangways――Mr. B. and Mr. C.――Captain Pechell――Captain
-Yorke――Colonel Howard Vyse――Lord B.
-
-
-Mr. Forster and Mr. Knox, two English gentlemen, came up to Jôon this
-morning to pay a visit to Lady Hester. To my great surprise, I found
-them seated at the porter’s lodge among the servants, who were
-standing around them; a situation to which they accommodated
-themselves with the good sense of men of the world. They had sent in a
-message that two Franks were at the gate, having a letter for the Syt
-Mylady, and were patiently awaiting the result.
-
-I took the liberty of inquiring their names, and hastened to her
-ladyship; whilst orders were given to conduct them immediately to the
-strangers’ room. Lady Hester, who had got their letter in her hand,
-told me one was a relation of Sir Augustus Forster, our ambassador at
-Turin. “Go instantly to them,” said she, “for Sir Augustus is an old
-friend of mine, and be particularly attentive to Mr. Forster――indeed,
-to both of them. Tell them, I am very sorry I can’t see them; for,
-when I get into conversation, I become animated, and then I feel the
-effects of it afterwards; but assure them that they are welcome to
-make their home of their present lodging for a couple of days or a
-couple of hours, or as long as they like. Do they look gentlemanlike?”
-she asked. “Ah!” continued she, “what a charm good-breeding gives to
-mankind, and how odious vulgarity is after it! Only reflect! I, who
-have been all my life accustomed to the most refined society, what I
-must feel sometimes to have nothing to do but with beasts. But go, go!
-and make them as comfortable as you can.”
-
-They were in the strangers’ room, which stood in a small garden,
-ornamented with a few rose-bushes, pomegranate and olive-trees, and
-some flowering plants. It was a little enclosure, which had by no
-means a disagreeable aspect, surrounded by a wall topped with prickly
-thorn-bushes. Once inside this place, the new comer could know nothing
-of what was passing without. Such were Lady Hester’s contrivances:
-everything about her must wear an air of mystery.
-
-I lost no time in conveying Lady Hester’s message to them, and, for
-the short hour I enjoyed the pleasure of their conversation, had every
-reason to rejoice in the opportunity of making their acquaintance. As
-this visit of two travellers may serve as a specimen of what occurred,
-with slight variations, on every similar occasion, when Englishmen
-came to her house, who were little aware how much trouble their
-unexpected arrival sometimes caused her, I shall detail what passed as
-minutely as I can.
-
-I had hardly paid my compliments to them, and inquired whether they
-would take an English breakfast or something more solid, when a
-message came from Lady Hester to say she wanted to see me for a
-moment. This was always her way. The ruling passion of ordering what
-was to be done and what was to be said on all occasions made her
-impatient about things passing out of her sight.
-
-“Well, doctor,” cried Lady Hester, “what age do they appear to be, and
-where do they come from?” Having satisfied her on the first head, I
-told her they were last from the Emir’s palace at Btedýn: then, after
-some trifling observation, I added, the Emir complained to them that
-M. Lamartine, in his recent work on Syria, had greatly compromised him
-with Ibrahim Pasha, in having said that he, the Emir, had entertained
-the most friendly dispositions towards Buonaparte and the French
-during the siege of Acre. This the Emir denied, and averred that his
-great friend was Sir Sydney Smith: meaning, probably, as I observed
-from myself, to compliment his present guests at the expense of the
-absent French. “He was very civil to the two travellers,” I added,
-“and, understanding they were going to see your ladyship, he sent his
-compliments to you.”――“Ah!” replied she, “that looks as if he were
-fishing for friends, in case he should shortly have to fly; for they
-say that Sherýf Pasha has been defeated in the Horàn, and the Emir
-begins to tremble; for the Druzes will not spare him.”
-
-I then told Lady Hester they had refused tea or coffee, but, as they
-were come from a distance, would probably like something more
-substantial: they had expressed, too, a wish for a glass of lemonade.
-Here Lady Hester, suddenly raising herself in her bed, interrupted me
-with “Good God!――lemonade! why, the maid said that the secretary had
-been to ask for some violet syrup for them: now, which is it they
-want? Can nobody ever take upon them to direct the simplest thing but
-they must blunder? must everything fall upon me?”――“Well, but,”
-observed I, “lemonade, or violet syrup, it does not much matter
-which!”――“Not matter!――there it is again: and then who is there can
-make lemonade?――not a soul but myself in the whole house: and poor I
-am obliged to wear my little strength out in doing the most trivial
-offices. Here I am; I wanted to write another letter to go by the
-steamboat, and now all my thoughts are driven out of my head.
-Zezefôon!” (ding, ding, ding, went the bell) “Zezefôon! order the
-gardener to bring me four or five of the finest lemons on the tree
-next the alley of roses――you know where I mean――and prepare a tray
-with glasses.” This was accordingly done, and Lady Hester, sitting up
-in bed, went to work squeezing lemons and making lemonade.
-
-In my way to her ladyship’s room from the strangers’, I had called the
-cook, and directed him to dress a mutton-chop, to make a vermicelli
-soup, a dish of spinach and eggs, a little tunny-fish salad, and with
-a cold rice pudding (which I recollected and sent for from my house),
-and some Parmesan cheese, I trusted there would be enough for a hasty
-meal. Whilst making the lemonade, the following conversation went on.
-“Now, doctor, what can be got for their _déjeûner à la fourchette_?
-for there is nothing whatever in the house.” I mentioned what I had
-ordered. “Ah! yes,” resumed Lady Hester, “let me see:――there is a stew
-of yesterday’s, that I did not touch, that may be warmed up again, and
-some potatoes may be added; and then you must taste that wine that
-came yesterday from Garýfy, to see if you think they will like it. The
-spinach my maid must do. Dyk” (the cook) “does not know how to dress
-spinach, but I have taught Zezefôon to do it very well.” (Ding, ding,
-ding.) “Zezefôon, you know how to boil spinach in milk, and you must
-garnish it with five eggs, one in each corner, and one in the
-centre.”――“Yes, Sytty.”――“And, Zezefôon, send the _yackney_” (stew)
-“to Dyk, and let it be warmed up for the strangers. They must have
-some of my butter and some of my bread. Likewise give out the silver
-spoons and knives and forks; they are under that cushion on the
-ottoman, there; and mind you count them when you give them to
-Mohammed, or they will steal one, and dispute with you afterwards
-about the number:――a pack of thieves! And let the cook send in the
-dishes necessary: for I will not have any of mine go out.
-
-“You must tell the travellers, doctor, and especially Mr. Forster, for
-he is an Irishman, that I have a great deal of Irish and Scotch blood
-in me, and no English. Tell him I have made great investigations on
-the subject of the origin of the Scotch, and could prove to him that
-they came originally from this country. Tell him how beautiful the
-Irish women are, and that I, having had opportunities of seeing some
-of the finest Circassians and Georgians of the harýms of great Turks
-here and at Constantinople, think there are none like Irish women.
-
-“If Mr. Forster asks you anything about the Druzes (as he seems to
-interest himself concerning the religion of that people), say to him
-that the Druzes, the Ansàries, the Ishmäelites――all these sects――must
-and will remain a mystery to strangers. There was Monsieur Reynaud,
-one of the forty _savants_ who wrote the great book on Egypt, and was
-afterwards consul at Sayda――if any body could comprehend the secret,
-he could; yet, although he had four of the Druze books in his
-possession, and five learned persons of this country to assist him in
-translating and explaining them through a whole winter, he could make
-out nothing: because, even if you understand the text, you are still
-not a bit the wiser. Suppose, for example, you open a page, and you
-find these words――‘Do you use senna leaves?’ which is one of their
-questions of recognition, like similar apparently vague questions in
-freemasonry: what do you know about that? You may understand the
-answer clearly enough, so far as mere words go; but it is useless
-unless you understand the thing of which the words are a symbol; for
-they are all symbolical. You must know that it refers to an insurgent,
-who, in the cause of their faith, raised the standard of revolt,
-centuries ago, in the land where senna grows, and that it implies, ‘Do
-you adopt his tenets?’ and so of other passages. The chiefs of their
-religion cannot make any disclosures; for, if they did, their lives
-would be the forfeit. Tell him they are a bold, sanguinary race, who
-will cut a man in pieces themselves, or see it done by others, and
-never change colour. Why, one of them, not long since, killed or
-wounded with his own hands five of Ibrahim Pasha’s soldiers, who were
-sent to seize him as a refractory recruit.”
-
-Here Lady Hester, having finished making the lemonade, stopped for a
-moment to desire Zezefôon to take it out and send it to the strangers’
-room. She then resumed, “Tell them, doctor, that no people will bear a
-flogging like the Druzes. The Spartans were nothing to them: isn’t it
-the Spartans that were such floggers? for I am such a dunce that I
-never can recollect some things which every schoolboy knows; and I
-always said I was a dunce in some things, although Mr. Pitt used to
-say, ‘Hester, if you would but keep your own counsel, nobody could
-detect it.’ But it is the truth, and when you talk to me of paper
-money and the funds (although I may understand for the moment what you
-try to explain to me), I forget it all the next morning: yet, on
-subjects which my inclination leads me to investigate, nobody has a
-better judgment. My father, with all his mathematical knowledge, used
-to say I could split a hair. Talk to the point, was his cry: and I
-could bring truth to a point as sharp as a needle. I divested a
-subject of all extraneous matter, and there it was――you might turn and
-twist it as you would, but you must always come back to that.
-
-“The Druzes like me, and all the Emir Beshýr’s hatred of me arose from
-my friendship for the Shaykh Beshýr.[37] After you left me, I went to
-stay with him at Makhtâra, where he assigned me a wing of the palace
-to live in. He was a clever man, and afterwards, in his troubles, came
-to me for advice and succour: he offered me a third of his treasures,
-but I refused them. When he fled, the Emir Beshýr got about a third of
-them; an equal portion they say is buried: and the remainder was
-carried off by his wife, but afterwards lost. Poor woman! she is dead
-now. It was the attempt to relieve her, amongst other causes, that
-drew me into embarrassments. She had fled――her husband was a captive
-at Acre――and the Emir was pursuing her in every direction to take her
-life. The snow was thick on the ground. She had with her a child at
-the breast, one two years old, and another: two were with the father
-in prison. I despatched people with clothes and money to relieve her
-immediate wants; they found her in the Horàn, where she had taken
-refuge with an old servant. Her daughter also applied to me for
-assistance, but I was penniless, and could do nothing for her. Poor
-girl! she was afterwards married, but Ibrahim Pasha cut off her
-husband’s head, and she went raving mad. To complete the tragedy,
-Hanah Abôod, one of those I sent to look after her, fell asleep out of
-weariness, after having returned home on foot through the snow, and
-got an inflammation in his eyes, which ended in total blindness. The
-journey back occupied I think forty hours. I have been obliged
-partially to maintain the poor fellow and Werdy, his wife, ever since.
-
-“Perhaps, doctor, Mr. Forster and Mr. Knox may have heard of the
-extraordinary conduct of the English government towards me; so let
-them know that I am not low-spirited about it; and, although the Queen
-may think herself justified in taking away my pension, I would not,
-even if I were a beggar, change places with her. As for the Queen’s
-interfering in my affairs, she might just as well go and stop Sir
-Augustus Forster’s salary, on the plea that he had left his tailor’s
-bill unpaid. My debts were incurred very often for things I did not
-care about for myself. For example, what are books to me, who never
-look into them? If I had been like you doctors, who tell your patients
-to take turtle soup, and then contrive to be asked to dinner, it were
-another thing: but my researches were for the good of others, and for
-no advantage of my own.
-
-“When I think what I have done, and what I could have done if I had
-had more money! There was a book came into my hands, which the owner,
-not knowing its value, offered for my acceptance as you would offer an
-old brass candlestick. I consulted several persons about it; and, when
-all assured me it was a valuable manuscript, I scorned to take
-advantage of the man’s ignorance, and returned it to him, telling him
-when I was rich enough I would buy it of him. Ought not a person to
-act so?” “Undoubtedly,” I replied, “a person of principle would not
-act otherwise.” “Principle!” she exclaimed; “what do you mean by
-principle?――I am a Pitt.”
-
-As I did not understand precisely why a Pitt should be above
-principle, although it would seem there is a species of integrity
-higher than principle itself, I held my tongue, and Lady Hester went
-on. “I know where to find a book that contains the language spoken by
-Adam and Eve:[38] the letters are a span high. Such things have fallen
-into my hands as have fallen into nobody’s else. I know where the
-serpent is that has the head of a man, like the one that tempted Eve.
-The cave still exists not far from Tarsûs; and the villages all about
-are exempted from the _miri_ in consideration of feeding the serpents.
-Everybody in that neighbourhood knows it: isn’t it extraordinary? why
-don’t you answer? is it, or is it not? Good God! I should go mad if I
-were obliged to remain three whole days together in your society――I’m
-sure I should. Such a cold man I never saw; there is no getting an
-answer from you: however, think as you like. These serpents will march
-through the country to fight for the Messiah, and will devour
-everything before them.” Here she paused for about a minute, and then
-added, “I think you had better not tell them anything about the
-serpents; perhaps their minds are not prepared for matters of this
-sort.”
-
-I have already observed that Monsieur Guys had mentioned, with some
-surprise, the serious manner in which Lady Hester spoke of these
-serpents; and, although he did not express it, yet he half intimated
-that he thought her intellects a little disordered: we shall see
-hereafter if they were so.
-
-Lady Hester resumed: “But now, doctor, if you can spare a minute, you
-must write a line by the messenger to Monsieur Guys, and tell him I
-had begun a letter to him, but that the arrival of two English
-travellers, one of whom revived a number of recollections, had obliged
-me to stop short, and I could write no more. Doctor, this Mr. Forster
-must be one of the children of the Irish Speaker. He was left with
-ten; and I remember very well one day that H******** was standing
-before me at a party, making a number of bows and scrapes, turning up
-his eyes, and cringing before me so, that when we got home, Mr. Pitt
-said to me, ‘Hester, if I am not too curious, what could H********
-have to say that animated him so much: what could he be making such
-fine speeches about: what could call forth such an exuberance of
-eloquence in him?’――‘Oh! it was nothing,’ answered I; ‘he was telling
-me that all the power of the Treasury was at my service――that he would
-take care that Lady S**** N*****’s pension should be got through the
-different offices immediately――that he had nothing so much at heart as
-to execute my orders――that he would see all that was necessary should
-be done according to my wishes, and so on; but, as I despise the man,
-I only laughed at him and turned my back on him; for I drink at the
-fountain head.’
-
-“‘Now, this is really too good a thing,’ interrupted Mr. Pitt, lifting
-up his eyes in astonishment. ‘It was but this very day, at three
-o’clock, that he was urging me not to let this very pension be given,
-or at least to prolong the business for a year, if it were possible;
-till, by tiring her patience, the thing might be dropped, or something
-turn up to set it aside; adding, that it would be opening the door to
-abuses, and, if I granted this too readily, I should have Forster’s
-ten children to provide for.’”
-
-Lady Hester went on: “From that day, I knew my man. I then said to Mr.
-Pitt, ‘Let me show him who he has to deal with; do give your orders
-that the thing may be done immediately.’――‘Oh! but it is too late
-to-night,’ said Mr. Pitt. ‘No, it is not,’ I cried; ‘for I see a light
-in the Treasury.’ So I rang, and sent for” (here her ladyship
-mentioned a name which I could not catch, but I think it was Mr.
-Chinnery)――. When he came, I said to him, ‘Will you be so good, sir,
-the first thing in the morning, to see that all the signatures are put
-to Lady S. N.’s paper: there is Mr. Pitt; ask him if it is so or not.’
-Mr. Pitt of course assented, and there the matter ended. Doctor, I had
-a great deal of trouble with those sort of people, like H――――. Now, if
-Mr. Forster is about thirty-five years old, he must be one of that
-family.[39]
-
-“Do tell Mr. Forster what a pack of beasts those servants are. Ask him
-if he ever heard of women throwing themselves down to sleep in the
-middle of a courtyard, or on the floor of a kitchen, dragging their
-quilt after them from place to place: tell him that is what mine do,
-and that I am obliged to wait a quarter of an hour for a glass of
-water.
-
-“You may talk to them a little about stars, but I dare say you will
-commit some horrible blunder, as you always do, and that is what makes
-me so afraid of your having to say anything that concerns me. Tell Mr.
-Forster that in people’s stars lie their abilities, and that you may
-bring up a hundred men to be generals and another hundred to be
-lawyers, but out of these perhaps four or five only will turn out good
-for anything. When a grand Llama is to be chosen, why do they go about
-until they have found a particular boy with certain marks, known to
-the learned of that country――a child born under a certain star? It is
-because, when they have found such a one, he has no occasion for
-instruction; he is born the man for their purpose.
-
-“Thus, the Duke of Wellington is not a general by trade――I mean by
-instruction; for, if examined before a court-martial on all the
-branches of military tactics, perhaps he would be found deficient.
-Hundreds may know more of them than he does: but he is a general by
-his star. He acts under a certain impulse, which makes him hit on the
-stratagem he ought to practise, and, without the help of previous
-study or even the suggestions of experience, he knows that his
-manœuvre is right. It was thus with me when I was young. People might
-preach and talk; but, when I saw them doing things or reasoning about
-them, I could at once distinguish the things that were right from the
-things that were wrong; but I could not say why or wherefore. My
-father said I was the best logician he ever saw――I could split a hair.
-The last time he saw me, he repeated the same words, and said I had
-but one fault, which was being too fond of royalty.”
-
-I observed here to Lady Hester, that in many things she reminded me of
-the ancient philosophers, to whom she bore a strong resemblance on
-most points; but that in this one particular she differed from them
-widely, as most of them were strenuously opposed to royalty and
-monarchical power. “My liking for royalty,” she answered, “is not,
-indiscriminate, but I believe in the divine right of kings; for I have
-found it out. And you may ask Mr. Forster also why the bottle of oil
-came from India to anoint the kings of France. I dare say they never
-heard of Melek es Sayf, a hero whose exploits and name are hardly
-inferior in the East to those of Solomon. Is it not extraordinary,
-that in Europe they know nothing of those people――of him and his forty
-sons, all of whom were men of note in their time? This must be so; for
-some of the gates of Cairo are named after them.
-
-“If you happen to speak about the Albanians and the other soldiers
-that I had here, tell them I did not see them all; I only saw the most
-desperate, and those whose violence was to be kept under. When I
-admitted them to my presence, I was always alone, and they always wore
-their arms; but I never feared them.”
-
-Thus Lady Hester went on talking: the dish of potatoes, the dessert,
-and several other things were forgotten. So, reminding her that Mr.
-Forster and Mr. Knox must be all this time marvelling what could have
-detained me, I at last made my escape. In the mean while, the
-breakfast had been served up as well as the resources of the place
-would admit. The scene must have been highly curious to her ladyship’s
-guests, who could not fail to be amused as well as surprised at the
-sight of a deal table, rush-bottomed chairs, cheese put on first and a
-pudding in a copper dish after it, with other anomalies that would
-have made even a third-rate Brummell shudder. But the occasions for
-eating in the European way in Lady Hester’s house occurred very
-rarely, and the servants, who were habituated to Turkish usages or to
-the mongrel service of some Levantine dragoman, had no notions of the
-regulations of an English table. In my own house, I had two tolerably
-well-trained boys; but there was an interdict against their ever
-crossing the threshold of Lady Hester’s gate, in order that no
-information of what was going on within her walls should be carried
-out to the female part of my family. In the most common concerns, Lady
-Hester’s servants made much bustle and did little. They ran in
-different directions, jostled and crossed each other half a dozen at a
-time for the same thing, entirely reversing one of her favourite
-maxims, that everything in a great person’s house should be done as if
-by magic, and nobody should know who it was set it a going. These
-servants had but one spring of action, and that was the _bakshysh_, or
-present, which they all looked for on the departure of a stranger. It
-was a painful thought to me, as these gentlemen left the gate, that,
-when they were about to mount their horses, the mercenary spirit of
-such a set of varlets might be charged to the connivance of the
-mistress.
-
-The two travellers made a miserable repast, and, when it was over,
-signified their desire to take leave. It seems they had taken Lady
-Hester’s invitation “to make the place their home for two hours or two
-days” in its literal acceptation; and it is scarcely necessary to say
-that there was no time for me to enter into an explanation on the
-subject, nor, indeed, to deliver a tenth part of the discursive matter
-with which Lady Hester had charged me. It was from these gentlemen I
-learned, for the first time, that a committee had been appointed, on
-the motion of Mr. D. W. Harvey, for inquiring into the pensions on the
-civil list. It had so happened that no newspapers had reached us for a
-long time, and, consequently, this was the first intimation her
-ladyship had received of a measure in which it might be supposed she
-felt no inconsiderable interest, although in reality she did not.
-
-As Mr. Forster and his friend had to cross a deep valley and mount a
-steep ascent before they could take the road to Beyrout, to which town
-they were now going, I sent Ali Hayshem, the messenger, to put them on
-their way. He returned in the course of an hour or two, and was
-despatched the same evening on foot, with letters to Beyrout, where he
-arrived next day before Messieurs Knox and Forster. He told me, on his
-return, that their surprise was very great on finding him at the inn,
-knowing that they had left him behind them, the morning before, up the
-mountain. Ali’s account of Mr. Forster’s regimentals, in which he saw
-him dressed at Beyrout, was very flaming: and from that day, in
-speaking of the two, he always distinguished him from Mr. Knox by the
-title of ‘the general.’
-
-Lady Hester deeply regretted that she was not able to see these
-gentlemen. “Ah!” said she, “how many times have I been abused by the
-English when I did not deserve it, and for nothing so much as for not
-seeing people, when perhaps it was quite out of my power! There was
-Mr. Anson and Mr. Strangways, who, because I refused to see them, sat
-down under a tree, and wrote me such a note! Little did they know that
-I had not a bit of barley in the house for their horses, and nothing
-for their dinner. I could not tell them so; but they might have had
-feeling enough to suppose it was not without some good reason that I
-declined their visit. Many a pang has their ill-nature given me, as
-well as that of others. I have got the note[40] still somewhere.
-
-“Among the visitors I have had was the duchess of Gontaut’s brother,
-she that brought up the Duke of Bordeaux. I supposed she must have
-talked of me to her brother, whom I never recollect: however, he came
-with his two sons; but I would not see him. It was that time when
-Monsieur Guys, after sitting and staring at me some minutes,
-exclaimed――‘Madam, when I see you dressed in that abah’ (the Bedouin
-cloak), ‘in that _keffiah_’ (the Bedouin vizor), ‘and when I think you
-are that Lady Hester Stanhope, _qui faisoit la pluie et le beau temps
-à Londres_, I am lost in wonder how you could have come and fixed
-yourself in these desolate mountains.’
-
-“Another of Charles the Tenth’s courtiers came here, but a higher
-personage, whom I also refused to see: he was dreadfully savage about
-it too. I fancy Charles the Tenth had a secret intention of resigning
-the crown, and of coming to this country to finish his days in the
-Holy Land like another St. Louis? and I think this man had something
-to ask me about it: however, I refused to see him. But it was not
-caprice, nor, as this proves, was it Englishmen alone I denied myself
-to. Sometimes I was not well enough to sustain a conversation――sometimes
-I had no provisions in the house, perhaps no servant who knew how to
-set a table; but travellers never fancied that there could be any
-other reason for my refusal, but the determination to affront them.
-God knows, when I could, I was willing to receive anybody.
-
-“Once I had a visit from two persons whom we will call Mr. A. and Mr.
-B., or Mr. B. and Mr. C.――what letter you like. I thought Mr. B. very
-stupid, but, good God! doctor, there never was anything so vulgar as
-Mr. C. When I got his note to ask leave to come, the name deceived me;
-I thought he might be a son of Admiral C. But when he came into the
-room with his great thighs and pantaloons so tight that he could
-hardly sit down, I thought he was more like a butcher than anything
-else. He was a man entirely without breeding, with his Ma’ams and
-ladyships. I asked him a few questions, as――‘Pray, sir, will you allow
-me to ask if you are a relation of Admiral C’s.?’――‘No, ma’am, I am no
-relation at all.’――‘Will you permit me to inquire what is the motive
-of your visit to me?’――‘Only to see your ladyship, ma’am.’――‘Do you
-come to this country with any particular object?’――‘To be a
-merchant.’――‘You are probably conversant in mercantile affairs?’――‘No,
-ma’am, I am come to learn,’――and so on. After some time, I told them
-that I never saw people in the morning, and would take my leave of
-them, as they probably would wish to set off early; and I desired them
-to order what they liked for their breakfast. Next morning, when I
-thought, as a matter of course, they were gone, in came a note from
-them to say, they were not going till next day, and then another to
-say they did not know, and then a third to say that, as they expected
-ships, and God knows what, they must go.――Good God! they might go to
-the devil for me: I had taken my leave of them, and there was an end
-of it. Mr. C. was a downright vulgar merchant’s clerk, come to Syria,
-I suppose, to set up for himself. Lord St. Asaph said to me――‘Lady
-Hester, you really should consider who you are, and not allow people
-of that description to pay visits to you.’
-
-“There was a man who bore a great resemblance to the Duke of Cambridge
-and the Duke of Clarence, but something between both, who passed two
-or three years in this neighbourhood and sometimes came to see me; he
-was good-natured, and I liked him. He went about with a sort of
-pedlar’s box, full of trinkets and gewgaws to show to the peasant
-woman, thus bringing the whole population of the village out of their
-houses: and then giving away beads and earrings to get the young girls
-around him.
-
-“Of the English, who have visited me here, I liked Captain Pechell and
-Captain Yorke very much, and thought them both clever men.
-
-“Colonel Howard Vyse one day came up to the village and wrote me a
-note, and did everything he could to see me. He was an old
-Coldstream:――it broke my heart not to see him; but it would have
-revived too many melancholy reflections. Poor man! I believe he was
-very much hurt; but I could not help it.
-
-“A man came here――I believe the only one who was saved out of a party
-that was killed going across the Desert――and asked me for a letter to
-the Arabs. I sent him away, telling him that he might just as well
-come and ask me for a pot of beer. What had I to do with their schemes
-and their navigation of the Euphrates? Yet, for this, this officer
-wrote verses upon the wall of the room against me.
-
-“Then Mr. Croix de la Barre came, but I could not see him. He said he
-wanted to talk politics with me, and learn the customs and manners of
-the natives. I should tire you, doctor, if I were to tell you how many
-have come. I saw Lord B******, when he was travelling, at the baths of
-Tiberias, where Abdallah Pasha happened to be. Lord B. proposed
-calling on the pasha, and equipped himself for that purpose with a
-pair of pistols and a _yatagàn_ in his girdle, after the fashion of a
-Turkish subaltern; for the Franks, who surrounded him as dragomans and
-menials, had taught him to adopt what accorded with their ideas of
-finery, and not what was suitable to his rank. Luckily, he mentioned
-his intention the day before to me, and I told him that there was a
-full dress of ceremony in Turkey as well as in Europe, and I lent him
-the most essential part of it, a _benýsh_,[41] with which he presented
-himself. At first there was some hesitation, on his entering the room
-with his people, as to which was the great Mylord; for his lordship’s
-doctor, who sat down close by him, and poked his head forward with an
-air of great attention to what the pasha said, made him doubt whether
-the doctor was not the chief personage; it being a part of Oriental
-etiquette that no dependant should obtrude himself into the least
-notice in his superior’s presence: nay, generally speaking, it is
-required that doctors, secretaries, dragomans, and the like, should
-remain standing during such interviews. This difficulty being got
-over, the pasha, after some questions about Lord B.’s health, asked
-him what brought him to Tiberias, a part of his province the least
-beautiful and most barren. The question would have led most persons to
-say that, knowing the pasha was there, he seized the opportunity of
-paying his respects to him, or some such complimentary speech. But
-Lord B., with a _naïveté_ somewhat plebeian, replied, that he came to
-see the baths. The pasha coldly desired that proper persons should
-show them to him, and soon after broke up the interview. The very
-attendants of his Highness were struck with the incivility and want of
-tact which Lord B. showed, and it was one of them who told me the
-story. But this was not all: the pasha, who is fond of consulting
-European doctors, requested Lord B., who was to depart next day, to
-leave his doctor behind for twenty-four hours; which request Lord B.
-refused. After he was gone, the pasha sent me a pelisse of
-considerable value, with a request that I should present it in his
-name to Lord B., but I returned it, saying Lord B. was gone; for I did
-not think his incivility deserved it. So much for English breeding!
-and then let them go and call the Turks barbarians.
-
-“Mr. Elliot came to see me from Constantinople, in order to make the
-pashas and governors of the neighbouring provinces treat me well. He
-fell ill, and I sent for the doctor of a frigate that was on the
-coast for him――a man who could kick his forehead with his toe. I
-quizzed Mr. Elliot a great deal.
-
-“But now, doctor, what did Mr. Forster say about the Scotch? If he
-agrees with me that they sprang from hereabouts, I might have given
-him some useful hints on that subject: but we will write him a
-letter[42] about it.”
-
-When I told her that Mr. Forster had spoken of a work of Sir Jonah
-Barrington’s on Ireland, in which it was said that Mr. Pitt got up the
-Irish rebellion in order to make the necessity of the Union more
-palatable to parliament, she observed that, if she met him, she would
-settle his business for him. “Mr. Pitt liked the Irish,” said she.
-“There were some fools who thought to pay their court by abusing them,
-and would talk of men’s legs like Irish porters, or some such stuff:
-but I always answered, they would be very much pleased to have their
-own so, which was much better than having them like a pair of tongs:
-and I was certain to observe a little smile of approbation in Mr.
-Pitt’s eyes, at what I had said.”
-
-In this way her ladyship would run on from topic to topic――with a
-rapidity and fluency which frequently rendered it difficult to
-preserve notes of even the heads of her discourse. Her health was
-slightly improved: she attended a little more closely to my advice,
-but still would never allow me to see her until her coughing fit was
-over, which usually lasted for about a couple of hours. Notwithstanding
-this, her pulse maintained a degree of vigour which was very
-extraordinary, considering the state of attenuation to which she was
-reduced. She had a great reluctance in touching on her bad symptoms,
-but dwelt readily on such as were favourable. “I certainly have got
-small abscesses,” she answered to me, “but it is not consumption:
-because there are hours in the day when my lungs are perfectly free,
-as there are others when I can hardly breathe. Sometimes, doctor, my
-pulse is entirely gone, or so thin――so thin!――as to be but just
-perceptible, and no more. You pretend to find it very readily and tell
-me it is not bad: but Zezefôon can’t feel it, and Sàada can’t feel it,
-and old Pierre has tried, and says the same. I think, too,” continued
-she, “I was a little delirious this morning; for, when I awoke, I
-asked where Zezefôon had gone, although there she was, sitting up on
-her mattress by my bedside before my eyes.”
-
-
-FOOTNOTES:
-
-     [37] The reader ought to be informed that, a few years
-          before this time, Beshýr Jumbalàt, a man of the first
-          family of the Druzes, had risen by his possessions
-          and influence to such power in Mount Lebanon as to
-          excite the jealousy of the Emir Beshýr, the recognized
-          prince of the Druzes, by right of investiture from
-          the Porte. The Emir (who is a Mussulman) entertained
-          such fears of being supplanted by a chief of his power
-          and popularity, that, after a variety of intrigues
-          and plots, he at last succeeded in effectually
-          awakening the distrust of Abdallah, the Pasha of Acre,
-          who finally united with the Emir in a plan for his
-          destruction. The person of the unfortunate Beshýr
-          Jumbalàt was accordingly seized, his palace razed to
-          the ground, and his possessions confiscated; nor was
-          their jealousy set at rest until they ultimately got
-          rid of him by strangulation.
-
-     [38] Ben Jonson, in his “Alchemist,” alludes to such a
-          book, “Ay, and a treatise penned by Adam.”
-
-     [39] It may be right to mention that Mr. Forster, as I
-          believe, is not one of the family alluded to in this
-          anecdote: but, as Lady Hester’s remarks hinged on his
-          name, I thought it best to retain it.
-
-     [40] This note I afterwards read and copied. These two
-          gentlemen presented themselves at the gate, and Lady
-          Hester dictated the following message to them, which
-          Miss Williams wrote:――“Lady Hester Stanhope presents
-          her compliments to Mr. Anson and Mr. Strangways, and
-          acquaints them that she is little in the habit of
-          seeing European travellers, therefore declines the
-          honour of their visit.” To this was returned following
-          answer:――“Mr. Anson presents his compliments to Lady
-          Hester Stanhope, and begs to assure her he has not
-          the slightest wish to intrude where his visit is
-          accounted disagreeable: but having, during a three
-          months’ residence among the Arabs, met with universal
-          hospitality, he took for granted that he would not
-          have met with the first refusal in an English house.”
-
-     [41] The benýsh is a large mantle, reaching to the ground,
-          ample, and folding over, with bagging sleeves hanging
-          considerably below the tips of the fingers. When worn,
-          it leaves nothing seen but the head and face. This is
-          synonymous with a dress coat.
-
-     [42] A long letter was subsequently written, in which she
-          explained her theory of the origin of the Scotch; and,
-          having learned by a note from Mr. Forster that they
-          would return from Beyrout to Sayda in their way to
-          St. Jean d’Acre, I rode down to Sayda in the hope of
-          meeting him. Circumstances, however, made them set off
-          a day sooner than they intended and I missed them. The
-          letter Lady Hester took back into her own possession,
-          and seemed to set so much value on it that she would
-          not even give me a copy. At the time I could have
-          repeated the substance of it with tolerable accuracy
-          from memory; but, as she strictly regarded it in the
-          light of a private communication, I did not consider
-          myself justified in making any use of it without her
-          sanction. It will be sufficient to say that she found
-          a great resemblance between the names of the Scotch
-          nobility and certain terms in the Arabic language,
-          indicating patronymics, dignities, offices, &c. Her
-          general notion was that Scotland had been peopled
-          by the flight of some tribes of Arabs in the middle
-          ages. She once had an intention of writing to Sir
-          Walter Scott, to urge him to make some researches
-          on that head, and she showed me a list of Scotch
-          names apparently of Arabic origin. Thus she would
-          say Gower meant Gaôor, or infidel; and by a stretch
-          of deduction, commonly indulged in even to still
-          greater excess by people who have a favourite theory
-          to sustain, she would argue that, as Mr. Pitt used to
-          say that Lord Granville was the counterpart of the
-          statue of Antinous, with the same face and the same
-          _pose_ when he stood talking unconcernedly, therefore
-          the race of Antinous, which was also Eastern, was
-          continued in him.
-
-
-
-
-                             END OF VOL. II.
-
-
-
-
-                        FREDERICK SHOBERL, JUNIOR,
-               PRINTER TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT,
-                  51, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET, LONDON.
-
-
-
-
-Transcriber’s Note
-
-This book was written in a period when many words had not become
-standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling
-variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been
-left unchanged unless indicated below. Obsolete and alternative
-spellings were left unchanged.
-
-Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the end of
-the chapter. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down,
-or partially printed letters and punctuation, were corrected. Final
-stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were added.
-Punctuation was adjusted to standard usage. Duplicate letters and
-words at line endings or page breaks were removed.
-
-Footnotes [3] and [22] were missing anchors in the text. Anchors were
-added where they may have belonged.
-
-The following items were changed:
-
-  that to than, line 756
-  Pourcignac to Pourceaugnac, Footnote [17]
-  Dairies to Diaries, Footnote [22]
-  he to she, line 4836
-  crew to grew, line 4909
-  venemous to venomous, line 5256
-  espistle to epistle, line 5622
-  Bankes to Banks, line 5805
-
-
-
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF THE LADY HESTER STANHOPE, AS RELATED BY HERSELF IN CONVERSATIONS WITH HER PHYSICIAN, VOL. 2 (OF 3) ***
+
+
+ [Illustration: LADY HESTER STANHOPE IN HER SALOON
+                London, Henry Colburn, 1845]
+
+
+
+
+                                MEMOIRS
+
+                                 OF THE
+
+                         LADY HESTER STANHOPE,
+
+                         AS RELATED BY HERSELF
+
+                       IN CONVERSATIONS WITH HER
+
+                               PHYSICIAN;
+
+                               COMPRISING
+
+                     HER OPINIONS AND ANECDOTES OF
+
+                  SOME OF THE MOST REMARKABLE PERSONS
+
+                              OF HER TIME.
+
+
+All such writings and discourses as touch no man will mend no
+man.――TYERS’S _Rhapsody on Pope_.
+
+
+                            Second Edition.
+
+                           IN THREE VOLUMES.
+
+                                VOL. II.
+
+
+                                LONDON:
+                       HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,
+                       GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
+
+
+                                 1846.
+
+
+
+
+                       FREDERICK SHOBERL, JUNIOR,
+              PRINTER TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT,
+                 51, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET, LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+                                CONTENTS
+
+                                   OF
+
+                           THE SECOND VOLUME.
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+Lady Hester Stanhope’s descent――The Author’s first introduction to
+her――Her reasons for quitting England――Anecdotes of her childhood
+and womanhood――Her motives for going to live with Mr. Pitt――Mr.
+Pitt’s opinion of Tom Paine――Lady Hester noticed by George
+III.――Anecdote of Sir A. H.――Of Lord G.――Of Lord A.――Impertinent
+questioners――Anecdote of the Marquis * * *――Mr. Pitt’s confidence in
+Lady Hester’s discretion――and in her devotion to him――His opinion of
+her cleverness, and of her military and diplomatic abilities――Her
+tirade against doctors――Her reflections on prudery――Anecdote of
+General Moore――Of the Duc de Blacas, &c.                            1
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+
+Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s Memoirs――The three duchesses――Anecdote of
+Mr. Rice――How Prime Ministers are employed on first taking
+office――The Grenville make――P―――― of W―――― at Stowe――Mr. Pitt and
+Mr. Sheridan―― Duke of H―――― ――Mr. Pitt’s disinterestedness
+exemplified――His life wasted in the service of his country――Mr.
+Rose――Mr. Long――Mr.―――― ――Grounds at Walmer laid out by Lady
+Hester――Mr. Pitt’s deportment in retirement――His physiognomy――How he
+got into debt――Lord Carrington; why made a peer――Extent of Mr.
+Dundas’s influence over Mr. Pitt――Mr. Pitt averse to ceremony――Mr.
+Pitt and his sister Harriet――His dislike to the Bourbons――Lady
+Hester’s activity at Walmer――Lord Chatham’s indolence――Mr. Pitt’s
+opinion of Sir Arthur Wellesley                                    45
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+
+Duchess of Gontaut――Duc de Berry――Anecdotes of Lord H.――Sir Gore
+Ouseley――Prince of Wales――The other princes――The Queen’s
+severity――Men and women of George the Third’s time――The Herveys――
+Lady Liverpool’s high breeding――Lady Hester’s declining health     76
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+Conscription in Syria――Inviolability of consular houses――Panic
+and flight of the people of Sayda――Protection afforded by Lady
+Hester――Story of a boy――Mustafa the barber――Cruelty to mothers
+of Conscripts――Conscription in the villages――Lady Hester’s
+dream――Inhabitants of Sayda mulcted――Lady Hester’s opinion
+of negresses――Severity necessary in Turkey――Case of Monsieur
+Danna――Captain Y.――Mustafa Pasha’s cruelty                        101
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+Rainy season――Lady Hester’s despondency――Her Turkish costume――
+Turkish servants――Terror inspired by Lady Hester in her servants――
+Visit of Messieurs Poujolat and Boutés――Lady Hester’s inability to
+entertain strangers――Her dejected spirits and bad health          127
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+The Delphic priestess――Abdallah Pasha’s ingratitude――His
+cowardice―― Lady Hester’s spies――Her emaciation――History of
+General Loustaunau                                                154
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VII.
+
+Lady Hester like the first Lord Chatham――Her recollections of
+Chevening――Her definition of insults――Her deliberate affronts――Her
+warlike propensities――Earl C―――― Marquis of Abercorn――Logmagi――
+Osman Chaôosh――Letter from Colonel Campbell――George the Third’s
+flattering compliment to Lady Hester――Her Majesty Queen Victoria――
+Lord M.――Prophecy of a _welly_――Lady Hester’s poignant affliction――
+Her intractability――Her noble and disinterested benevolence       181
+
+
+                             CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Lady Hester’s system of astrology――Sympathies and antipathies――
+People’s _nijems_ or stars――Mesmerism explained――Lord Suffolk――
+Lady Hester’s own star――Letter to the Queen――Letter to Mr. Speaker
+Abercrombie――Messieurs Beck and Moore――Letter to Colonel
+Campbell――The Ides of March――Lady Hester’s reflections on the
+Queen’s conduct to her――Letter to Sir Edward Sugden――What peers
+are――Junius’s Letters――Spies employed by the first Lord Chatham――
+Mr. Pitt’s opinion of the Duke of Wellington――Lady Hester’s letter
+to his Grace, &c.                                                 223
+
+                              CHAPTER IX.
+
+Lady Hester in an alcove in her garden――Lucky days observed by
+her――Consuls’ rights――Mischief caused by Sir F. B.’s neglect in
+answering Lady Hester’s Letters――Rashes common in Syria――Visit of
+an unknown Englishman――Story of Hanah Messâad――Lady Hester’s love
+of truth――Report of her death――Michael Tutungi――Visit from the
+Chevalier Guys――His reception at Dayr el Mkhallas――Punishment of
+the shepherd, Câasem――Holyday of the Korbàn Byràm――Fatôom’s
+_accouchement_――Lady Hester’s aversion to consular interference――
+Evenings at Jôon――Old Pierre――Saady                               276
+
+
+                               CHAPTER X.
+
+Visit of Mr. Vesey Forster and Mr. Knox――Lady S. N.’s pension and
+Mr. H.――Lady Hester undeservedly censured by English travellers――
+Mr. Anson and Mr. Strangways――Mr. B. and Mr. C.――Captain
+Pechell――Captain Yorke――Colonel Howard Vyse――Lord B.              314
+
+
+
+
+                                MEMOIRS
+
+                                   OF
+
+                         LADY HESTER STANHOPE.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER I.
+
+Lady Hester Stanhope’s descent――The Author’s first introduction to
+her――Her reasons for quitting England――Anecdotes of her childhood and
+womanhood――Her motives for going to live with Mr. Pitt――Mr. Pitt’s
+opinion of Tom Paine――Lady Hester noticed by George III.――Anecdote of
+Sir A. H.――Of Lord G.――Of Lord A.――Impertinent questioners――Anecdote
+of the Marquis * * *――Mr. Pitt’s confidence in Lady Hester’s
+discretion――and in her devotion to him――His opinion of her cleverness,
+and of her military and diplomatic abilities――Her tirade against
+doctors――Her reflections on prudery――Anecdote of General Moore――Of the
+Duc de Blacas, &c.
+
+
+It probably will be known to most readers that Lady Hester Stanhope
+was the daughter of Charles Earl of Stanhope by Hester, his first
+wife, sister to Mr. William Pitt, and daughter of the first Earl of
+Chatham. He had issue by this first wife three daughters――Hester,
+Griselda, and Lucy. The earl married a second wife, by whom he had
+three sons: the present earl; Charles, killed at Corunna; and James,
+who died at Caen Wood, the villa of his father-in-law, the Earl of
+Mansfield.
+
+I became acquainted with Lady Hester Stanhope by accident. The chance
+that introduced me to her was as follows:――I was going to Oxford to
+take my degree; and, having missed the coach at the inn, I was obliged
+to hurry after it on foot, for the want of a hackney-coach, as far as
+Oxford-road turnpike, where I overtook it, and mounted the box in a
+violent perspiration. The day was bitterly cold, and, before night, I
+found myself attacked with a very severe catarrh. The merriment of a
+college life left me little time to pay attention to it; and, after
+about fifteen days, I returned with a troublesome cough, to London,
+where I took to my bed.
+
+Mr. H. Cline, jun., (the son of the celebrated surgeon) being my
+friend, and hearing of my indisposition, came to inquire after my
+health very frequently. One day, sitting by my bedside, he asked me if
+I should like to go abroad. I told him it had been the earliest wish
+of my life. He said, Lady Hester Stanhope (the niece of Mr. Pitt) had
+applied to his father for a doctor, and that, if I liked, he would
+propose me, giving me to understand from his father that, although the
+salary would be small, I should, if my services proved agreeable to
+Lady Hester, be ultimately provided for. I thanked him, and said, that
+to travel with such a distinguished woman would please me exceedingly.
+The following day he intimated that his father had already spoken
+about me, and that her ladyship would see me. In about four days I was
+introduced to her, and she closed with me immediately, inviting me to
+dine with her that evening. Afterwards, I saw her several times, and
+subsequently joined her at Portsmouth, whence, after waiting a
+fortnight, we sailed in the Jason, the Hon. Captain King, for
+Gibraltar.
+
+The reasons which Lady Hester assigned for leaving England were
+grounded chiefly on the narrowness of her income. Mr. Pitt’s written
+request, on his deathbed, that she might have £1500 a year, had been
+complied with only in part, owing to the ill offices of certain
+persons at that time in the privy-council, and she received clear,
+after deductions for the property-tax were made, no more that
+£1200. At first, after Mr. Pitt’s death, she established herself
+in Montague Square, with her two brothers, and she there continued
+to see much company. “But,” she would say, “a poor gentlewoman,
+doctor, is the worst thing in the world. Not being able to keep
+a carriage, how was I to go out? If I used a hackney-coach, some
+spiteful person would be sure to mention it:――‘Who do you think I saw
+yesterday in a hackney-coach? I wonder where she could be driving
+alone down those narrow streets?’ If I walked with a footman behind
+me, there are so many women of the town now who flaunt about with a
+smart footman, that I ran the hazard of being taken for one of them;
+and, if I went alone, either there would be some good-natured friend
+who would hint that Lady Hester did not walk out alone for nothing; or
+else I should be met in the street by some gentleman of my
+acquaintance, who would say, ‘God bless me, Lady Hester! where are you
+going alone?――do let me accompany you:’ and then it would be said,
+‘Did you see Lady Hester crossing Hanover Square with such a one? he
+looked monstrous foolish: I wonder where they had been.’ So that, from
+one thing to another, I was obliged to stop at home entirely: and this
+it was that hurt my health so much, until Lord Temple, at last,
+remarked it. For he said to me one day, ‘How comes it that a person
+like you, who used to be always on horseback, never rides
+out?’――‘Because I have no horse.’――‘Oh! if that is all, you shall have
+one to-morrow.’――‘Thank you, my lord; but, if I have a horse, I must
+have two; and, if I have two, I must have a groom; and, as I do not
+choose to borrow, if you please, we will say no more about it.’――‘Oh!
+but I will send my horses, and come and ride out with you every day.’
+However, I told him no: for how could a man who goes to the House
+every day, and attends committees in a morning, be able to be riding
+every day with me? And I know what it is to lend and borrow horses and
+carriages. When I used to desire my carriage to go and fetch any
+friend, my coachman was sure to say, ‘My lady, the horses want
+shoeing;’ or the footman would come in with a long face, ‘My lady,
+John would like to go and see his sister to-day, if you please:’ there
+was always some excuse. All this considered, I made up my mind to
+remain at home.”
+
+For some time did Lady Hester remain in Montague Square: but her
+brother and General Moore, having fallen at the battle of Corunna, I
+believe she grew entirely disgusted with London; and, breaking up her
+little establishment, she went down into Wales, and resided in a small
+cottage at Builth, somewhere near Brecon, in a room not more than a
+dozen feet square. Here she amused herself in curing the poor, in her
+dairy, and in other rustic occupations: until, not finding herself so
+far removed from her English acquaintances but that they were always
+coming across her and breaking-in upon her solitude, she resolved on
+going abroad, up the Mediterranean.
+
+Arrived at Gibraltar, she was lodged at the governor’s, in the
+convent, where she remained some time; and then embarked for Malta in
+the Cerberus, Captain Whitby, who afterwards distinguished himself in
+Captain Hoste’s victory up the Adriatic. At Malta, she lived, at
+first, in the house of Mr. Fernandez: afterwards, General Oakes
+offered Lady Hester the palace of St. Antonio, where we resided during
+the remainder of her stay.
+
+We departed for Zante in the month of June or July, 1810. From
+Zante, we passed over to Patras, where she bade adieu to English
+customs for the rest of our pilgrimage. Traversing Greece, we visited
+Constantinople, and, from Constantinople, sailed for Egypt. At Rhodes
+we were shipwrecked, and I there lost my journals, among which were
+many curious anecdotes that would have thrown much light on her
+ladyship’s life. I shall relate what I have since gathered, without
+observing any order, but always, as far as I could recollect, using her
+very expressions; and, in many instances, there will be found whole
+conversations, where her manner would be recognized by those who were
+acquainted with it. I shall sometimes preface them with observations of
+my own.
+
+Speaking of her sisters, Lady Hester would say: “My sister Lucy was
+prettier than I was, and Griselda more clever; but I had, from
+childhood, a cheerfulness and sense of feeling that always made me a
+favourite with my father. She exemplified this by an anecdote of the
+second Lady Stanhope, her stepmother, referring to the time when her
+father, in one of his republican fits, put down his carriages and
+horses.
+
+“Poor Lady Stanhope,” she said, “was quite unhappy about it; but,
+when the whole family was looking glum and sulky, I thought of a
+way to set all right again. I got myself a pair of stilts, and out
+I stumped down a dirty lane, where my father, who was always spying
+about through his glass, could see me. So, when I came home, he said
+to me, ‘Why, little girl, what have you been about? Where was it I
+saw you going upon a pair of――the devil knows what?――eh, girl?’――‘Oh!
+papa, I thought, as you had laid down your horses, I would take a walk
+through the mud on stilts; for you know, papa, I don’t mind mud or
+anything――’tis poor Lady Stanhope who feels these things; for she has
+always been accustomed to her carriage, and her health is not very
+good.’――‘What’s that you say, little girl?’ said my father, turning
+his eyes away from me; and, after a pause, ‘Well, little girl, what
+would you say if I bought a carriage again for Lady Stanhope?’――‘Why,
+papa, I would say it was very kind of you.’――‘Well, well,’ he
+observed, ‘we will see; but, damn it! no armorial bearings.’ So,
+some time afterwards, down came a new carriage and new horses
+from London; and thus, by a little innocent frolic, I made all parties
+happy again?”[1]
+
+Lady Hester continued. “Lucy’s disposition was sweet, and her temper
+excellent: she was like a Madonna. Griselda was otherwise, and always
+for making her authority felt. But I, even when I was only a girl,
+obtained and exercised, I can’t tell how, a sort of command over them.
+They never came to me, when I was in my room, without sending first to
+know whether I would see them.
+
+“Mr. Pitt never liked Griselda; and, when he found she was jealous of
+me, he disliked her still more. She stood no better in the opinion of
+my father, who bore with Lucy――ah! just in this way――he would say to
+her, to get rid of her, ‘Now papa is going to study, so you may go to
+your room:’ then, when the door was shut, he would turn to me, ‘Now, we
+must talk a little philosophy;’ and then, with his two legs stuck
+upon the sides of the grate, he would begin――‘Well, well,’ he would
+cry, after I had talked a little, ‘that is not bad reasoning, but the
+basis is bad.’
+
+“My father always checked any propensity to finery in dress. If any of
+us happened to look better than usual in a particular hat or frock, he
+was sure to have it put away the next day, and to have something coarse
+substituted in its place.
+
+“When I was young, I was always the first to promote my sister’s
+enjoyments. Whether in dancing, or in riding on horseback, or at a
+feast, or in anything that was to make them happy, I always had
+something to do or propose that increased their pleasure. In like
+manner, afterwards, in guiding them in politics, in giving them advice
+for their conduct in private life, in forwarding them in the world, I
+was a means of much good to them. It was always Hester, and Hester,
+and Hester; in short, I appeared to be the favourite of them all; and
+yet now, see how they treat me!
+
+“I was always, as I am now, full of activity, from my infancy. At two
+years old, I made a little hat. You know there was a kind of straw hat
+with the crown taken out, and in its stead a piece of satin was put
+in, all puffed up. Well! I made myself a hat like that; and it was
+thought such a thing for a child of two years old to do, that my
+grandpapa had a little paper box made for it, and had it ticketed
+with the day of the month and my age.
+
+“Just before the French revolution broke out, the ambassador from
+Paris to the English Court was the Comte d’Adhémar. That nobleman had
+some influence on my fate as far as regarded my wish to go abroad,
+which, however, I was not able to gratify until many years afterwards.
+I was but seven or eight years old when I saw him; and when he came
+by invitation to pay a visit to my papa at Chevening, there was such
+a fuss with the fine footmen with feathers in their hats, and the
+count’s bows and French manners, and I know not what, that, a short
+time afterwards, when I was sent to Hastings with the governess and
+my sisters, nothing would satisfy me but I must go and see what sort
+of a place France was. So I got into a boat one day unobserved, that
+was floating close to the beach, let loose the rope myself, and off I
+went. Yes, doctor, I literally pushed a boat off, and meant to go, as I
+thought, to France. Did you ever hear of such a mad scheme?
+
+“But I was tired of all those around me, who, to all my questions,
+invariably answered, ‘My dear, that is not proper for you to
+know,――or, you must not talk about such things until you get older;
+and the like. So I held my tongue, but I made up for it, by treasuring
+up everything I heard and saw. Isn’t it extraordinary that I should
+have such a memory? I can recall every circumstance that ever occurred
+to me during my life――everything worth retaining, that I wished to
+remember. I could tell what people said, how they sat, the colour of
+their hair, of their eyes, and all about them, at any time, for the
+last forty years and more. At Hastings, for example, I can tell the
+name of the two smugglers, Tate and Everett, who attended at the
+bathing-machine, and the name of the apothecary, Dr. Satterly,
+although I have never heard a word about those persons from that day
+to this.
+
+“How well I recollect what I was made to suffer when I was young! and
+that’s the reason why I have sworn eternal warfare against Swiss and
+French governesses. Nature forms us in a certain manner, both inwardly
+and outwardly, and it is in vain to attempt to alter it. One governess
+at Chevening had our backs pinched in by boards, that were drawn tight
+with all the force the maid could use; and, as for me, they would have
+squeezed me to the size of a puny miss――a thing impossible! My instep,
+by nature so high, that a little kitten could walk under the sole of
+my foot, they used to bend down in order to flatten it, although that
+is one of the things that shows my high breeding.
+
+“Nature, doctor, makes us one way, and man is always trying to fashion
+us another. Why, there was Mahon, when he was eight or nine years old,
+that never could be taught to understand how two and two make four.
+If he was asked, he would say, four and four make three, or ten, or
+something: he was shown with money, and with beans, and in every
+possible way, but all to no purpose. The fact was, that that
+particular faculty was not yet developed: but now, there is no better
+calculator anywhere. The most difficult sums he will do on his
+fingers; and he is besides a very great mathematician. There was a son
+of Lord Darnley’s, a little boy, who was only big enough to lie under
+the table, or play on the sofa, and yet he could make calculations
+with I don’t know how many figures――things that they have to do in the
+Treasury. Now, if that boy had gone on in the same way, he would by
+this time have been Chancellor of the Exchequer. But I hear nothing of
+him, and I don’t know what has become of him; so I suppose he has not
+turned out anything extraordinary.
+
+“But nature was entirely out of the question with us: we were left to
+the governesses. Lady Stanhope got up at ten o’clock, went out, and
+then returned to be dressed, if in London, by the hair-dresser; and
+there were only two in London, both of them Frenchmen, who could dress
+her. Then she went out to dinner, and from dinner to the Opera, and
+from the Opera to parties, seldom returning until just before
+daylight. Lord Stanhope was engaged in his philosophical pursuits: and
+thus we children saw neither the one nor the other. Lucy used to say
+that, if she had met her step-mother in the streets, she should not
+have known her. Why, my father once followed to our own door in London
+a woman who happened to drop her glove, which he picked up. It was our
+governess; but, as he had never seen her in the house, he did not know
+her in the street.
+
+“He slept with twelve blankets on his bed, with no nightcap, and his
+window open: how you would have laughed had you seen him! He used to
+get out of bed, and put on a thin dressing-gown, with a pair of silk
+breeches that he had worn overnight, with slippers, and no stockings:
+and then he would sit in a part of the room which had no carpet, and
+take his tea with a bit of brown bread.
+
+“He married two wives; the first a Pitt, the second a Grenville; so
+that I am in two ways related to the Grenvilles.”
+
+Lady Hester continued: “As I grew up, Lady Stanhope used to chuck me
+under the chin, and cry, ‘Why the kurl (girl) is like a soap ball; one
+can’t pinch her cheek:’ and I really used to think there was something
+very strange about me. Soon after Horne Tooke took notice of me, and
+pronounced flatteringly on my talents. And when Mr. Pitt followed, and
+kindly said, ‘Why I believe there is nothing to find fault with,
+either in her looks or her understanding,’ I began to know myself. Mr.
+Elliott, (who married Miss Pitt) used to say to me, dear man! in his
+_bontonné_ manner, ‘You must not be surprised, my love, if you make a
+great noise in the world.’
+
+“Sir Sydney Smith said of me, after he had known me fifteen years, and
+when my looks were much changed by illness, ‘When I see you now, I
+recall to my recollection what you were when you first _came out_. You
+entered the room in your pale shirt, exciting our admiration by your
+magnificent and majestic figure. The roses and lilies were blended in
+your face, and the ineffable smiles of your countenance diffused
+happiness around you.’
+
+“The Duke of Cumberland used to say to me――‘You and Amelia (Princess
+Amelia) are two of the most spanking wenches I ever saw; but, if
+(alluding to my ill-health) you go on in this way, I do not know what
+the devil you will make of it.’”
+
+When mentioning this, her ladyship added: “Doctor, at twenty, my
+complexion was like alabaster; and, at five paces’ distance, the
+sharpest eye could not discover my pearl necklace from my skin: my
+lips were of such a beautiful carnation, that, without vanity, I can
+assure you very few women had the like. A dark blue shade under the
+eyes, and the blue veins that were observable through the transparent
+skin, heightened the brilliancy of my features. Nor were the roses
+wanting in my cheeks; and to all this was added a permanency in my
+looks that fatigue of no sort could impair.”
+
+I am now writing when disappointments and sickness have undermined her
+health, and when she has reached her 54th year. Her complexion had now
+assumed a yellow tint, but her hands were still exceedingly fair, and
+she had the very common though pardonable fault of often contriving to
+show them. There were moments when her countenance had still something
+very beautiful about it. Her mouth manifested an extraordinary degree
+of sweetness, and her eyes much mildness.
+
+She never would have her likeness taken, when in the bloom of her
+beauty, and it is not probable it can be ever done now. There is a
+sort of resemblance between her and Mr. Pitt, (if I may judge from his
+portraits.) She has told me also, that she was like the late Duchess
+of Cumberland. Her head, seen in front, presented a perfect oval, of
+which the eyes would cover a line drawn through the centre. Her
+eyebrows were arched and fine, I mean slender; her eyes blue,
+approaching to gray; her nose, somewhat large, and the distance from
+the mouth to the chin rather too long. Her cheeks had a remarkably
+fine contour, as they rounded off towards the neck; so that Mr.
+Brummell, as has been related, once said to her in a party, “For God’s
+sake, do take off those earrings, and let us see what is beneath
+them.” Her figure was tall (I think not far from six feet), rather
+largely proportioned, and was once very plump, as I have heard her
+say. Her mien was majestic; her address eminently graceful; in her
+conversation, when she pleased, she was enchanting; when she meant it,
+dignified; at all times, eloquent. She was excellent at mimickry, and
+upon all ranks of life. She had more wit and repartee, perhaps, than
+falls to the lot of most women. Her knowledge of human nature was most
+profound, and she could turn that knowledge to account to its utmost
+extent, and in the minutest trifles. She was courageous, morally and
+physically so; undaunted, and proud as Lucifer.
+
+She never read in any book more than a few pages, and there were few
+works that she praised when she looked them over. History she
+despised, considering it all a farce: because, she said, she had seen
+so many histories of her time, which she found to be lies from
+beginning to end, that she could not believe in one. She had a great
+facility of expression, and, on some occasions, introduced old
+proverbs with wonderful appositeness. Conversation never flagged in
+her company. But to return to Lady Hester’s own account of herself.
+
+“I can recollect, when I was ten or twelve years old, going to
+Hastings’s trial. My garter, somehow, came off, and was picked up by
+Lord Grey, then a young man. At this hour, as if it were before me in
+a picture, I can see his handsome but very pale face, his broad
+forehead; his corbeau coat, with cut-steel buttons; his white satin
+waistcoat and breeches, and the buckles in his shoes. He saw from whom
+the garter fell, but, observing my confusion, did not wish to increase
+it, and with infinite delicacy gave the garter to the person who sat
+there to serve tea and coffee.
+
+“The first person I ever danced with was Sir Gilbert Heathcote.
+
+“When I was young, I was never what you call handsome, but brilliant.
+My teeth were brilliant, my complexion brilliant, my language――ah!
+there it was――something striking and original, that caught everybody’s
+attention. I remember, when I was living with Mr. Pitt, that, one
+morning after a party, he said to me, ‘Really, Hester, Lord Hertford’
+(the father of the late lord, and a man of high pretensions for his
+courtly manners) ‘paid you so many compliments about your looks last
+night, that you might well be proud of them.’――‘Not at all,’ answered
+I: ‘he is deceived, if he thinks I am handsome, for I know I am not.
+If you were to take every feature in my face, and put them, one by
+one, on the table, there is not a single one would bear examination.
+The only thing is that, put together and lighted up, they look well
+enough. It is homogeneous ugliness, and nothing more.’
+
+“Mr. Pitt used to say to me, ‘Hester, what sort of a being are you? We
+shall see, some day, wings spring out of your shoulders; for there are
+moments when you hardly seem to walk the earth.’ There was a man who
+had known me well for fifteen years, and he told me, one day, that he
+had tried a long time to make me out, but he did not know whether I
+was a devil or an angel. There have been men who have been intimate
+with me, and to whom, in point of passion, I was no more than that
+milk-jug” (pointing to one on the table); “and there have been others
+who would go through fire for me. But all this depends on the star of
+a person.
+
+“Mr. Pitt declared that it was impossible for him to say whether I was
+most happy in the vortex of pleasure, in absolute solitude, or in the
+midst of politics; for he had seen me in all three; and, with all his
+penetration, he did not know where I seemed most at home. Bouverie
+used to say to me, when I lived at Chevening, ‘I know you like this
+kind of life; it seems to suit you.’ And so it did: but why did I quit
+home? Because of my brothers and sisters, and for my father’s sake. I
+foresaw that my sisters would be reduced to poverty if I did not
+assist them; and, though people said to me, ‘Let their husbands get on
+by themselves; they are capable of making their own way,’ I saw they
+could not, and I set about providing for them. As for my father, he
+thought that, in joining those democrats, he always kept aloof from
+treason. But he did not know how many desperate characters there were,
+who, like C――――, for example, only waited for a revolution, and were
+always plotting mischief. I thought, therefore, it was better to be
+where I should have Mr. Pitt by my side to help me, should he get into
+great difficulty. Why, they almost took Joyce out of bed in my
+father’s house; and when my father went to town, there were those who
+watched him; and the mob attacked his house, so that he was obliged to
+make his escape by the leads, and slip out the back way. Joyce was
+getting up in the morning, and was just blowing his nose, as people do
+the moment before they come down to breakfast, when a single knock
+came to the door, and in bolted two officers with a warrant, and took
+him off without even my father’s knowledge. Then, were not Lord
+Thanet, Ferguson, and some more of them thrown into gaol? and I said,
+‘If my father has not a prop somewhere, he will share the same fate;’
+and this was one of the reasons why I went to live with Mr. Pitt. Mr.
+Pitt used to say that Tom Paine was quite in the right; but then he
+would add, ‘What am I to do? If the country is overrun with all these
+men, full of vice and folly, I cannot exterminate them. It would be
+very well, to be sure, if everybody had sense enough to act as they
+ought; but, as things are, if I were to encourage Tom Paine’s
+opinions, we should have a bloody revolution; and, after all, matters
+would return pretty much as they were.’ But I always asked, ‘What do
+these men want? They will destroy what we have got, without giving us
+anything else in its place. Let them give us something good before
+they rob us of what we have. As for systems of equality, everybody is
+not a Tom Paine. Tom Paine was a clever man, and not one of your
+hugger-mugger people, who have one day one set of ideas, and another
+set the next, and never know what they mean.’
+
+“I am an aristocrat, and I make a boast of it. We shall see what will
+come of people’s conundrums about equality. I hate a pack of dirty
+Jacobins, that only want to get people out of a good place to get into
+it themselves. Horne Tooke always liked me, with all my aristocratical
+principles, because he said he knew what I meant.
+
+“No, doctor, Bouverie was right: I liked the country. At the back of
+the inn, on Sevenoaks common, stood a house, which, for a residence
+for myself, I should prefer to any one I have ever yet seen. It was a
+perfectly elegant, light, and commodious building, with an oval
+drawing-room, and two boudoirs in the corners, with a window to each
+on the conservatory. When I visited there, it was inhabited by three
+old maids, one of whom was my friend. What good ale and nice luncheons
+I have had there many a time! What good cheese, what excellent apples
+and pears, and what rounds of boiled beef?”
+
+The next day these personal recollections were renewed.
+
+“I remember, when Colonel Shadwell commanded the district, that, one
+day, in a pelting shower of rain, he was riding up Madamscourt Hill,
+as I was crossing at the bottom, going home towards Chevening with my
+handsome groom, Tom, a boy who was the natural son of a baronet. I saw
+Colonel Shadwell’s groom’s horse about a couple of hundred yards from
+me, and, struck with its beauty, I turned up the hill, resolving to
+pass them, and get a look at it. I accordingly quickened my pace, and,
+in going by, gave a good look at the horse, then at the groom, then at
+the master, who was on a sorry nag. The colonel eyed me as I passed;
+and I, taking advantage of a low part in the hedge, put my horse to
+it, leaped over, and disappeared in an instant. The colonel found out
+who I was, and afterwards made such a fuss at the mess about my
+equestrian powers, that nothing could be like it. I was the toast
+there every day.
+
+“Nobody ever saw much of me until Lord Romney’s review. I was obliged
+to play a trick on my father to get there. I pretended, the day
+before, that I wanted to pay a visit to the Miss Crumps” (or some such
+name), “and then went from their house to Lord Romney’s. Though all
+the gentry of Kent were there, my father never knew, or was supposed
+not to have known, that I had been there. The king took great notice
+of me. I dined with him――that is, what was called dining with him, but
+at an adjoining table. Lord and Lady Romney served the king and queen,
+and gentlemen waited on us: Upton changed my plate, and he did it very
+well. Doctor, dining with royalty, as Lord Melbourne does now, was not
+so common formerly; I never dined with the king but twice――once at
+Lord Romney’s at an adjoining table, and once afterwards at his own
+table: oh! what wry faces there were among some of the courtiers! Mr.
+Pitt was very much pleased at the reception I met with: the king took
+great notice of me, and, I believe, always after liked me personally.
+Whenever I was talking to the dukes, he was sure to come towards us.
+‘Where is she?’ he would cry; ‘where is she? I hear them laugh, and
+where they are laughing I must go too:’ then, as he came nearer, he
+would observe, ‘if you have anything to finish, I won’t come yet――I’ll
+come in a quarter of an hour.’ When he was going away from Lord
+Romney’s, he wanted to put me bodkin between himself and the queen;
+and when the queen had got into the carriage, he said to her, ‘My
+dear, Lady Hester is going to ride bodkin with us; I am going to take
+her away from Democracy Hall:’ but the old queen observed, in rather a
+prim manner, that I ‘had not got my maid with me, and that it would be
+inconvenient for me to go at such a short notice:’ so I remained.
+
+“It was at that review that I was talking to some officers, and
+something led to my saying, ‘I can’t bear men who are governed by
+their wives, as Sir A. H*** is; a woman of sense, even if she did
+govern her husband, would not let it be seen: it is odious, in my
+opinion:’ and I went on in this strain, whilst poor Sir A. himself,
+whom I did not know, but had only heard spoken of, was standing by all
+the time. I saw a dreadful consternation in the bystanders, but I went
+on. At last some one――taking commiseration on him, I suppose――said,
+‘Lady Hester, will you allow me to introduce Sir A. H*** to you, who
+is desirous of making your acquaintance.’ Sir A. very politely thanked
+me for the advice I had given him; and I answered something about the
+regard my brother had for him, and there the matter ended.
+
+“When first I went to live with Mr. Pitt, one day he and I were taking
+a walk in the park, when we were met by Lord Guildford, having Lady
+―――― and Lady ――――, two old demireps, under his arm. Mr. Pitt and I
+passed them, and Mr. Pitt pulled off his hat: Lord G. turned his head
+away, without acknowledging his bow. The fact was, he thought Mr. Pitt
+was escorting some mistress he had got. ‘Well,’ said I, ‘there goes
+Falstaff with the merry wives of Windsor.’ ‘Yes,’ rejoined Mr. Pitt,
+‘and I think, whatever he may take you to be, he need not be so prim,
+with those two painted and patched ladies under his arm.’
+
+“The same thing happened with Lord A.; and, when Mr. Pitt soon after
+came into office, Lord A. called on Mr. Pitt, who, being busy, sent
+him to me. Lord A. began with a vast variety of compliments about
+ancient attachments, and his recollection, when a boy, of having
+played with me: so I cut him short by telling him his memory then must
+have sadly failed him the other day, when he passed me and Mr. Pitt in
+his curricle with Lady ――――. After many, ‘Really, I supposed,’ and
+‘Upon my honours,――Sense of propriety on account of Lady ――――, and not
+knowing who I was’――I laughed heartily at him, and he went away. When
+he was gone, Mr. Pitt came to me, and said, ‘I don’t often ask
+questions about your visitors, but I should really like to know what
+excuse Lord A. could offer for his primosity[2] to us, when he was
+riding with such a Jezebel as Lady ――――.’
+
+“Yet it might have been very natural for Mr. Pitt to do so.[3] How
+many people used to come and ask me impertinent questions, in order to
+get out his state secrets: but I very soon set them down. ‘What, you
+are come to give me a lesson of impertinence,’ I used to say, laughing
+in their faces. One day, one of them, of rather a first-rate class,
+began with――‘Now, my dear Lady Hester, you know our long friendship,
+and the esteem I have for you――now do just tell me, who is to go out
+ambassador to Russia?’ So I was resolved to try him; and, with a very
+serious air, I said, ‘Why, if I had to choose, there are only three
+persons whom I think fit for the situation――Mr. Tom Grenville, Lord
+Malmesbury,’ and I forget who was the third: ‘but you know,’ I added,
+‘Lord Malmesbury’s health will not allow him to go to so cold a
+climate, and Mr., the other, is something and something, so that he is
+out of the question.’ Next morning, doctor, there appeared in ‘The
+Oracle,’ a paper, observe, that Mr. Pitt never read――‘We understand
+that Lord M. and Mr. T. G. are selected as the two persons best
+qualified for the embassy to Russia: but, owing to his lordship’s ill
+health, the choice will most likely fall on Mr. T. G.’
+
+“I was highly amused the following days, to hear the congratulations
+that were paid to Mr. Grenville: but, when the real choice came to be
+known, which was neither one nor the other, oh! how black the
+inquisitive friend of mine looked; and what reproaches he made me for
+having, as he called it, deceived him! But I did not deceive him: I
+only told him what was true, that, if I had the choice, I should
+choose such and such persons.
+
+“There are, necessarily, hundreds of reasons for ministers’ actions,
+that people in general know nothing about. When the Marquis ―――― was
+sent to India it was on condition that he did not take ―――― ―――― with
+him: for Mr. Pitt said, ‘It is all very well if he chooses to go
+alone, but he shan’t take ―――― ―――― with him; for――who knows?――she may
+be, all the time, carrying on intrigues with the French government,
+and that would not suit my purpose.’
+
+“There might be some apparent levity in my manner, both as regarded
+affairs of the cabinet and my own; but I always knew what I was doing.
+When Mr. Pitt was reproached for allowing me such unreserved liberty
+of action in state matters and in affairs where his friends advised
+him to question me on the motives of my conduct, he always
+answered――‘I let her do as she pleases; for, if she were resolved to
+cheat the devil, she could do it.’ And so I could, doctor; and that is
+the reason why thick-headed people, who could never dive into the
+motives of what I did, have often misinterpreted my conduct, when it
+has proceeded from the purest intentions. And, in the same way, when
+some persons said to Lady Suffolk, ‘Look at Lady Hester, talking and
+riding with Bouverie and the Prince’s friends; she must mind what she
+is about’――Lady Suffolk remarked, ‘There is nothing to fear in that
+quarter; she never will let any body do a bit more than she intends:
+what she does is with _connoissance de cause_.’ And she was right;
+nobody could ever accuse me of folly: even those actions which might
+seem folly to a common observer, were wisdom. Everything with me,
+through life, has been premeditatedly done.
+
+“Mr. Pitt paid me the greatest compliment I ever received from any
+living being. He was speaking of C******, and lamenting he was so
+false, and so little to be trusted; and I said, ‘But perhaps he is
+only so in appearance, and is sacrificing ostensibly his own opinions,
+in order to support your reputation?’――‘I have lived,’ replied Mr.
+Pitt, ‘twenty-five years in the midst of men of all sorts, and I never
+yet found but one human being capable of such a sacrifice.’――‘Who can
+that be?’ said I. ‘Is it the Duke of Richmond? is it such a one?’ and
+I named two others, when he interrupted me――‘No,――it is _you_.’
+
+“I was not insensible to praise from such a man; and when, before
+Horne Tooke and some other clever people, he told me I was fit to sit
+between Augustus and Mæcenas, I suppose I must believe it. And he did
+not think so lightly of my lectures as you do: for one day he said to
+me, ‘We are going to establish a new hospital, and you, Hester, are to
+have the management of it: it is to be an hospital for the diseases of
+the mind; for nobody knows so well as you how to cure them.’ I should
+never have done if I were to repeat the many attestations of his good
+opinion of me: but it was no merit of mine if I deserved it: I was
+born so. There was a man one day at table with Mr. Pitt, an old friend
+of his――Canning told me the story――who, speaking of me, observed that
+he supposed I should soon marry, and, after some conversation on the
+subject, concluded by saying, ‘I suppose she waits till she can get a
+man as clever as herself.’ ‘Then,’ answered Mr. Pitt, ‘she will never
+marry at all.’
+
+“In like manner, in the troublesome times of his political career, Mr.
+Pitt would say, ‘I have plenty of good diplomatists, but they are none
+of them military men: and I have plenty of good officers, but not one
+of them is worth sixpence in the cabinet. If you were a man, Hester, I
+would send you on the Continent with 60,000 men, and give you _carte
+blanche_; and I am sure that not one of my plans would fail, and not
+one soldier would go with his shoes unblacked; meaning, that my
+attention would embrace every duty that belongs to a general and a
+corporal――and so it would, doctor.”
+
+After musing a little while, Lady Hester Stanhope went on. “Did you
+ever read the life of General Moore that I have seen advertised,
+written by his brother? I wonder which brother it was. If it was the
+surgeon, he was hard-headed, with great knowledge of men, but dry,
+and with nothing pleasing about him. His wife was a charming woman,
+brought up by some great person, and with very good manners.
+
+“As for tutors, and doctors, and such people, if, now-a-days, mylords
+and myladies walk arm-in-arm with them, they did not do so in my time.
+I recollect an old dowager, to whom I used sometimes to be taken to
+spend the morning. She was left with a large jointure, and a fine
+house for the time being, and used to invite the boys and the girls of
+my age, I mean the age I was then, with their tutors and governesses,
+to come and see her. ‘How do you do, Dr. Mackenzie? Lord John, I see,
+is all the better for his medicine: the duchess is happy in having
+found a man of such excellent talents, which are almost too great to
+be confined to the sphere of one family.’――‘Such is the nature of our
+compact, my Lady, nor could I on any account violate the regulations
+which so good a family has imposed upon me.’――‘It’s very cold, Dr.
+Mackenzie: I think I increased my rheumatic pains at the Opera on
+Saturday night.’――‘Did you ever try Dover’s Powders, my lady?’ He does
+not, you see, tell her to use Dover’s Powders; he only says, did you
+ever try them? ‘Lord John――Lord John, you must take care, and not eat
+too much of that strawberry preserve.’
+
+“‘How do you do, Mr. K.?――how do you do, Lord Henry? I hope the
+marchioness is well? She looked divinely last night. Did you see her
+when she was dressed, Mr. K.?’――‘You will pardon me, my lady,’ answers
+the tutor, ‘I did indeed see her; but it would be presumptuous in me
+to speak of such matters. I happened to take her a map,’ (mind,
+doctor, he does not say a map of what) ‘and, certainly, I did cast my
+eyes on her dress, which was, no doubt, in the best taste, as
+everything the Marchioness does is.’ Observe, here is no mention of
+her looks or person. Doctors and tutors never presumed formerly to
+talk about the complexion, and skin, and beauty, of those in whose
+families they lived or found practice. Why, haven’t I told you, over
+and over again, how Dr. W―――― lost his practice from having said that
+a patient of his, who died, was one of the most beautiful corpses he
+had ever seen, and that he had stood contemplating her for a quarter
+of an hour: she was a person of rank, and it ruined him. Even his son,
+who was a doctor too, and had nothing to do with it, never could get
+on afterwards.
+
+“Then would come in some young lady with her governess, and then
+another; and the old dowager would take us all off to some show, and
+make the person who exhibited it stare again with the number of young
+nobility she brought with her. From the exhibition, which was some
+monster, or some giant, or some something, she would take us to eat
+ices, and then we were all sent home, with the tutors and governesses
+in a stew, lest we should be too late for a master, or for a God knows
+what.
+
+“I have known many apothecaries cleverer than doctors themselves.
+There was Chilvers, and Hewson, and half-a-dozen names that I forget:
+and there was an apothecary at Bath that Mr. Pitt thought more of than
+of his physician. Why, I have seen Sir H―――― obliged to give way to an
+apothecary in a very high family. ‘We will just call him in, and see
+what he says:’ and the moment he had written his prescription and was
+gone out of the house, the family would consult the apothecary, who
+perhaps knew twice as much of the constitution of the patient. ‘You
+know, my lord, it is not the liver that is affected, whatever Sir
+H―――― pretends to think: it is the spleen; for, did not we try the
+very same medicine that he has prescribed for above a week? and it did
+your lordship no good. You may just as well, and better, throw his
+draught away:’ and sure enough it was done. Sir Richard Jebb the same.
+
+“Do you think,” continued she, “that the first physician in London is
+on terms of intimacy with the mylords he prescribes for? he
+prescribes, takes his guinea, and is off: or, if he is asked to sit
+down a little, it is only to pick his brains about whether somebody is
+likely to live or not: but I am not, and never was, so mean: I always
+liked people should know their relative situations. Ah! Dr. Turton, or
+some such man as that, would be perhaps asked now and then to dinner,
+or to take a walk round the grounds. A doctor’s business is to examine
+the _grandes affaires_, talk to the nurse, and see that his blister
+has been well dressed, and not to talk politics, say such a woman is
+handsome, and chatter about what does not concern him.”
+
+Whilst Lady Hester was going on with her strictures on the poor
+doctors, a favourite theme with her, I produced from the back of a
+cupboard a miniature print of General Moore, which had been lying at
+Abra, neglected for some years. She took it from my hand, and, looking
+at it a little time, she observed that it was an excellent likeness of
+what he was when he became a weather-beaten soldier: “Before that,”
+said she, “those cheeks were filled out and ruddy, like Mr. Close’s at
+Malta.”
+
+After a pause, Lady Hester Stanhope continued: “Poor Charles! My
+brother Charles one day was disputing with James about his handsome
+Colonel, and James, on his side, was talking of somebody’s leg being
+handsome, saying he was right, for it had been modelled, and nobody’s
+could be equal to it; when Charles turned to me, and asked with great
+earnestness if I did not think General Moore was the better made man
+of the two, I answered, ‘He is certainly very handsome.’――‘Oh! but,’
+said Charles, ‘Hester, if you were only to see him when he is bathing,
+his body is as perfect as his face.’ I never even smiled, although
+inwardly I could not help smiling at his naïveté.
+
+“I consider it a mark of vulgarity and of the association of bad ideas
+in people’s minds when they make a handle of such equivoques in an
+ill-natured way, as you recollect Mr. T. did when he was at
+Alexandria. People of good breeding do not even smile, when, perhaps,
+low persons would suppose they might show a great deal of affected
+primosity. Only imagine the Duc de Blacas to be announced;――what would
+my old servant, poor William Wiggins, have done? He would never have
+got out the word.” Here Lady Hester set up laughing most heartily, and
+then she laughed, and laughed again. I think I never saw anything make
+her relax from her composure so much.
+
+“As for what people in England say or have said about me, I don’t care
+that for them,” (snapping her fingers); “and whatever vulgar-minded
+people say or think of me has no more effect than if they were to spit
+at the sun. It only falls on their own nose, and all the harm they do
+is to themselves. They may spit at a marble wall as they may at me,
+but it will not hang. They are like the flies upon an artillery-horse’s
+tail――there they ride, and ride, and buz about, and then there comes a
+great explosion; bom! and off they fly. I hate affectation of all
+kinds. I never could bear those ridiculous women who cannot step over
+a straw without expecting the man who is walking with them to offer
+his hand. I always said to the men, when they offered me their hand,
+‘No, no; I have got legs of my own, don’t trouble yourselves.’ Nobody
+pays so little attention to what are called punctilios as I do; but if
+any one piques me on my rank, and what is due to me, that’s another
+thing: I can then show them who I am.”
+
+October 16.――These conversations filled up the mornings and evenings
+until the 16th of October, when I went to Mar Elias for a day. Whilst
+there, a peasant arrived with an ass-load of musk grapes and
+_mukseysy_ grapes that Lady Hester had sent. An ass-load in those
+happy countries is but a proof of the abundance that reigns there. A
+bushel-basket of oranges or lemons, a bunch of fifty or sixty bananas,
+ten or twelve melons at a time, were presents of frequent occurrence.
+
+October 18.――I returned to Jôon, and employed myself busily in fitting
+up the cottage intended for our dwelling. The nearer the time
+approached for bringing my family close to her premises, the more
+Lady Hester seemed to regret having consented to the arrangement.
+Petty jealousies, inconsistent with a great mind, were always
+tormenting her. Of this a remarkable and somewhat ludicrous instance
+occurred during the latter part of the month of September. Most
+persons are probably aware that Mahometans have a religious horror of
+bells, and, in countries under their domination, have never allowed of
+their introduction even into Christian churches. It is not uncommon,
+by way of contempt, to designate Europe as the land of bells. This
+pious abhorrence penetrates the arcana of private life; and, in a
+Turkish house, no such thing as a bell for calling the servants is
+ever to be seen. A clap of the hands, repeated three times, is the
+usual summons; and, as the doors are seldom shut, the sound can be
+easily heard throughout every part of the dwelling.
+
+Lady Hester, however, retained her European habits in this one
+particular; and perhaps there never existed a more vehement or
+constant bell-ringer. The bells hung for her use were of great size;
+so that the words _Gerass el Syt_, or my lady’s bell, echoing from one
+mouth to another when she rang, made the most indolent start on their
+legs; until, at last, as nobody but herself in the whole territory
+possessed house-bells, the peasantry and menials imagined that the use
+of them was some special privilege granted to her by the Sublime
+Porte on account of her exalted rank, and she probably found it to her
+advantage not to disturb this very convenient supposition.
+
+On taking up our residence at Mar Elias, there were two bells put by
+in a closet, which were replaced for the use of my family, with
+bell-ropes to the saloon and dining-room, none of us ever suspecting
+that they could, by any human ingenuity, be considered otherwise than
+as most necessary appendages to a room: but we calculated without our
+host. This assumption of the dignity of bells was held to be an act of
+_læsa majestas_; and the report of our proceedings was carried from
+one person to another, until, at last, it reached Lady Hester’s ears,
+endorsed with much wonder on the part of her maids how a doctor’s wife
+could presume to set herself on an equality with a _meleky_ (queen).
+Lady Hester, however, saw the absurdity of affecting any claim to
+distinction in such a matter, and, therefore, vexed and mortified
+although it appears she was, she never said a word to me on the
+subject. But, one morning in September, when we were all assembled at
+breakfast, on pulling the bell-rope no sound responded, and, examining
+into the cause, we discovered that the strings had been cut by a
+knife, and the bells forcibly wrenched from their places. Much
+conjecture was formed as to who could have done all this mischief.
+The maids were questioned; the porter, the milkman, the errand-boy,
+the man-servant, every body, in short, in and about the place, but
+nobody knew anything of the matter. Understanding Arabic, I soon found
+there was some mystery in the business; and answers, more and more
+evasive, from the porter, the harder he was pressed, led to a
+presumption, amounting almost to a certainty, that her ladyship’s
+grand emissary, Osman Chaôosh, had arrived late at night, armed with
+pincers, hammer, etcetera, and, before daylight, had carried off the
+bells to Lady Hester’s residence. I concealed my conjecture from my
+family, wishing to cause no fresh source of irritation; and, having
+occasion to write that day to Lady Hester, I merely added, as a
+postscript, “The two bells have been stolen during the night, and I
+can find no certain clue to the thief. For, although I have discovered
+that Osman el Chaôosh has been here secretly, I cannot think it likely
+that any one of your servants would presume to do such a thing without
+your orders; nor can I believe that your ladyship would instruct any
+one to do that clandestinely which a message from yourself to me would
+have effected so easily.”
+
+When I saw Lady Hester a day or two afterwards, she never alluded to
+the bells, nor did I; and nothing was ever mentioned about them for
+two or three months, until, one day, she, being in a good humour,
+said, “Doctor, it was I who ordered Osman to take away the bells. The
+people in this country must never suppose there is any one connected
+with my establishment who puts himself on an equality with me, no
+matter in what. The Turks know of only one Pasha in a district; the
+person next to him is a nobody in his presence, not daring even to sit
+down or to speak, unless told to do so. If I had let those bells hang
+much longer, the sound of my own would not have been attended to. As
+it is, half of my servants have become disobedient from seeing how my
+will is disputed by you and your family, who have always a hundred
+reasons for not doing what I wish to be done; and, as I said in my
+letter to Eugenia, I can’t submit to render an account of my actions;
+for, if I was not called upon to do so by Mr. Pitt, I am sure I shan’t
+by other people; so let us say no more about it.” Of course, I
+complied with her whims; or rather, I should say, admitted the good
+sense of her observations: for I knew very well that she never did
+anything without a kind or substantial motive. So, after that, the
+exclamation of _Gerass el Syt_ recovered its magical effect.
+
+October 23.――I escorted my family to their new residence, which was
+called the Tamarisk Pavilion, from a tamarisk-tree that grew from the
+terrace. They were all delighted with it, and happiness seemed
+restored to its inmates.
+
+October 25.――The very day on which my family came up, Lady Hester took
+to her bed from illness, and never quitted it until March in the
+following year. She had now laboured under pulmonary catarrh for six
+or seven years, which, subsiding in the summer months, returned every
+winter, with increased violence, and at this time presented some very
+formidable symptoms.
+
+November 9.――About six o’clock, just as I had dined, a servant came to
+say that her ladyship wished to see me. On going into her bed-room,
+which, as usual, was but faintly lighted, I ran my head against a long
+packthread, which crossed from the wall, where it was tied, to her
+bed, and was held in her hand. “Take care, doctor,” said she; “these
+stupid beasts can’t understand what I want: but you must help me. I
+want to pull out a tooth. I have tied a string to it and to the wall:
+and you, with a stick or something, must give it a good blow, so as to
+jerk my tooth out.”
+
+Knowing her disposition, I said, “Very well, and that I would do as
+she wished. But, if you like,” added I, “to have it extracted
+_secundem artem_, I fancy I can do it for you.”――“Oh! doctor, have you
+nerve enough? and, besides, I don’t like those crooked instruments:
+but, however, go and get them.” I had seen in the medicine-chest a
+dentist’s instrument, and, returning with it, I performed the
+operation; with the result of which she was so much pleased, that she
+insisted upon having another tooth out. The relief was so
+instantaneous, that the second tooth was no sooner gone than she
+commenced talking as usual.
+
+The cough with which Lady Hester had been so long indisposed
+occasionally assumed symptoms of water in the chest. Sudden starts
+from a lying posture, with a sense of suffocation, which, for a
+moment, as she described it, was like the gripe of a hand across her
+throat, made me very uneasy about her. Her strong propensity to
+bleeding, to which she had resorted four or five times a year for the
+last twenty years, had brought on a state of complete emaciation, and
+what little blood was left in her body seemed to have no circulation
+in the extremities, where her veins, on a deadly white skin, showed
+themselves tumefied and knotty.
+
+It was difficult to reason with her on medical subjects, especially in
+her own case. She had peculiar systems, drawn from the doctrine of
+people’s stars. She designated her own cough as an asthma, and had,
+for some time, doctored herself much in her own way. Such is the balmy
+state of the air in Syria, that, had she trusted to its efficacy
+alone, and lived with habits of life like other people, nothing
+serious was to be dreaded from her illness. But she never breathed the
+external air, except what she got by opening the windows, and took no
+exercise but for about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour daily,
+when, on quitting her bed-room to go to the saloon, she made two or
+three turns in the garden to see her flowers and shrubs, which seemed
+to be the greatest enjoyment she had.
+
+She prescribed almost entirely for herself, and only left me the
+duties of an apothecary; or, if she adopted any of my suggestions, it
+was never at the moment, but always some days afterwards, when it
+seemed to her that she was acting, not on my advice, but on the
+suggestions of her own judgment. She was accustomed to say, if any
+doubts were expressed of the propriety of what she was going to do, “I
+suppose I am grown a fool in my old age. When princes and statesmen
+have relied on my judgment, I am not going to give it up at this time
+of life.”
+
+But it was not for herself alone that she thus obstinately prescribed;
+she insisted also upon doing the same for everybody else, morally as
+well as medically. One of the prominent features in her character was
+the inclination she had to give advice to all persons indiscriminately
+about their conduct, their interests, and their complaints: and, in
+this latter respect, she prescribed for everybody. I was not exempt,
+and I dreaded her knowing anything about the most trifling
+indisposition that affected me. Greatly addicted to empiricism, she
+would propose the most strange remedies; and, fond of the use of
+medicine herself, she would be out of humour if others showed an
+aversion to it. There was no surer way of securing her good graces
+than to put one’s self under her management for some feigned
+complaint, and then to attribute the cure to her skill. Hundreds of
+knaves have got presents out of her in this way. For they had but to
+say that, during their illness, they had lost an employment, or spent
+their ready money, no matter what――they were sure to be remunerated
+tenfold above their pretended losses. Let it however be said to her
+honour, that, among the number she succoured in real sickness, many
+owned with gratitude the good she had done: and no surer proof of this
+can be given than the universal sorrow that pervaded half the
+population of Sayda, when, in the course of this her illness, she was
+reported to be past recovery.
+
+It was in compliance with this foible of hers that, when I returned to
+Dar Jôon, after being laid up with a bad leg, she would insist on my
+wearing a laced cloth boot, which she ordered to be made, unknown to
+me; on my washing the œdematous leg in wine with laurel leaves steeped
+in it; and on sitting always, when with her, with my leg resting on a
+cushion placed on a stool. Her tyranny in such matters was very
+irksome; for it was clothed in terms of so much feeling and regard,
+and of such commiseration for one’s overrated sufferings, that, to
+escape the accusation of ingratitude and bad breeding, it was
+impossible to avoid entire acquiescence in every one of her kind
+commands.
+
+She was ever complaining that she could get nothing to eat, nothing to
+support a great frame like hers: yet she seldom remained one half
+hour, from sunrise to sunset, or from sunset to sunrise (except during
+sleep), without taking nourishment of some kind. I never knew any
+human being who took food so frequently: but, from that very
+frequency, it might be doubted whether she had a relish for anything.
+And may not this, in some measure, account for her frequent
+ill-humour? for nothing sours people’s temper more than an overloaded
+stomach, and nothing promotes cheerfulness more than a light one.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+      [1] In accordance with his republican principles, Lord
+          Stanhope caused his armorial bearings to be defaced
+          from his plate, carriages, &c. Nothing was spared
+          but the iron gate before the entrance to the house.
+          Even the tapestry given to the great Lord Stanhope
+          by the king of Spain, with which one of the rooms
+          in Chevening was ornamented, he caused to be taken
+          down and put into a corner, calling it all damned
+          aristocratical. He likewise sold all the Spanish
+          plate, which Lady Hester said weighed (if I recollect
+          rightly) six hundred weight.
+
+      [2] A friend has suggested that _primosity_ is not in
+          Johnson’s Dictionary; it was however a word of
+          frequent recurrence in Lady Hester’s vocabulary; and
+          it scarcely, I think, need be said, that it means
+          prudery:
+
+                    “What is prudery? ’Tis a beldam,
+                     Seen with wit and beauty seldom.”
+                                              POPE.
+
+      [3] “In 1800, Mr. Pitt, for the third time, contemplated
+          renewing his attempts to make peace with France, and
+          he offered the mission again to Lord Malmesbury.
+          Lord Grenville wished to appoint his brother,
+          Mr. Thomas Grenville; and Lord Malmesbury, whose
+          deafness and infirmity had much increased, readily
+          consented.”――_Diaries and Correspondence of the Earl
+          of Malmesbury._
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER II.
+
+Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s Memoirs――The three duchesses――Anecdote of Mr.
+Rice――How Prime Ministers are employed on first taking office――The
+Grenville make――P―――― of W―――― at Stowe――Mr. Pitt and Mr. Sheridan――
+Duke of H―――― ――Mr. Pitt’s disinterestedness exemplified――His life
+wasted in the service of his country――Mr. Rose――Mr. Long――Mr.――――
+――Grounds at Walmer laid out by Lady Hester――Mr. Pitt’s deportment in
+retirement――His physiognomy――How he got into debt――Lord Carrington;
+why made a peer――Extent of Mr. Dundas’s influence over Mr. Pitt――Mr.
+Pitt averse to ceremony――Mr. Pitt and his sister Harriet――His dislike
+to the Bourbons――Lady Hester’s activity at Walmer――Lord Chatham’s
+indolence――Mr. Pitt’s opinion of Sir Arthur Wellesley.
+
+
+On leaving Marseilles, in 1837, I ordered Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s
+Memoirs to be sent after me to Syria, thinking that, as relating to
+Mr. Pitt’s times, and to people and politics with whom and in which
+both he and she had mixed so largely, these memoirs could not fail to
+amuse her. I received them soon after my arrival at Jôon, and many
+rainy days were passed in reading them. They served to beguile the
+melancholy hours of her sickness, and recalled the agreeable
+recollections of her more splendid, if not more happy, hours. She
+would say on such occasions, “Doctor, read a little of your book to
+me.” This was always her expression, when I had brought any
+publication to her: and, ordering a pipe, lying at her length in bed,
+and smoking whilst I read, she would make her comments as I went on.
+
+“Let me hear about the duchesses,” she would say. After a page or two
+she interrupted me. “See what the Duchess of Rutland and the Duchess
+of Gordon were: look at the difference. I acknowledge it proceeds all
+from temperament, just as your dull disposition does, which to me is
+as bad as a heavy weight or a nightmare. I never knew, among the whole
+of my acquaintance in England, any one like you but Mr. Polhill of
+Crofton” (or some such place): “he was always mopish, just as you are.
+I remember too what a heavy, dull business the Duchess of R.’s parties
+were――the room so stuffed with people that one could not move, and all
+so heavy――a great deal of high breeding and _bon ton_; but there was,
+somehow, nothing to enliven you. Now and then some incident would turn
+up to break the spell. One evening, I recollect very well, everybody
+was suffering with the heat: there we were, with nothing but heads to
+be seen like bottles in a basket. I got out of the room, upon the
+landing-place. There I found Lady Sefton, Lady Heathcote, and some of
+your high-flyers, and somebody was saying to me, ‘Lady Hester
+something,’ when, half way up the staircase, the Duke of Cumberland
+was trying to make his way. He cried out, ‘Where’s Lady Hester?
+where’s my aide-de-camp? Come and help me; for I am so blind I can’t
+get on alone. Why, this is h――l and d――――n!’――‘Here I am, sir.’――‘Give
+me your hand, there’s a good little soul. Do help me into this h――l;
+for it’s quite as hot.’ Then came Bradford; and, whilst he was
+speaking to me, and complaining of the intolerable heat and crush, out
+roared the Duke of Cumberland, ‘Where is she gone to?’――and up went
+his glass, peeping about to the right and left――‘where is she gone
+to?’ There was some life in him, doctor.
+
+“Now, at the Duchess of Gordon’s, there were people of the same
+fashion, and the crowd was just as great; but then she was so lively,
+and everybody was so animated, and seemed to know so well what they
+were about――quite another thing.
+
+“As for the Duchess of D.’s, there they were――all that set――all
+yawning, and wanting the evening to be spent, that they might be
+getting to the business they were after.”
+
+It may be mentioned that Lady Hester was always very severe on the
+Duchess of D. and her friends, whenever her name or theirs was
+mentioned. She said she was full of affected sensibility, but that
+there was always a great deal of wickedness about her eyes.
+
+The mention of the Duchess of Rutland’s name also led to an amusing
+anecdote. Lady Hester was speaking of the grand _fête_ given by the
+duchess when her son came of age. The arrangements were entrusted to a
+person named Rice, and to some great confectioner. Mr. Rice had been
+_maître d’hôtel_, or in some such capacity, in Mr. Pitt’s family.
+
+“Rice told me,” said Lady Hester, “that when he and the other man were
+preparing for the _fête_, he never lay down for ten nights, but got
+what sleep he could in an arm-chair. The duchess gave him three
+hundred guineas. One day she looked at him over her shoulder; and when
+one of the beaux about her said, ‘What are you looking after, duchess?
+You have forgotten something in the drawing-room?’――‘No, no,’ said
+she, pointing to Rice, ‘I was only thinking that those eyes are too
+good for a kitchen.’ And then one talked of the eyes, and the eyes,
+and another of the eyes and the eyes, until poor Rice quite blushed.
+He had very pretty eyes, doctor.”
+
+But the anecdote I was going to relate was this. Most simple persons,
+like myself, imagine that prime ministers of such a country as
+England, when promoted to so elevated a station, are only moved by the
+noble ambition of their country’s good, and, from the first moment to
+the last, are ever pondering on the important measures that may best
+promote it. No such thing. Let us hear what Lady Hester Stanhope
+herself had to say on this subject.
+
+“The very first thing Mr. Pitt did,” said she, “after coming into
+office the second time, was to provide for Mr. Rice. We were just got
+to Downing Street, and everything was in disorder. I was in the
+drawing-room: Mr. Pitt, I believe, had dined out. When he came home,
+‘Hester,’ said he, ‘we must think of our dear, good friend Rice. I
+have desired the list to be brought to me to-morrow morning, and we
+will see what suits him.’――‘I think we had better see now,’ I replied.
+‘Oh, no! it is too late now.’――‘Not at all,’ I rejoined; and I rang
+the bell, and desired the servant to go to the Treasury, and bring me
+the list.
+
+“On examining it, I found three places for which he was eligible. I
+then sent for Rice. ‘Rice,’ said I, ‘here are three places to be
+filled up. One is a place in the Treasury, where you may fag on, and,
+by the time you are forty-five or fifty, you may be master of twenty
+or twenty-five thousand pounds. There is another will bring you into
+contact with poor younger sons of nobility: you will be invited out,
+get tickets for the Opera, and may make yourself a fine gentleman. The
+third is in the Customs: there you must fag a great deal, but you will
+make a great deal of money: it is a searcher’s place.’
+
+“Rice, after considering awhile, said――‘As for the Treasury, that will
+not suit me, my lady; for I must go on plodding to the end of my life.
+The second place your ladyship mentioned will throw me out of my
+sphere: I am not fit for fine folks; and, if you please, I had rather
+take the third.’ So, the very next morning, I got all his papers
+signed by everybody except Mr. Long, and they made some excuses that
+he was not come, or was gone, or something; but I would hear of no
+delay, and desired them to find him.
+
+“Rice went on swimmingly, doctor, for a long time, and made one
+morning a seizure that brought for his share £500. But I had given him
+some very long instructions, and he was not like you, for he listened
+to my advice. Sometimes, when I was teaching him how he was to act, he
+would say, ‘My lady, I believe that is enough for this time: I don’t
+think my poor head will contain more; but I’ll come again.’ I told him
+he was to learn the specific gravity of bodies, that when they told
+him (for example) it was pepper, he might know by the volume that it
+was not gunpowder or cochineal.
+
+“When the Grenville administration wanted to introduce new regulations
+into the Customs, and diminish their profits, I wrote such a petition
+for them, that Lord Grenville read it over and over, and cried
+out――‘There is only one person could write this, and we must give up
+the point.’ He sent the Duke of Buckingham to me to find out if it was
+I, and the duke said, to smooth the matter――‘Lady Hester, you know, if
+you want any favour, you have only to ask for it.’――‘Indeed,’ said I,
+‘I shall ask no favour of your _broad-bottomed_ gentry; what I want I
+shall take by force.’――‘Now, Hester,’ cried the duke, ‘you are too
+bad; you are almost indelicate.’
+
+“Oh, I made a man laugh so once when speaking of an officer, who, I
+said, would not do for an hussar, as he wanted a little more of the
+Grenville make about him.”
+
+After a pause, as if reflecting, Lady Hester resumed――“Is there
+nothing in the book about the G********’s getting the Prince down to
+Stowe? They received him with extraordinary magnificence, and the most
+noble treatment possible: they fancied they were going to do wonders.
+But I said to them――‘Do you think all this makes the impression you
+wish in the Prince’s breast? You suppose, no doubt, that you gratify
+him highly with such a splendid reception: you are much mistaken. From
+this time forward he will be jealous of you, and will hate you as
+long as he thinks you can rival him.’ The event proved how justly I
+knew his character.
+
+“There they were, shut up: and when they told me they had got their
+conditions in black and white, I told them how it would be. I said he
+would take them in; for what was a paper to a man like him? I wrote
+them such a letter, doctor, that they all thought it was Mr.
+Pitt’s――Mr. Pitt’s best style, too――until I swore he never knew a word
+about it. They fancied they had got all the loaves and fishes. One was
+to be Prime Minister, one First Lord of the Admiralty, and so on: but
+their ambition destroyed them. What have they been since Mr. Pitt’s
+death? Nothing at all. Who ever hears now of the Duke of
+B*********?”[4]
+
+I turned over the pages, and next read Wraxall’s account of Mr.
+Sheridan, which Lady Hester said was very much to the purpose. “Mr.
+Pitt,” she added, “always thought well of him, and never disliked my
+talking with him. Oh! how Sheridan used to make me laugh, when he
+pretended to marry Mr. Pitt to different women!”
+
+I came to the passage where Sir Nathaniel finds fault with Mr. Pitt’s
+having refused Sheridan’s generous offer of co-operating with him in
+suppressing the mutiny at the Nore. “Why,” interrupted Lady Hester,
+“what could Mr. Pitt do? He was afraid, doctor; he did not know how
+sincere such people might be in their offers: they might be only
+coming over to his side to get the secrets of the cabinet, and then
+turn king’s evidence. It required a great deal of caution to know how
+to deal with such clever men.”
+
+Where Sir Nathaniel relates the history of the Burrell family, she
+spoke highly of all the daughters, but especially of Mrs. Bennett, and
+considered that the author was wrong in saying that all but Mrs.
+Bennett were not handsome.
+
+Of the D. of H. she observed, that he never lived with the duchess. He
+was in love with Lady ――――, and used to disguise himself as a
+one-legged soldier――as a beggar――assuming a hundred masquerades,
+sleeping in outhouses, &c. He would have married her, but he could
+not, for he had got one wife already. That was the woman F. M****
+married. “Oh, doctor, there was a man!” (meaning the Duke of H――――)
+“perfect from top to toe, with not a single flaw in his person.”
+
+Lady Hester was so delighted with Sir Nathaniel’s Memoirs that she
+said, more than once, “How I wish I had known that man! I would have
+made him a duke. What an excellent judgment he has, and how well he
+knew everybody! But how was I to find out all those people, when the
+stupid and interested set that surrounded Mr. Pitt kept them all in
+the background.”
+
+November 11.――This evening I remained with Lady Hester about three
+hours. She was better, but complained of great pain in the left
+hypochondrium, and could not lie easy on either side, or on her back.
+Yet, notwithstanding her ailments, talking was necessary for her; and
+from the incidental mention of Mr. Pitt’s name, she went on about him
+for some time.
+
+“Nobody ever knew or estimated Mr. Pitt’s character rightly. His views
+were abused and confounded with the narrow projects of men who never
+could comprehend them; his fidelity to his master was never
+understood. Never was there such a disinterested man; he invariably
+refused every bribe, and declined every present that was offered to
+him. Those which came to him from abroad he left to rot in the Custom
+House; and some of his servants, after quitting his service, knowing
+he never inquired about them any more, went and claimed things of this
+sort: for Mr. Pitt would read the letter, and think no more about it.
+I could name those, who have pictures hanging in their rooms――pictures
+by Flemish masters, of great value――procured in this way.
+
+“Mr. Pitt used to say of Lord Carrington, when he saw him unable to
+eat his dinner in comfort, because he had a letter to write to his
+steward about some estate or another――‘_voilà l’embarras de
+richesses_:’ but when he heard of some generous action done by a
+wealthy man――‘There’s the pleasure of being rich,’ he would cry. He
+did not pretend to despise wealth, but he was not a slave to it, as
+will be seen by the following anecdotes:――
+
+“At one time a person was empowered by his city friends to settle on
+him £10,000 a year, in order to render him independent of the favour
+of the king and of everybody, upon condition (as they expressed it)
+that he would stand forth to save his country. The offer was made
+through me, and I said I would deliver the message, but was afraid the
+answer would not be such as they wished. Mr. Pitt in fact refused it,
+saying he was much flattered by their approval of his conduct, but
+that he could accept nothing of the sort.
+
+“Yet these people,” added Lady Hester, “were not, as you might at
+first suppose, disinterested in their offer: I judged them to be
+otherwise. For if it had been to the man, and not to some hopes of
+gain they had by him, would they not, after his death, have searched
+out those he esteemed as angels, and have honoured his memory by
+enriching those he loved so much? (alluding to herself and brothers.)
+But no――they thought if Mr. Pitt retired from public affairs, the
+country and its commerce would go to ruin, and they, as great city
+men, would be the losers; whereas, by a few thousand pounds given away
+handsomely, if they got him to take an active part in the government,
+they would in turn put vast riches into their own purses, and make a
+handsome profit out of their patriotism.” She added, “There are no
+public philanthropists in the city.”
+
+“I recollect once a hackney-coach drawing up to the door, out of which
+got four men: doctor, they had a gold box with them as big as that”
+(and she held her hands nearly a foot apart to show the size of it),
+“containing £100,000 in bank-notes. They had found out the time when
+he was alone, and made him an offer of it. It was all interest that
+guided them, but they pretended it was patriotism:――rich merchants,
+who were to get a pretty penny by the job. He very politely thanked
+them, and returned the present.
+
+“I was once in the city at an Irish linen warehouse――very rich people,
+but such a nasty place――so dark! You know those narrow streets. They
+offered to buy Hollwood for him, pay his debts, and make him
+independent of the king, if he would contrive to take office; for he
+was out at the time. I mentioned it to him, as I thought it my duty to
+do so; but he would not listen to any such proposal.
+
+“When I think of the ingratitude of the English nation to Mr. Pitt,
+for all his personal sacrifices and disinterestedness, for his life
+wasted in the service of his country!”――Here Lady Hester’s emotions
+got the better of her, and she burst into tears: she sobbed as she
+spoke. “People little knew what he had to do. Up at eight in the
+morning, with people enough to see for a week, obliged to talk all the
+time he was at breakfast, and receiving first one, then another, until
+four o’clock; then eating a mutton-chop, hurrying off to the House,
+and there badgered and compelled to speak and waste his lungs until
+two or three in the morning!――who could stand it? After this, heated
+as he was, and having eaten nothing, in a manner of speaking, all day,
+he would sup with Dundas, Huskisson, Rose, Mr. Long, and such persons,
+and then go to bed to get three or four hours’ sleep, and to renew the
+same thing the next day, and the next, and the next.
+
+“Poor old Rose! he had a good heart. I am afraid he took it ill that I
+did not write to him. Mr. Long used to slide in and slide out, and
+slide here and slide there――nobody knew when he went or when he
+came――so quiet.”
+
+I here interrupted Lady Hester: “It was a lamentable end, that of Mr.
+――――,” said I.[5] “So much the better,” answered Lady Hester. I
+thought she had not heard me well. “It was a lamentable end, that of
+Mr. ――――,” I repeated with a louder tone. “So much the better,” said
+she again; “it could not be too bad for him. He died in bodily
+torment, and C―――― had the torment of a bad conscience for his
+falsehoods, and W―――― lived in mental torment. They all three deserved
+it.”
+
+Lady Hester resumed. “When Mr. Pitt was at Walmer, he recovered his
+health prodigiously. He used to go to a farm near Walmer, where hay
+and corn were kept for the horses. He had a room fitted up there with
+a table and two or three chairs, where he used to write sometimes, and
+a tidy woman to dress him something to eat. Oh! what slices of bread
+and butter I have seen him eat there, and hunches of bread and cheese
+big enough for a ploughman! He used to say that, whenever he could
+retire from public life, he would have a good English woman cook.
+Sometimes, after a grand dinner, he would say, ‘I want something――I am
+hungry:’ and when I remarked, ‘Well, but you are just got up from
+dinner,’ he would add, ‘Yes; but I looked round the table, and there
+was nothing I could eat――all the dishes were so made up, and so
+unnatural.’ Ah, doctor! in town, during the sitting of parliament,
+what a life was his! Roused from his sleep (for he was a good sleeper)
+with a despatch from Lord Melville;――then down to Windsor; then, if
+he had half an hour to spare, trying to swallow something:――Mr. Adams
+with a paper, Mr. Long with another; then Mr. Rose: then, with a
+little bottle of cordial confection in his pocket, off to the House
+until three or four in the morning; then home to a hot supper for two
+or three hours more, to talk over what was to be done next day:――and
+wine, and wine!――Scarcely up next morning, when tat-tat-tat――twenty or
+thirty people, one after another, and the horses walking before the
+door from two till sunset, waiting for him. It was enough to kill a
+man――it was murder!”
+
+Lady Hester reverted to Walmer, and went on, after musing a little
+thus――“I remember once what an improvement I made at Walmer, which
+arose from a conversation with some friends, in which Mr. Pitt agreed
+with them that Walmer was not certainly a beautiful residence, but
+that it only wanted trees to make it so. I was present, but did not
+seem to hear what was passing.
+
+“Mr. Pitt soon after went to town. Mindful of what he had let drop, I
+immediately resolved to set about executing the improvements which he
+seemed to imply as wanting. I got (I know not how) all the regiments
+that were in quarters at Dover, and employed them in levelling,
+fetching turf, transplanting shrubs, flowers, &c. As I possess, in
+some degree, the art of ingratiating myself where I want to do it, I
+would go out of an evening among the workmen, and say to one, ‘You are
+a Warwickshire man, I know by your face’ (although I had known it by
+his brogue). ‘How much I esteem Lord Warwick; he is my best
+friend.’――‘Were you in Holland, my good fellow?’ to another. ‘Yes, my
+lady, in the Blues.’――‘A fine regiment; there is not a better soldier
+in the army than colonel so-and-so.’――‘He was my colonel, my lady.’
+Thus a few civil words, and occasionally a present, made the work go
+on rapidly, and it was finished before Mr. Pitt’s return.
+
+“When Mr. Pitt came down, he dismounted from his horse, and, ascending
+the staircase, saw through a window, which commanded a view of the
+grounds, the improvements that had been made. ‘Dear me, Hester, why,
+this is a miracle! I know ’tis you, so do not deny it: well, I
+declare, it is quite admirable; I could not have done it half so well
+myself.’ And, though it was just dinner-time, he would go out, and
+examine it all over, and then was so profuse in his praises!――which
+were the more delightful, because they applauded the correctness of my
+taste. Above all, he was charmed that I had not fallen into an error
+(which most persons would have done) of making what is called an
+English garden, but rather had kept to the old manner of avenues,
+alleys, and the like, as being more adapted to an ancient castle. Such
+was the amiable politeness of Mr. Pitt.
+
+“When Mr. Pitt retired from office, and sold Hollwood, his favourite
+child, he laid down his carriages and horses, diminished his equipage,
+and paid off as many debts as he could. Yet, notwithstanding this
+complete revolution, his noble manners, his agreeable, condescending
+air, never forsook him for a moment. To see him at table with vulgar
+sea captains, and ignorant militia colonels, with two or three
+servants in attendance――he, who had been accustomed to a servant
+behind each chair, to all that was great and distinguished in
+Europe――one might have supposed disgust would have worked some change
+in him. But in either case it was the same――always the admiration of
+all around him. He was ever careful to cheer the modest and diffident;
+but if some forward young fellow exhibited any pertness, by a short
+speech, or by asking some puzzling question, he would give him such a
+set down that he could not get over it all the evening.”
+
+In answer to a question I put, “By whom and how ministers effected
+their purposes in the city,” she told me that they got hold of one of
+the great squads, as Lloyd’s, the Angersteins, the Merchant Tailors,
+and so on; and by means of one body set the rest to work. Lady Hester
+was saying of herself that she was very fit for a diplomatic
+character. “Nobody can ever observe in me any changes in my
+countenance; and when I am sitting still under a tree, nobody that
+passes and sees me, I will venture to say, would ever suppose what was
+in me, or say that’s a person of talent. Mr. Pitt’s face was somewhat
+the same. In regarding him, I should have said that he had a sort of
+slovenly or negligent look: and the same when he was in a passion. His
+passion did not show itself by knitting his brows or pouting his
+mouth, nor were his words very sharp: but his eyes lighted up in a
+manner quite surprising. It was something that seemed to dart from
+within his head, and you might see sparks coming from them. At another
+time, his eyes had no colour at all.
+
+“That Mr. Pitt got into debt is no wonder. How could a man, so
+circumstanced, find time to look into his affairs? And of course there
+were many things I could not attend to, whatever disposition I might
+have had to do so. The bills that were given in by the cook, by the
+valet, and such people, I looked over. Merely the post-chaises and
+four were enough to run away with a moderate income. Every now and
+then I fixed on some glaring overcharge, and made some inquiry about
+it, just to put a check upon them; and on such occasions I would say,
+‘Take care that does not happen again:’ but, what with great dinners,
+and one thing and another, it was impossible to do any good. As for
+your talking about English servants being more honest than those of
+other countries, I don’t know what to say about it.
+
+“Where Wraxall, in his book, insinuates that Mr. Pitt gave Mr. Smith a
+title, and made him Lord Carrington, merely to discharge a debt for
+money supplied in his emergencies, he is wrong, doctor. Mr. Pitt once
+borrowed a sum of money of six persons, but Lord Carrington was not of
+the number, and the title bestowed on him was for quite another
+reason: it was to recompense the zeal he had shown in raising a
+volunteer corps at his own expense at Nottingham, and in furnishing
+government with a sufficient sum to raise another. Mr. Pitt had also
+found Mr. Smith a useful man in affording him information about
+bankers’ business, which he often stood in need of, and in making
+dinner parties, to enable Mr. Pitt to get rid of troublesome people,
+whom he otherwise would have been obliged to entertain at his own
+table. But Mr. Pitt never knew what I heard after his death, by mere
+accident, that the principal part of the loan, which Mr. S. presented
+to government in his own name, was in reality the gift of an old miser
+at Nottingham; who, being unable or unwilling to go to town to see the
+Chancellor of the Exchequer in person, and to be put to the trouble
+of addressing the crown, got Mr. S., who was an active man, to do it
+for him. It suited Mr. Pitt very well, in making Lord Carrington
+governor of Deal castle, to have somebody near at hand who could take
+off the bore, and the expense too, of entertaining people from
+London.”
+
+“Sir Nathaniel Wraxall speaks of Mr. Pitt’s supposed inclination for
+one of the Duke of Richmond’s daughters, and goes on to say that he
+showed one of them great attention.” Lady Hester Stanhope interrupted
+me at that passage, and said, “So he did to all.”
+
+She denied that Mr. Dundas had any direct influence over Mr. Pitt, as
+Wraxall avers. Her words were, “Because Mr. Dundas was a man of sense,
+and Mr. Pitt approved of his ideas on many subjects, it does not
+follow, therefore, that he was influenced by him.” With the exception
+of Mr. Dundas, Lord ―――― and another that she named, “all the rest,”
+said Lady Hester, “were a rabble――a rabble. It was necessary to have
+some one at their head to lead them, or else they were always going
+out of the right road, just as, you know, a mule with a good star must
+go before a caravan of mules, to show them the way. Look at a flight
+of geese in the air: there must always be one to lead them, or else
+they would not know in what direction to fly.
+
+“Mr. Pitt’s consideration for age was very marked. He had, exclusive
+of Walmer, a house in the village, for the reception of those whom the
+castle could not hold. If a respectable commoner, advanced in years,
+and a young duke arrived at the same time, and there happened to be
+but one room vacant in the Castle, he would be sure to assign it to
+the senior; for it is better (he would say) that these young lords
+should walk home on a rainy night, than old men: they can bear it more
+easily.
+
+“Mr. Pitt was accustomed to say that he always conceived more
+favourably of that man’s understanding who talked agreeable nonsense,
+than of his who talked sensibly only; for the latter might come from
+books and study, while the former could only be the natural fruit of
+imagination.
+
+“Mr. Pitt was never inattentive to what was passing around him, though
+he often thought proper to appear so. On one occasion, Sir Ed. K. took
+him to the Ashford ball to show him off to the yeomen and their wives.
+Though sitting in the room in all his senatorial seriousness, he
+contrived to observe everything; and nobody” (Lady Hester said) “could
+give a more lively account of a ball than he. He told who was rather
+fond of a certain captain; how Mrs. K. was dressed; how Miss Jones,
+Miss Johnson, or Miss Anybody, danced; and had all the minutiæ of the
+night as if he had been no more than an idle looker-on.
+
+“He was not fond of the applause of a mob. One day, in going down to
+Weymouth, he was recognized in some town, and, whilst the carriage
+stopped to change horses, a vast number of people gathered round us:
+they insisted on dragging the carriage, and would do so for some time,
+all he could say. Oh, doctor! what a fright I was in!
+
+“Mr. Pitt bore with ceremony as a thing necessary. On some occasions,
+I was obliged to pinch his arm to make him not appear uncivil to
+people: ‘There’s a baronet,’ I would say; or, ‘that’s Mr. So-and-so.’
+
+“I never saw Mr. Pitt shed tears but twice. I never heard him speak of
+his sister Har-yet” (so Lady Hester pronounced it) “but once. One day
+his niece, Harriet Elliott, dined with us, and, after she was gone,
+Mr. Pitt said, ‘Well, I am glad Harriet fell to my brother’s lot, and
+you to mine, for I never should have agreed with her.’――‘But,’
+observed I, ‘she is a good girl, and handsome.’――‘She ought to be so,’
+said Mr. Pitt, ‘for her mother was so.’”
+
+Lady Hester said, that those who asserted that Mr. Pitt wanted to put
+the Bourbons on the throne, and that they followed his principles,
+lied; and, if she had been in parliament, she would have told them so.
+ “I once heard a great person,” added she, “in conversation with him
+on the subject, and Mr. Pitt’s reply was, ‘Whenever I can make
+peace,[6] whether with a consul, or with whosoever it is at the head
+of the French government, provided I can have any dependance on him, I
+will do it.’ Mr. Pitt had a sovereign contempt for the Bourbons, and
+the only merit that he allowed to any one of them was to him who was
+afterwards Charles X., whose gentlemanly manners and mild demeanour he
+could not be otherwise than pleased with. Mr. Pitt never would consent
+to their going to court, because it would have been a recognition of
+Louis XVIII.
+
+“Latterly, Mr. Pitt used to suffer a great deal from the cold in the
+House of Commons; for he complained that the wind cut through his silk
+stockings. I remember, one day, I had on a large tippet and muff of
+very fine fur: the tippet covered my shoulders, and came down in a
+point behind. ‘What is this, Hester?’ said Mr. Pitt; ‘something
+Siberian? Can’t you command some of your slaves――for you must
+recollect, Griselda, Hester has slaves without number, who implicitly
+obey her orders’ (this was addressed to Griselda and Mr. Tickell, who
+were present)――‘can’t you command some of your slaves to introduce the
+fashion of wearing muffs and tippets into the House of Commons? I
+could then put my feet on the muff, and throw the tippet over my knees
+and round my legs.’
+
+“When we were at Walmer, it is incredible what a deal I got through in
+the day. Mr. Pitt was pleased to have somebody who would take trouble
+off his hands. Every week he had to review the volunteers, and would
+ride home in such showers of rain――I have been so drenched, that, as I
+stood, my boots made two spouting fountains above my knees. Then there
+was dinner; and, if I happened to be alone, when I went to the
+drawing-room, I had to give the secret word for spies, to see the
+sergeant of the guard, and then the gentlemen would come in from the
+dining-room. But, if they were late, oh, how sleepy I got, and would
+have given the world to go to bed!
+
+“One day, Lord Chatham had to review the artillery, and he kept them
+under arms from daylight until three o’clock. Bradford went to him
+several times to know if he was ready. ‘I shall come in about half an
+hour,’ was the constant reply; until, at last, seeing no chance of his
+appearance, I agreed with the aide-de-camps to go off together and
+settle matters as well as we could: so, getting Lord Chatham’s leave,
+off we went. Colonel Ford, the commanding-officer, was a cross man;
+and that day he had enough to make him so. But I managed it all very
+well: I told him that pressing business detained Lord C.; that he had
+commissioned us to apologize; and that I should have pleasure in
+saying the men looked admirably: then I added that Mr. Pitt hoped to
+see him in the course of a few days at the Castle, and so on. The
+colonel looked dreadfully out of temper, however, and Bradford and I
+rode back at a furious rate. It was one of those dark, wet days that
+are so peculiar to England. A day or two after, the colonel and some
+of the officers were invited to Walmer, and I behaved very civilly to
+them; so that Lord Chatham’s laziness was forgotten.
+
+“Lord Chatham never travelled without a mistress. He was a man of no
+merit, but of great _sâad_ (luck): he used to keep people waiting and
+waiting whilst he was talking and breakfasting with her. He would keep
+his aide-de-camps till two or three in the morning. How often would
+the servant come in, and say supper was ready, and he would answer,
+‘Ah! well, in half an hour.’ Then the servant would say, ‘Supper is
+on the table;’ and then it would be, ‘Ah? well, in a quarter of an
+hour.’ An aide-de-camp would come in with a paper to sign, and perhaps
+Lord Chatham would say――‘Oh, dear! that’s too long: I can’t possibly
+look at it now: you must bring it to-morrow.’ The aide-de-camp would
+present it next day, and he would cry, ‘Good God! how can you think of
+bringing it now? don’t you know there’s a review to-day?’ Then, the
+day after, he was going to Woolwich. ‘Well, never mind,’ he would say;
+‘have you got a short one?――well, bring that.’
+
+“Doctor, I once changed the dress of a whole regiment――the Berkshire
+militia. Somebody asked me, before a great many officers, what I
+thought of them, and I said they looked like so many tinned
+harlequins. One day, soon after, I was riding through Walmer village,
+when who should pop out upon me but the colonel, dressed in entirely
+new regimentals, with different facings, and more like a regiment of
+the line. ‘Pray, pardon me, Lady Hester’――so I stopped, as he
+addressed me――‘pray, pardon me,’ said the colonel, ‘but I wish to know
+if you approve of our new uniform.’ Of course I made him turn about,
+till I inspected him round and round――pointed with my whip, as I sat
+on horseback, first here and then there――told him the waist was too
+short, and wanted half a button more――the collar was a little too
+high――and so on; and, in a short time, the whole regiment turned out
+with new clothes. The Duke of York was very generous, and not at all
+stingy in useful things.
+
+“I recollect once at Ramsgate, five of the Blues, half drunk, not
+knowing who I was, walked after me, and pursued me to my door. They
+had the impertinence to follow me up-stairs, and one of them took hold
+of my gown. The maid came out, frightened out of her senses; but, just
+at the moment, with my arm I gave the foremost of them such a push,
+that I sent him rolling over the others down stairs, with their swords
+rattling against the balusters. Next day, he appeared with a black
+patch as big as a saucer over his face; and, when I went out, there
+were the glasses looking at me, and the footmen pointing me out――quite
+a sensation!”
+
+During these conversations respecting Mr. Pitt’s times, Sir
+Nathaniel’s Memoirs were generally in my hand, and when there was a
+pause I resumed my reading. In giving Sir Walter Farquhar’s private
+conversation respecting Mr. Pitt’s death, the author says――“Mr. Pitt
+mounted the staircase with alacrity.” Here Lady Hester stopped me,
+with the exclamation of――“What a falsehood, doctor! Just hear how it
+was. You know, when the carriage came to the door, he was announced,
+and I went up to the top of the stairs to receive him. The first
+thing I heard was a voice so changed, that I said to myself, ‘It is
+all over with him.’ He was supported by the arms of two people, and
+had a stick, or two sticks, in his hands, and as he came up, panting
+for breath――ugh! ugh! I retreated little by little, not to put him to
+the pain of making a bow to me, or of speaking:――so much for his
+alacrity!
+
+“After Mr. Pitt’s death, I could not cry for a whole month and more. I
+never shed a tear, until one day Lord Melville came to see me; and the
+sight of his eyebrows turned grey, and his changed face, made me burst
+into tears. I felt much better for it after it was over.
+
+“Mr. Pitt’s bust was taken after his death by an Italian, named, I
+think, Tomino――an obscure artist, whom I had rummaged out. This man
+had offered me at one time a bust worth a hundred guineas, and prayed
+me to accept it, in order, as he said, to make his name known: I
+refused it, but recollected him afterwards. The bust turned out a very
+indifferent resemblance: so, with my own hand, I corrected the
+defects, and it eventually proved a strong likeness. The D. of C.
+happening to call when the artist was at work in my room, was so
+pleased, that he ordered one of a hundred guineas for himself, and
+another to be sent to Windsor. There was one by this Tomino put into
+the Exhibition.
+
+“A fine picture in Mr. Pitt’s possession represented Diogenes with a
+lantern searching by day for an honest man. A person cut out a part of
+the blank canvas, and put in Mr. Pitt’s portrait.
+
+“When Mr. Pitt was going to Bath, previous to his last illness, I told
+him I insisted on his taking my eider-down quilt with him. ‘You will
+go about,’ said I, ‘much more comfortably; and, instead of being too
+hot one day under a thick counterpane, and the next day shivering
+under a thin one, you will have an equable warmth, always leaving one
+blanket with this quilt. Charles and James were present, and could not
+help ridiculing the idea of a man’s carrying about with him such a
+bundling, effeminate thing. ‘Why,’ interrupted I, ‘it is much more
+convenient than you all imagine: big as it looks, you may put it into
+a pocket-handkerchief.’――‘I can’t believe that,’ cried Charles and
+James. ‘Do you doubt my word?’ said I, in a passion: ‘nobody shall
+doubt it with impunity:’ and my face assumed that picture of anger,
+which you can’t deny, doctor, is in me pretty formidable; so I desired
+the quilt to be brought. ‘Why, my dear Lady Hester,’ said Mr. Pitt, ‘I
+am sure the boys do not mean to say you tell falsehoods: they suppose
+you said it would go into a handkerchief merely as a _façon de
+parler_.’”
+
+Lady Hester, when she told me this story, here interrupted
+herself――“And upon my word, doctor, if you had seen the footman
+bringing it over his shoulder, he himself almost covered up by it, you
+would have thought indeed it was only a _façon de parler_.”
+
+She continued. “I turned myself to James. ‘Now, sir, take and tie it
+up directly in this pocket-handkerchief. There! does it, or does it
+not go into it!’
+
+“This,” concluded Lady Hester, “was the only quarrel I ever had with
+Charles and James. James often used to look very black, but he never
+said anything.
+
+“When Mr. Pitt was going to Bath, in his last illness, he told me he
+had just seen Arthur Wellesley. He spoke of him with the greatest
+commendation, and said the more he saw of him, the more he admired
+him. ‘Yes,’ he added, ‘the more I hear of his exploits in India, the
+more I admire the modesty with which he receives the praises he merits
+from them. He is the only man I ever saw that was not vain of what he
+had done, and had so much reason to be so.’
+
+“This eulogium,” Lady Hester said, “Mr. Pitt pronounced in his fine
+mellow tone of voice, and this was the last speech I heard him make in
+that voice; for, on his return from Bath, it was cracked for ever.”
+Then she observed, “My own opinion of the duke is, that he is a blunt
+soldier, who pleases women because he is gallant and has some remains
+of beauty: but,” she added, “he has none of the dignity of courts
+about him.”
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+      [4] This of course refers to the late Duke.
+
+      [5] “I dislike ――――, both as to his principles and the
+          turn of his understanding: he wants to make money by
+          this peace.”――_Diaries and Correspondence_, &c.
+
+      [6] “Mr. Pitt has always been held up to the present
+          generation as fond of war; but the Harris papers
+          could furnish the most continued and certain evidence
+          of the contrary, and that he often suffered all the
+          agony of a pious man who is forced to fight a duel.
+          The cold and haughty temper of Lord Grenville was less
+          sensitive. Our overtures to France were synonymous
+          with degradation, and he could not brook the delays
+          of the directory.”――_Diaries and Correspondence_, v.
+          iii., p. 516.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER III.
+
+Duchess of Gontaut――Duc de Berry――Anecdotes of Lord H.――Sir Gore
+Ouseley――Prince of Wales――The other princes――The Queen’s severity――Men
+and women of George the Third’s time――The Herveys――Lady Liverpool’s
+high breeding――Lady Hester’s declining health.
+
+
+“One of Mr. Pitt’s last conversations, whilst on his death-bed, was
+about Charles and James. Mr. Pitt had called me in, and told me, in a
+low, feeble voice――‘You must not talk to me to-day on any business:
+when I get down to Lord Camden’s, and am better, it will be time
+enough then.’ He seemed to know he was dying, but only said this to
+console me. ‘But now, my dear Hester,’ he continued, ‘I wish to say a
+few words about James and Charles. As for Charles, he is such an
+excellent young man that one cannot wish him to be otherwise than he
+is; and Moore is such a perfect officer, that he will give him every
+information in his profession that he can possibly require. The only
+apprehension I have is on the score of women, who will perhaps think
+differently of him from what he thinks of himself: but with James the
+case is otherwise. He is a young man you must keep under; else you
+will always see him trying to be a _joli garçon_. For Charles’s
+steadiness, I do not fear; but the little one will one day or other
+fall into the hands of men who will gain him over and unsettle his
+political principles. You can guide him, and, so long as he is under
+your care, he is safe:’ and,” added Lady Hester, “Mr. Pitt was right,
+doctor; for the moment I quitted England he fell into the snares of
+Lord B. and his party, and instead of being in Mr. Canning’s place,
+which he might have been, he became nothing.”
+
+Lady Hester went on: “When Charles and James left Chevening,[7] Mr.
+Pitt said to Mahon (the present Earl Stanhope), ‘You know that, when
+your father dies, you will be heir to a large property――whether
+£15,000 a-year or £25,000 it does not much signify. Now, as far as a
+house goes and having a table where your brothers may dine, I have got
+that to offer. But young men in the army have a number of wants, for
+their equipment, regimentals, &c., and for all this I have not the
+means. You, therefore, Mahon, must do that for them; and, if you have
+not money, you can always let their bills be charged to you with
+interest, as is very common among noblemen until they come to their
+fortune. You ought to raise a sum of money for them, and see to their
+wants a little: your two brothers should not be left to starve.’
+
+“Mahon said he would. Charles one day told me that, as a poor captain
+of the army, the baggage warehouse and his tailor were rather shy of
+trusting him; and if Mahon would only go and say to them――‘Do you let
+my brothers have what they want, and I will be answerable for them;’
+then I could get on. Mahon did that too; and, in reliance on this
+arrangement, they had clothes and other things, considering him as
+responsible for them. After Mr. Pitt’s death, several tradesmen
+applied for their bills.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+So, recollecting an old peer, who had been one of Mr. Pitt’s
+particular friends, I sent off James to him to his country-seat with a
+letter, relating the whole business: this person immediately gave
+James a draft for £2,000, with which he returned, and paid his own
+and Charles’s debts.
+
+“Well, it was agreed between Charles, James, and me, that whoever had
+the first windfall should pay the £2,000. Charles died: James was not
+rich enough at any time to do it; and it fell to my lot to pay it
+since I have been in this country. And that was the reason of my
+selling the Burton Pynsent reversion, which, you know, I did in 1820
+or thereabouts; and when Mr. Murray found fault with me for my
+extravagance, and said he would have no hand in the business, neither
+he nor anybody else knew then why I sold it.
+
+“When Coutts wrote me word that my brother James had been very good to
+me in having given me £1,000, he did not know that the civility was
+not so disinterested as he imagined. James might think he did a great
+deal for me: but, let me ask you――did I not make a pretty great
+sacrifice for Lord Mahon and him? I sold a pretty round sum out of the
+American funds, and James took possession of about five hundred
+pounds’ worth of plate of mine, and of my jewels, and of Tippoo Saib’s
+gold powder-flask, worth £200, and of the cardinal of York’s present,
+which, to some persons who wanted a relic of the Stuarts, was
+invaluable. Then there was a portfolio, full of fine engravings of
+Morghen and others, that the Duke of Buckingham bought of him: so
+there was at least as much as he sent me.
+
+“If I had not been thwarted and opposed by them all, as I have been,
+and obliged to raise money from time to time to get on, I should have
+been a very rich woman. There was the money I sold out of the American
+funds; then there was the Burton Pynsent money, £7,000; my father’s
+legacy, £10,000; the (I did not distinctly hear what) legacy, £1,000:”
+and thus her ladyship reckoned up on her fingers an amount of £40,000.
+
+“Is it not very odd that General G. and Lord G. could not leave me a
+few thousand pounds out of their vast fortunes when they died? They
+knew that I was in debt, and that a few thousands would have set me
+up; and yet in their wills, not to speak of their lifetime, they never
+gave me a single sixpence, but left their money to people already in
+the enjoyment of incomes far exceeding their wants, and very little
+more nearly related to them than I am. Well, all their injustice does
+not put me out of spirits. The time will soon come when I shall want
+none of their assistance, if I get the other property that ought to
+come to me. Oh! how vexed Lady Chatham always was, when Lady Louisa V.
+used to point at me, and say――‘There she is――that’s my heir.’ Lady L.
+was deformed, and never thought of marrying; but Lord G. did marry
+her nevertheless, and she had a child that died.
+
+“Then there is the reversion of my grandfather’s pension of £4,000
+a-year, secured for four lives by the patent: the first Lord Chatham
+one, the late Lord Chatham the next, and I, of course, the third.”[8]
+
+Nov. 14.――I saw that Lady Hester grew weaker every day, and I felt
+alarmed about her. Still, whenever I had to write to the person she,
+about this time, most honoured with her confidence, Mons. Guys, the
+French consul at Beyrout, she would not allow me to make any further
+allusion to her illness than to state simply that she was confined to
+her bed-room with a cold. “I see you are afraid about me,” she said,
+“but I have recovered from worse illnesses than this by God’s help and
+the strength of my constitution.”
+
+My wife sent to her to say that she or my daughter would, with
+pleasure, come and keep her company, or sit up with her: this she
+refused. I then offered Miss Longchamp’s services: but Lady Hester’s
+pride would not allow her to expose to a stranger the meagreness of
+her chamber, so utterly unlike a European apartment. It was indeed an
+afflicting sight to behold her wrapped up in old blankets, her room
+lighted by yellow beeswax candles in brass candlesticks, drinking her
+tea out of a broken-spouted blue teapot and a cracked white cup and
+saucer, taking her draughts out of an old cup, with a short wooden
+deal bench by her bedside for a table, and in a room not so well
+furnished as a servant’s bed-room in England.
+
+The general state of wretchedness in which she lived had even struck
+Mr. Dundas, a gentleman, who, on returning overland from India, staid
+some days with her: and, as Lady Hester observed, when she told me the
+story, “He did not know all, as you do. I believe he almost shed
+tears. ‘When I see you, Lady Hester,’ said he, ‘with a set of fellows
+for servants who do nothing, and when I look at the room in which you
+pass your hours, I can hardly believe it is you. I was much affected
+at first, but now I am more reconciled. You are a being fluctuating
+between heaven and earth, and belonging to neither; and perhaps it is
+better things should be as they are’” Lady Hester added, “He has
+visited me two or three times: he is a sensible Scotchman, and I like
+him as well as anybody I have seen for some years.”
+
+November 15.――It was night, when a messenger arrived from Beyrout, and
+brought a small parcel containing a superbly bound book presented to
+her ladyship by the Oriental Translation Fund Society. It was
+accompanied by a complimentary letter from the president, Sir Gore
+Ouseley. The book was “_The History of the Temple of Jerusalem,
+translated by the Rev. J. Reynolds_.” After admiring it, and turning
+over the leaves, she said to me, “Look it over, and see what it is
+about,” and then began to talk of Sir Gore. “I recollect, doctor,”
+said she, “so well the night he was introduced to me: it was at Mr.
+Matook’s (?) supper.
+
+“You may imagine the numbers and numbers of people I met in society,
+whilst I lived with Mr. Pitt, almost all of whom were dying to make my
+acquaintance, and of whom I necessarily could know little or nothing.
+Indeed, to the greater part of those who were introduced to me, if
+they saw me afterwards, when they bowed I might return the salutation,
+smile a little, and pass on, for I had not time to do more:――a
+person’s life would not be long enough. Well, I recollect it was at a
+party where Charles X. was present――I think it was at Lord
+Harrington’s――that somebody said to me, ‘Mr. ―――― wants to know you so
+much! Why won’t you let him be introduced to you?’――‘Because I don’t
+like people whose face is all oily, like a soap-ball,’ answered I.
+Now, doctor, upon my word, I no more knew he had made his fortune by
+oil, than I do what was the colour of the paper in your saloon at
+Nice; and when his friend said, ‘You are too bad, Lady Hester,’ I did
+not understand what he meant. However, they told me there would be all
+the royalties there, and so I consented.
+
+“I have had an instinct all my life that never deceived me, about
+people who were thorough-bred or not; I knew them at once. Why was it,
+when Mr. H*******n came into a room, and took a long sweep with his
+hat, and made a stoop, and I said: ‘One would think he was looking
+under the bed for the _great business_;’ and all the people laughed,
+and when at last Mr. Pitt said, ‘Hester, you are too bad, you should
+not be personal,’ I declared ‘I did not know what he meant?’ Then he
+explained to me that the man was a broken-down doctor, a fact which, I
+honestly assured him, I never heard of before. But my quickness in
+detecting people’s old habits is so great, that I hit upon a thing
+without having the least previous intimation.
+
+“As I passed the card-table that evening where the Comte d’Artois was
+playing, he put down his cards to talk to me a little, so polite, so
+well-bred――poor man! And there were the other three old dowagers, who
+were playing with him, abusing him in English, which he understood
+very well, because he had stopped the game. After he had resumed his
+cards, I was leaning over the back of a chair facing him, reflecting
+in one of my thoughtful moments on the uncertainty of human greatness
+in the picture I had then before me, when I gave one of those deep
+sighs, which you have heard me do sometimes, something between a sigh
+and a grunt, and so startled the French King, that he literally threw
+down his cards to stare at me. I remained perfectly motionless,
+pretending not to observe his action; and, as he still continued to
+gaze at me, some of the lookers-on construed it into a sort of
+admiration on his part. This enraged Lady P., and her rage was
+increased when, at every knock at the door, I turned my head to see
+who was coming, and he turned his head too; for I was expecting the
+royalties, and so was he: but she did not know this, and she took it
+into her head that the Prince and I had some understanding between us.
+
+“I never thought any more of the matter; but, in the course of the
+evening, somebody brought Lady P. to me, and introduced her. ‘I have
+longed,’ said Lady P. ‘for some time to make your acquaintance: I
+don’t know how it is that we have never met; it would give me great
+pleasure if I sometimes saw you at my parties,’ and so on. The next
+day I had a visit from Lady P., and the day after that came her card,
+and then an invitation; and, day after day, there was nothing but Lady
+P. So, at last, not knowing what it meant, I said to an acquaintance,
+‘What is the reason that Lady P. is always coming after me?’――‘What!
+don’t you know?’ she replied: ‘why, the King of France is in love with
+you?’ And this is the art, doctor, of all those mistresses: they watch
+and observe if their lovers are pleased with any young person, and
+then invite her home, as a lure to keep alive the old attraction.”
+
+Here Lady Hester paused, and, after a moment, added: “How many of
+those French people did I see at that time, especially at Lord H.’s!
+There was the Duchess of Gontaut, who was obliged to turn washerwoman;
+and even to the last, when she was best off, was obliged to go out to
+parties in a hackney-coach. Why, the Duc de Berry himself lodged over
+a greengrocer’s in a little street leading out of Montague Square, and
+all the view he had was to lean out of his window, and look at the
+greengrocer’s stall. I have seen him many a time there, when he used
+to kiss his hand to me as I passed. The Duchess of Gontaut afterwards
+brought up the Duke of Bordeaux. That was a woman quite admirable; so
+full of resources, so cheerful, she kept up the spirits of all the
+emigrants: and then she was so well dressed! She did not mind going in
+a hackney-coach to dine with the Duke of Portland.
+
+“Lord H********** scraped up a reputation which he never deserved,”
+continued Lady Hester, as her reflections led her from one person to
+another. “Insincere, greedy of place, and always pretending to be
+careless about it, he and my lady lived in a hugger-mugger sort of a
+way, half poverty half splendour, having soldiers for house servants,
+and my lady dining at two with the children (saying my lord dined
+out), and being waited on by a sergeant’s daughter. How often have I
+seen a scraggy bit of mutton sent up for luncheon, with some potatoes
+in their skins, before royalty! The princes would say to me, ‘Very
+bad, Lady Hester, very bad; but there! he has a large family――he is
+right to be saving.’ And then Lady H**********, with her little eyes,
+and a sort of waddle in her gait (for she once had a paralytic
+stroke), with a wig all curls, and, at the top of it, a great bunch of
+peacock’s feathers――then her dress, all bugles, and badly put
+on――horrid, doctor, horrid! and why should they have lived in such a
+large house, half furnished, with the girls sleeping altogether in
+large attics, with a broken looking-glass, and coming down into their
+mother’s room to dress themselves!
+
+“But to go back to Sir Gore Ouseley: it was at Mr. M.’s supper, when
+getting up from the card-table, and advancing towards me, he made a
+diplomatic bow, accompanied with some complimentary speech. That was
+the old school, very different from the fizgig people now-a days. Just
+before, the Prince had been standing in the middle of the room,
+talking to some one I did not know, first pulling up the flap of his
+coat to show his figure, then seizing the person he spoke to by the
+waistcoat, then laughing, then pretending to whisper; and this he
+continued for nearly an hour. ‘What can the Prince be talking about?’
+said some one next to me: ‘He does not know himself,’ said I. Soon
+after, the person who had been talking to the Prince approached the
+sofa, when the mylord, who was sitting next to me, observed, ‘We have
+been looking at the Prince and you; what in the world was he talking
+about?’――‘He don’t know himself,’ answered his friend, ‘and I’m sure I
+don’t know.’――‘That’s just what Lady Hester said,’ rejoined the first
+speaker. ‘I have been wishing to make my bow to Lady Hester all the
+evening,’ said the friend, who then sat down by me.”
+
+Lady Hester went on: “What a mean fellow the Prince was, doctor! I
+believe he never showed a spark of good feeling to any human being.
+How often has he put men of small incomes to great inconvenience, by
+his telling them he would dine with them and bring ten or a dozen of
+his friends with him to drink the poor devils’ champagne, who hardly
+knew how to raise the wind, or to get trust for it! I recollect one
+who told me the Prince served him in this way, just at the time when
+he was in want of money, and that he did not know how to provide the
+dinner for him, when luckily a Sir Harry Featherstone or a Sir Gilbert
+Heatchcote or some such rich man bought his curricle and horses, and
+put a little ready money into his pocket. ‘I entertained him as well
+as I could,’ said he, ‘and a few days after, when I was at Carlton
+House, and the Prince was dressing between four great mirrors, looking
+at himself in one and then in another, putting on a patch of hair and
+arranging his cravat, he began saying that he was desirous of showing
+me his thanks for my civility to him. So he pulled down a bandbox from
+a shelf, and seemed as if he was going to draw something of value out
+of it. I thought to myself it might be some point-lace, perhaps, of
+which, after using a little for my court-dress, I might sell the
+remainder for five or six hundred guineas: or perhaps, thought I, as
+there is no ceremony between us, he is going to give me some
+banknotes. Conceive my astonishment, when he opened the bandbox, and
+pulled out a wig, which I even believe he had worn. ‘There,’ said he,
+‘as you are getting bald, is a very superior wig, made by――I forget
+the man’s name, but it was not Sugden.’ The man could hardly contain
+himself, and was almost tempted to leave it in the hall as he went
+out. Did you ever hear of such meanness? Everybody who had to do with
+him was afraid of him. He was sure to get a horse, or a vis-à-vis, or
+a something, wherever he went, and never pay for them. He was a man
+without a heart,[9] who had not one good quality about him. Doctor,”
+cried Lady Hester, “I have been intimate with those who spent their
+time with him from morning to night, and they have told me that it was
+impossible for any person who knew him to think well of him.[10]”
+
+“Look at his unfeeling conduct in deserting poor Sheridan! Why, they
+were going to take the bed from under him whilst he was dying; and
+there was Mrs. Sheridan pushing the bailiffs out of the room. That
+amiable woman, too, I believe, died of grief at the misery to which
+she was reduced. The Prince had not one good quality. How many fell
+victims to him! Not so much those who were most intimate with him――for
+they swallowed the poison and took the antidote――they knew him well:
+but those were the greatest sufferers who imitated his vices, who were
+poisoned by the contagion, without knowing what a detestable person he
+was. How many saw their prospects blasted by him for ever!”
+
+Lady Hester continued: “Oh! when I think that I have heard a sultan”
+(meaning George IV.) “listen to a woman singing _Hie diddle diddle,
+the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon_, and cry,
+‘Brava! charming!’――Good God! doctor, what would the Turks say to such
+a thing, if they knew it?
+
+“There was Lord D., an old debauchee, who had lost the use of his
+lower extremities by a paralytic stroke――the way, by the by, in which
+all such men seem to finish; nay, I believe that men much addicted to
+sensuality even impair their intellects too――one day met me on the
+esplanade, and, in his usual way, began talking some very insipid
+stuff about his dining with the Prince, and the like; when James, who
+overheard the conversation, made an impromptu, which exactly described
+one of the Prince’s dinners; and, though I don’t recollect it word for
+word, it was something to this effect:――
+
+    ‘With the Prince I dine to-day:
+      We shall have prodigious fun.
+    I a beastly thing shall say,
+      And he’ll end it with a pun.’
+
+“I remember the Prince’s saying to Lord Petersham, ‘What can be the
+reason that Lady Hester, who likes all my brothers, does not like me?’
+Lord P. told me this, and I replied――If he asks me, I will have an
+answer ready for him, and that is, ‘When he behaves like them I shall
+like him, and not before.’ I loved all the princes but him. They were
+not philosophers, but they were so hearty in their talking, in their
+eating, in all they did! They would eat like ploughmen, and their
+handsome teeth would” (here she imitated the mastication of food, to
+show me how) “at a pretty rate.
+
+“The Prince is a despicable character. He was anxious enough to know
+me whilst Mr. Pitt was alive; but the very first day of my going to
+court, after Mr. Pitt’s death, he cut me, turning his back on me
+whilst I was talking to the Duke of Richmond.
+
+“As for the princesses, there was some excuse for their conduct: I do
+not mean as regards myself――for they were always polite to me――but as
+to what people found fault with them for. The old queen treated them
+with such severity, shutting them up in a sort of a prison――at least
+the Princess Sophia――that I rather pitied than blamed them.
+
+“But look at the princes: what a family was there! never getting more
+than four hours’ sleep, and always so healthy and well-looking. But
+men generally are not now-a-days as they were in my time. I do not
+mean a Jack M. and those of his description, handsome, but of no
+conversation: they are, however, pleasant to look at. But where will
+you see men like Lord Rivers, like the Duke of Dorset? Where will you
+find such pure honour as was in the Duke of Richmond and Lord
+Winchelsea? The men of the present generation are good for
+nothing――they have no spunk in them.
+
+“And as for women, show me such women of fashion as Lady Salisbury,
+the Duchess of Rutland, Lady Stafford, and” (three or four more were
+named, but they have slipped my memory). “However, doctor, I never
+knew more than four fashionable women, who could do the honours of
+their house, assign to everybody what was due to his rank, enter a
+room and speak to everybody, and preserve their dignity and
+self-possession at all times: it is a very difficult thing to acquire.
+One was the old Duchess of Rutland, the others the Marchioness of
+Stafford, Lady Liverpool, and the Countess of Mansfield:[11]――all the
+rest of the _bon ton_ were _bosh_” (in Turkish, good for nothing).
+“The Countess of Liverpool was a Hervey; and men used to say, the
+world was divided into men, women, and Herveys――for that they were
+unlike every other human being. I have seen Lady Liverpool come into a
+room full of people; and she would bow to this one, speak to that
+one, and, when you thought she must tread on the toes of a third, turn
+round like a teetotum, and utter a few words so amiable, that
+everybody was charmed with her. As for the Duchess of D*********, it
+was all a ‘fu, fu, fuh,’ and ‘What shall I do?――Oh, dear me! I am
+quite in a fright!’――and so much affectation, that it could not be
+called high breeding; although she knew very well how to lay her traps
+for some young man whom she wanted to inveigle into her parties, and
+all that. Then there were some, with highly polished manners, who
+would pass along like oil over water, smooth and swimming about: but
+good breeding is very charming, doctor, isn’t it?
+
+“The last time I saw Lady Liverpool was at Lord Mulgrave’s. The dinner
+was waiting: Mr. Pitt and I had got there; but Lord Liverpool, being
+long in dressing, was still behind. Everybody was looking at the door
+or the window. At last his carriage was seen, and dinner was ordered.
+If you had been present when Lady Liverpool entered the room, and had
+marked the grace with which, whilst we were standing, she slipped in
+and out among the guests, like an eel, when she turned her back,
+turning her head round, speaking to this person and to that, and all
+with such seasonable courtesies and compliments, it was really
+wonderful. But Lady Liverpool was a Hervey, and the Herveys, as I
+told you before, were a third part of the creation.
+
+“Oh, Lord! when I think of some people, who fancy that abruptness is
+the best way of approaching you――how horrid it is! I recollect one
+man, a sensible man too, who came into the room with――‘Lady Hester, I
+understand you are a very good judge of a leg; you shall look at mine:
+see, there are muscles! they say it is an Irish chairman’s; but isn’t
+it the true antique?’ Another would enter, and begin――‘What a horrid
+bonnet Lady So-and-so wears; I have just seen her, and I never shall
+get over it.’ A third would cry, on seeing you――‘Do you know Lord
+Such-a-one is given over? He has tumbled down from a terrible height,
+and is so hurt!’――‘Good God! what’s the matter?’――‘Why, don’t you
+know? He has tumbled from his government:’ and then they fancy that
+wit.
+
+“Such conversations as we hear in people’s houses are, in my mind, no
+conversations at all. A man who says, ‘Oh! it’s Sunday; you have been
+to church, I suppose?’――or, ‘You have not been to church, I see;’ or
+another, who says, ‘You are in mourning, are you not? what, is the
+poor Lord So-and-so dead at last?’――and is replied to by, ‘No, I am
+not in mourning; what makes you think so? is it that you don’t like
+black?’――all this is perfect nonsense, in my mind. I recollect being
+once at a party with the Duchess of Rutland, and a man of some note in
+the world stopped me just as we entered the room. ‘Lady Hester,’ said
+he, ‘I am anxious to assure you of my entire devotion to Mr. Pitt:’ so
+far he got on well. ‘I had always――hem――if you――hem――I do assure you,
+Lady Hester, I have the sincerest regard――hem――G――d d――n me, Lady
+Hester, there is not a man for whom――hem――I esteem him beyond measure,
+and, G――d d――n me――hem――if I were asked――hem――I do assure you, Lady
+Hester――hem and here the poor man, who could not put two ideas
+together, coming to a stand-still, the Duchess of Rutland, to relieve
+his embarrassment, helped him out by saying, ‘Lady Hester is perfectly
+convinced of your sincere attachment to Mr. Pitt’s interests.’ He had
+a beautiful amber cane, doctor, worth a hundred guineas, that he had
+sent for from Russia.”
+
+November 16.――Lady Hester Stanhope’s features had a very pallid and
+almost a ghastly look. The fits of oppression on her lungs grew more
+frequent, when, from a lying posture, she would start suddenly up in
+bed and gasp for breath. As she had not been beyond the precincts of
+her house for some years, I suggested the increased necessity of her
+getting a little fresh air, by going into her garden at least every
+day. She said, ‘I will do as you desire, and if you will ride my ass
+a few times to break her in, and make her gentle, I will try and ride
+about in the garden: but, as for going outside my own gates, it is
+impossible; the people would beset me so――you have no idea. They
+conceal themselves behind hedges, in holes in the rocks, and,
+whichever way I turn, out comes some one with a complaint or a
+petition, begging, kissing my feet, and God knows what: I can’t do it.
+I can ride about my garden, and see to my plants and flowers: but you
+must break her in well for me; for, if she were to start at a bird or
+a serpent, I am so weak I should tumble off.’
+
+November 18.――I had taken some physic without consulting her, upon
+which she launched out into a tirade against English doctors.
+Impoverishment of the blood is a very favourite theme among people who
+are well off, and who shut their eyes to the robust health of many a
+labourer, whose whole sustenance amounts not to the offals of their
+table. So she began――“What folly you have been guilty of in
+impoverishing your blood! Look at a stupid Englishman, who takes a
+dose of salts, rides a trotting horse to get an appetite, eats his
+dinner, takes a cordial draught to make him agreeable, goes to his
+party, and then goes to bed:――for worlds, I would not be such a man’s
+wife! where is he to get a constitution? But the fault is not all
+their own――part is you doctors: you give the same remedies for
+everybody. If I look at the mouthpiece of my pipe” (Lady Hester was
+smoking at the time) “I know it is amber; and, when I know it is
+amber, I know how to clean it: but, if I did not know that, I might
+attempt to clean it in some way that would spoil it: so it is with you
+doctors. Not half of you can distinguish between people’s _nijems_
+[stars], and what you do often does more harm than good. The
+constitution you take in hand you do not well examine; and then how
+can you apply proper remedies for it?”
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+      [7] Lady Hester, soon after she went to live with Mr.
+          Pitt, was anxious that her three half-brothers should
+          be removed from their father’s roof, to be under her
+          own guidance: fearing that the line of politics which
+          Earl Stanhope then followed might be injurious to
+          their future welfare and prospects. To this end, Mr.
+          Rice, a trusty person, of whom mention is incidentally
+          made elsewhere, brought them furtively to town in a
+          post-chaise, and they afterwards remained under Mr.
+          Pitt’s protection until his death.
+
+      [8] Whether Lady Hester Stanhope was justified in
+          entertaining expectations of the G. property and
+          title, I am unable to say; but having by me a copy
+          of the grant to the first Lord Chatham, it is
+          inserted here as conclusive against her ladyship,
+          as far as regards the pension. The circumstances
+          were these:――the day following his (then Mr. Pitt’s)
+          resignation of office, a pension of £3,000 a-year was
+          settled on _himself_ and _two_ other lives, and at the
+          same time a title was conferred on his lady and her
+          issue. He resigned office Oct. 9th, 1761, and the next
+          published Gazette announced all these transactions.
+          The notification ran thus:――That a warrant be prepared
+          for granting to the Lady Hester Pitt, his wife, a
+          Barony of Great Britain, by the name, style, and
+          title of Baroness Chatham, to her heirs male, and
+          also to confer upon the said William Pitt an annuity
+          of £3,000 sterling during his own life, that of Lady
+          Hester Pitt, and her son, John Pitt. Shortly after
+          his death, May 11th, 1778, His Majesty sent a message
+          to the Commons thus:――George R.――His Majesty having
+          considered the address of this house, that he will be
+          graciously pleased to confer some signal and lasting
+          mark of his royal favour on the family of the late
+          William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, and being desirous to
+          comply as speedily as possible with the request of his
+          faithful Commons, has given directions for granting
+          to the present Earl of Chatham, and to the heirs
+          of the body of the late William Pitt, to whom the
+          Earldom of Chatham may descend, an annuity of £4,000
+          per annum, payable out of the Civil List revenue; but
+          his Majesty, not having it in his power to extend
+          the effects of the said grant beyond the term of his
+          own life, recommends it to the house to consider of
+          a proper method of extending, securing, and annexing
+          the same to the Earldom of Chatham in such a manner as
+          shall be thought most effectual to the benefit of the
+          family of the said William Pitt, Earl of Chatham.
+                                                     Signed “G. R.”
+
+          On May 20th, in the House of Commons, Mr. Townsend moved
+          in a committee on the king’s message――“That the sum of
+          £4,000 be granted to his Majesty out of the Aggregate
+          Fund, to commence from 5th July, 1778, and be settled
+          in the most beneficial manner upon the present Earl of
+          Chatham and the heirs of the body of the late William
+          Pitt, to whom the Earldom of Chatham shall descend.”
+          The resolution was agreed to without opposition, and
+          a bill was ordered to be brought in thereon, which
+          passed the Commons without debate.
+
+      [9] “The second day of the king’s illness, and when he was
+          at his worst, the P. of W. went in the evening to a
+          concert at Lady Hamilton’s, and there told Calonne
+          (the rascally French ex-minister) ‘Savez vous,
+          Monsieur de Calonne, que mon pere est aussi fou que
+          jamais.’”――_Diaries and Correspondence_, v. 4, p. 20.
+
+     [10] _Audi alteram partem_ is a maxim that holds good
+          wherever accusations are levelled against individuals,
+          illustrious or mean. Lady Hester may have maligned
+          the Prince from personal pique or from some other
+          cause; and, whilst she placed his foibles and failings
+          in a conspicuous point of view, may have studiously
+          concealed the good qualities which he possessed. Sir
+          Walter Scott, who read men’s characters if any body
+          could, has left upon record a very different opinion
+          of him; and, unless we suppose that Sir Walter had
+          motives of his own for eulogizing him, we must place
+          his testimony in the balance against Lady Hester’s
+          spite. In a letter, he describes George IV. as――“A
+          sovereign, whose gentle and generous disposition,
+          and singular manners, and captivating conversation,
+          rendered him as much the darling of private society,
+          as his heart felt interest in the general welfare of
+          the country: and the constant and steady course of
+          wise measures, by which he raised his reign to such
+          a state of triumphal prosperity, made him justly
+          delighted in by his subjects.”――_Letter from Sir W.
+          Scott_, p. 65, vol. ii., _Mem. of Sir Wm. Knighton,
+          Bart._――Paris edit. Sir Walter could not have written
+          worse prose if he had tried. It shows how difficult it
+          is to string words together on a subject where perhaps
+          the convictions of the heart were not altogether in
+          unison with the sentiments expressed.
+
+     [11] Louisa, in her own right Countess of Mansfield, is
+          here meant.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER IV.
+
+Conscription in Syria――Inviolability of consular houses――Panic and
+flight of the people of Sayda――Protection afforded by Lady Hester――
+Story of a boy――Mustafa the barber――Cruelty to mothers of Conscripts――
+Conscription in the villages――Lady Hester’s dream――Inhabitants of
+Sayda mulcted――Lady Hester’s opinion of negresses――Severity necessary
+in Turkey――Case of Monsieur Danna――Captain Y.――Mustafa Pasha’s
+cruelty.
+
+
+November 18, 1837.――The conscription for Ibrahim Pasha’s army, called
+the _nizàm_ or regular troops, was going on at this time, and created
+much distress in the towns and villages. Forced levies were unknown
+previous to the conquests of that ambitious prince; as it was
+customary for the pashas to keep in their pay mercenary troops,
+composed chiefly of Albanians, a nation that for some centuries had
+sent its hordes into different parts of the Turkish empire, under the
+guidance of enterprising chieftains, to seek military service. There
+were also Bosnians, Kûrds, and some Mograbýns or Moors: these, with
+the Janissaries or standing militia, had exempted the inhabitants in
+general from enlistment; and, although the martial and turbulent
+disposition of the Mohametans had frequently manifested itself in
+their provincial insurrections and in the petty contentions between
+neighbouring chieftains, yet a man always went to the camp from choice
+and from the hopes of booty, and quitted it when tired of the service.
+But Ibrahim Pasha, among the innovations which he found it necessary
+or politic to introduce for the furtherance of his father’s views, saw
+that his whole dependance must be on the adoption of a conscription,
+after the manner of France and other European states. He had already
+drained Egypt, in this manner, of all her able-bodied youths; and, to
+supply the constant waste of men carried off by war and disease, he
+had, since his first taking possession of Syria, made an annual levy
+after harvest time.
+
+At first, the idle, vagabond, thievish, and ardent part of the
+population supplied the numbers he required; and, as fast as they
+could be collected, they were shipped off to Egypt; where, marched to
+the Hedjàz and to distant wars, the major portion of them left their
+bones, whilst some gained rank and lucrative situations, and a few
+returned to tell the story of their exploits. For with Ibrahim there
+was no defined term of service; once a soldier, every man continued so
+until death or desertion broke the chain. In the same way the Egyptian
+conscripts were sent into Syria: so that no sympathy, in either case,
+existed between the troops and the people amongst whom they were
+quartered, which acted as a direct check upon the spirit of
+insurrection.
+
+So far, everything had gone on peaceably, and the quiet portion of the
+inhabitants rejoiced in seeing their neighbourhood cleared of such
+troublesome rabble. But latterly the conscription had begun to fall on
+the families of shopkeepers, tradesmen, small farmers, and the like:
+and it will be seen that, of all the changes introduced by Ibrahim
+Pasha into the government of the country, the conscription became the
+most odious.
+
+The first intimation people had of the levies this year was one
+evening, when, as the inhabitants of Sayda were coming out of their
+mosques, gangs of soldiers suddenly appeared at the doors, and laid
+hands on all the young men. At the same moment, similar measures had
+been taken at the coffee-houses, and nothing was to be seen but young
+fellows dragged through the streets, or running off in all directions
+to secrete themselves in some friend’s house, stable, vault, or the
+like. The city gates were closed, and there was no outlet for the
+fugitives: but Sayda, although walled in, has many houses with windows
+looking on the fields; and from these, during the night, some let
+themselves down and escaped to the gardens, or villages, or to Mount
+Lebanon. The next day the city wore the appearance of a deserted
+place: the shops were closed, and consternation reigned in every face.
+The panic became general.
+
+It is customary in Turkish towns to consider consular residences as
+inviolable; a point on which, from apprehension of tumults and for
+personal safety, the consuls have ever been very tenacious. France
+possesses, from a long date, a khan or factory-house in Sayda, wherein
+the subjects of that nation reside. It is a square building with one
+gateway, containing a spacious quadrangle, surrounded by vaulted
+warehouses, and, over these, commodious habitations with a handsome
+corridor in front. It may be compared to a quadrangle of a college at
+the Universities. To this khan many of the young men fled, being
+admitted out of compassion, and in some cases for a consideration of a
+more tangible nature.
+
+The number of conscripts for Sayda, as was made known afterwards, had
+been rated at one hundred and eighty. When the first press was over,
+the government found the quota had not yet been half supplied: but the
+secret of the deficiency was kept, and it was given out that no more
+would be wanted. A smiling face was assumed by the commandant and his
+staff, and every expression of sympathy was in their mouths, to
+demonstrate the cessation of all farther oppressive measures. By
+calming the people’s fears in this way, information was obtained as to
+those concealed in the French khan, and scouts were sent about the
+country to get tidings of the fugitives.
+
+In the mean time, the caverns and excavations, once the beautiful
+sepulchres of the ancient Sidonians, in which the environs of Sayda
+abound, were converted into hiding-places, all well known to the
+peasantry and gardeners: but no soul was found capable of betraying
+the fugitives. Some were concealed by the Christian peasants in
+cellars, although the punishment of detection was a terrible
+bastinadoing. At the end of about a fortnight, when everything seemed
+calm again, all of a sudden the fathers of those who were known to be
+in the French khan were seized in their dwellings and shops, and
+brought before the motsellem or mayor. They were told that their sons’
+hiding-places were known, and that means would be resorted to for
+forcing them to come out, if they, the fathers, did not immediately
+use their paternal authority to compel them. Anxious to save their
+children, they strenuously denied any knowledge of their places of
+concealment. Then it was that the dreadful work of bastinadoing began.
+From the windows of the east side of the khan was visible the open
+court in the front of the motsellem’s gate, where, according to the
+Eastern custom, he often sat to administer justice or injustice, as
+the case might be, and through those windows the sons might behold
+their aged fathers, writhing with agony under that cruel punishment,
+until pain and anguish extorted the appeal of, “Come forth, for
+mercy’s sake! and save a father’s life.” Some yielded to the call, and
+some thought only of their own safety.
+
+As happens always in all Turkish matters, much bribery arose from this
+state of tribulation. Nobody in these countries is inaccessible to a
+bribe. Many were the men in office who received gratifications of vast
+sums to favour the exemption or escape of individuals. Substitutes
+could hardly be got, even at the enormous premium of 10,000 piasters
+each, or £100 sterling; such a dread had the natives of being
+expatriated and subjected to military discipline! for in Ibrahim
+Pasha’s army the drill is indeed a terrible ordeal. There,
+inadvertency, slowness of apprehension, or obstinacy, is not punished
+by a reprimand, a day’s imprisonment, or double drill; but the poor
+recruit is, at the moment, thrown on the ground, and lacerated without
+mercy by the korbàsh.
+
+Among the fugitives, there were two young men, the sons of a
+respectable shopkeeper, who, during twenty years, had been employed,
+more or less, by Lady Hester: these two fled for refuge to Jôon. No
+notice was taken of the circumstance by the government; and, after
+remaining about six weeks under her protection, they returned to
+Sayda, where they remained unmolested. Her ladyship’s servants also
+enjoyed an exemption from the press; and, had she chosen to avail
+herself of the dilemma in which these unfortunate young men were
+placed, she might easily have ensured their servitude without pay, by
+the mere threat of turning them adrift: in which case they would have
+been compelled to remain upon any conditions she might have thought
+proper to propose.
+
+An old Turk presented himself, one day, at my gate with his son, a boy
+about fourteen years of age, and, with earnest entreaties, begged me
+to take the son as my servant, no matter in what capacity, and for
+nothing. I asked him how he could be apprehensive for a stripling, too
+young to carry a musket; but he told me that his age was no safeguard.
+“Alas!” said he, “these unprincipled Egyptians will lay hold of him;
+for there are other kinds of service besides carrying a gun: you do
+not know them as well as we do.” I was very unwillingly obliged to
+refuse the man’s request; for how could a stranger violate the laws of
+a country in which he resided, any more than he could harbour a
+deserter in France, for example, where he would be brought to justice
+for so doing? But some of the agents of European powers do not
+scruple, in these parts, to enrich themselves by affording protection
+to Turkish deserters, contrary to the edicts of a sovereign prince,
+and then set up, as an excuse, the want of civilization in Mahometan
+countries.
+
+A woman, the widow of Shaykh Omar ed dyn, came also on a donkey to beg
+Lady Hester’s intercession with the commandant for one of her sons, a
+lad, who had been pressed in the streets. Lady Hester sent out word to
+her that she could not mix herself up in the business, and desired me
+to give her 500 piasters――I suppose to help her to buy him off. This
+son, Lady Hester told me, was a beautiful boy, and that she once had
+him in her house, but could not keep him――he was too handsome! * * * A
+sad picture this of the morals of the Syrian Turks, and yet a true
+one!
+
+November 20.――After a succession of sunny days, finer and warmer than
+an English summer, the wind got up at the change of the moon, and it
+blew a gale. The effect of gloomy weather in climates naturally so
+genial as that of Syria is perhaps more impressive than in one like
+that of England, where clouds and fogs are so common. I was therefore
+in a fit humour to listen to the melancholy stories of her ladyship’s
+secretary, Mr. Michael Abella, who had been absent a day or two to see
+his father and mother at Sayda. He told me that the press for recruits
+continued with unabated severity, and that the military commandant
+and motsellem were resorting to measures, which, I thank God, are
+unknown in England! From imprisoning and bastinadoing fathers, with a
+view to make them produce their children, a measure which had already
+induced several families to abandon their homes, they now proceeded to
+bastinado the neighbours and acquaintances of the fugitives, in order
+to wring from them the secret of their hiding-places.
+
+The reader is already in some degree familiar with the name of
+Mustafa, the barber, well-known in Sayda for his skill in shaving,
+phlebotomizing, and curing sores and wounds. He had four or five sons,
+and he had taken his donkey and ridden up to Jôon to beg of Lady
+Hester Stanhope to admit one or two of them into her household, in
+order to save them from the conscription. In the interim, two others
+had taken refuge in the French khan, and one had fled to Tyr; but the
+father said he expected hourly to be seized and put to the torture, if
+some means were not afforded him for protecting his children. “A
+letter from the Syt mylady to the commandant,” added Mustafa, “would
+be sufficient to save my two boys who are in the French khan, and it
+is so easy for her to write it.” Lady Hester, being ill, could not see
+Mustafa, and I went to her and stated his supplication. She considered
+the matter over, and, as Mustafa was rather a favourite, she said at
+first――“I think I will write to the commandant; for poor Mustafa will
+go crazy if his children are taken away from him. I have only to say
+that I wish the commandant to _bakshýsh_” (make a present of) “these
+boys to me, and I know he will do it:” then, reflecting a little
+while, she altered her mind. “No, doctor,” says she, “it will not do:
+I must not do anything in the face of the laws of the country; and,
+besides, I shall have all the fathers and mothers in Sayda up here.
+Go, tell him so.” I did, and Mustafa returned very much dispirited to
+Sayda.
+
+He had scarcely got back to his shop, when, as he had anticipated, he
+was summoned before the motsellem, and questioned about his children.
+With an assumed air of cheerfulness and submission, he answered that
+they were within call, and, if necessary, he would fetch them
+immediately. The motsellem, by way of precaution, was about to send a
+guard of a couple of soldiers, to see that no trick was played him;
+but Mustafa, laughing, exclaimed――“Oh! don’t be afraid of me: I shan’t
+run off. That man” (pointing to a small merchant of his acquaintance
+standing by)――“that man will be bail for my appearance.” The man
+nodded his head, and said――“There is no fear of Mâalem Mustafa: I will
+be responsible for him.”
+
+Mustafa went towards his house, and, as soon as he was out of sight,
+looking round to make sure that he was not followed, he hurried to
+one of the outlets of the town, entered a lane between the gardens,
+and, mounting again on his own donkey, which he had left with a friend
+in case of such an emergency, rode off. Not appearing within the
+expected time, search was made for him, and, when he was not to be
+found, the man, who so incautiously vouched for his reappearance, was
+seized, bastinadoed, and thrown into gaol. Mustafa, in the mean time,
+had taken the road to Jôon,――not to Lady Hester’s residence, but to
+Dayr el Mkhallas, the monastery, where he had a good friend in the
+abbot, and was immediately sheltered in a comfortable cell. Nor did
+he, when he heard what cruelties had been inflicted on his bail, move
+one inch from his retreat, but there remained for about six weeks,
+until, by negociations with the commandant and by the sacrifice of a
+good round sum, he was informed that his children were safe, and that
+he might return unmolested.
+
+The secretary told me that, in some cases, mothers were suspended by
+the hair of their head, and whipped, to make them confess where their
+children were concealed. Surely such horrors are enough to make men
+hold these sanguinary tyrants in abhorrence, who, whatever their
+pretended advances towards civilization may be, never suffer it to
+soften the barbarity of their natures. Of civilization, they have
+borrowed conscription, custom-houses, quarantines, ardent spirit and
+wine-drinking, prostitution, shop licensing, high taxation, and some
+other of our doubtful marks of superiority; but whatever is really
+excellent in an advanced state of society they have forgotten to
+inquire about. The secretary added that, when down at Sayda, he had
+seen a lad, nursed in the lap of luxury, the only child of respectable
+parents, at drill on the parade outside of the town, with two soldiers
+who never quitted him. The drilling was enforced by cuts of the
+korbàsh. So long as the recruits remain in Sayda, their parents are
+allowed to supply them with a meal and other little comforts; but,
+when transported to Egypt, and perhaps to the Hedjàz, they are exposed
+to hardships unknown to European troops. Their pay is fifteen piasters
+(3_s._ 2_d._ English) a month.
+
+After the expiration of two or three weeks, the shaykhs or head-men of
+the villages in Mount Lebanon, received orders to levy their
+contingent of recruits, and pretty much the same scenes were acted
+over again. From the village of Jôon eight conscripts were required;
+for, although the population might be five hundred persons, there were
+but few Mahometan families. No sooner had the estafette, who brought
+the order, alighted at the Shaykh’s door, than the mussulman peasants
+to a man seemed to guess what its contents were, and every one who
+thought himself liable to serve made off to the forests. Among the
+lads put down on the roll were two, the brothers of Fatôom and Sâada,
+Lady Hester’s maids. The girls fell on their knees, kissed her feet
+and the hem of her robe, and prayed her, for God’s sake, to save them.
+Lady Hester returned the same answer she had done to Mustafa, the
+barber, and to the other applicants, that she could not act contrary
+to the laws of the country, and that they must take their chance.
+
+Three or four days had elapsed, when, quitting my house in the morning
+to go to Lady Hester’s, I found that all her people were full of an
+extraordinary dream she had had. She had seen in her vision a man with
+a white beard, who had conducted her among the ravines of Mount
+Lebanon to a place, where, in a cavern, lay two youths apparently in a
+trance, and had told her to lead them away to her residence. She
+attempted to raise them, and at the same moment the earth opened, and
+she awoke. As soon as I saw Lady Hester, she recounted to me her dream
+to the same effect, but with many more particulars. Being in the habit
+of hearing strange things of this kind from her, I thought nothing of
+it, although I well knew there was something intended by it, as she
+never spoke without a motive.
+
+Next morning I saw, as I passed the porter’s lodge, two peasant lads
+sitting in it, and, as soon as I got to Lady Hester’s room, she asked
+me if I had observed them.――“Isn’t it wonderful, doctor,” said Lady
+Hester, “that I should have had exactly the same dream two nights
+following, and the second time so strongly impressed on my mind, that
+I was sure some of it would turn out true: and so it has. For this
+very morning, long before daylight, I had Logmagi called, and,
+describing to him the way he was to go in the mountain until he should
+come to a wild spot which I painted to him, I sent him off; and, sure
+enough, he found those two lads you saw, concealed, not in a cavern,
+but in a tree, just where I had directed him to go.
+
+“They are two runaway conscripts, and, although I know nothing of
+them, yet I seem to feel that God directed me to bring them here. Poor
+lads! did you observe whether they looked pale? they must be in want
+of nourishment; for the search that is going on everywhere after
+deserters is very hot. Logmagi himself had no very pleasant duty to
+perform; for, if they had mistaken him for a man in search of them,
+one against two in the heart of the mountain ran some risk of his
+life. You know, one deserter the other day wounded three soldiers who
+attempted to take him, and another killed two out of five, and,
+although taken, was not punished by the Pasha, who exchanged willingly
+an athletic gladiator, who had proved his fighting propensities, for
+two cowards.”
+
+These lads, whom Lady Hester pretended not to know, were the two
+brothers of Fatôom and Sâada: they were put into a room in an inner
+enclosure, where they had comfortable quarters assigned them, and were
+kept for two months hid from observation; by which means they escaped
+the conscription of that year. At the end of their term, they were one
+day turned out, told they might go home in safety, and warned that, if
+ever they made their appearance near the house, they would be flogged.
+Such were Lady Hester’s eccentric ways; and just as they were wasting
+their breath in protestations of gratitude, they were frightened out
+of their senses. No doubt, the reason was that, as from their long
+stay in the premises, they were more or less acquainted with every
+locality, it might be that they had formed plans to carry off stolen
+goods, which Lady Hester thus had the foresight to frustrate. She
+never told me that her dream was an invention, but I believe that it
+was.
+
+In addition to the loss of a son, or a husband, or a brother, which
+the dozen families of Jôon (for there were no more) had to complain
+of, these same families were taxed at the rate of one, two, or three
+hundred piasters each, in order to furnish the equipment of the
+soldiers draughted from among them. For, under the pretext of sending
+off each recruit with a good kit and with a little money in his
+pocket, a benevolence tax was invented, the greatest part of which,
+after the parings of the collectors, went to the Pasha’s treasury, and
+the half-naked recruit was left to take his chance. Oh! that a
+European soldier could see what these men are compelled to live
+on――how they sleep, how they are flogged――and how they are left to
+die!――and yet suicide is unknown among them.
+
+The bastinado in Sayda was succeeded by mulcts. An order was published
+by the Pasha, that those whose sons had concealed themselves, or did
+not appear by a certain day, should be taxed collectively 1,300
+purses, a sum more than enough to pay for substitutes. An appeal was
+made to Ibrahim Pasha to lessen the fine, but the result never came to
+my knowledge.
+
+November 19.――I had taken to my house to read the book that Sir Gore
+Ouseley had sent Lady Hester Stanhope, and I related to her the
+anecdote of the old woman and the copper dish.[12] This threw a gleam
+of satisfaction over her countenance. “Ah!” said she, and she made a
+sigh of pleasurable feeling, “these are the people I like; that’s my
+sort: but the people now-a-days, who call themselves gentlemen, and
+don’t know how to blow their nose!――when the first peer of the realm
+will go about bragging what a trick he has played some poor woman whom
+he has seduced! Cursed be the hour that ever the name of gentleman
+came into the language! I have seen hedgers and ditchers at my
+father’s, who talked twice as good sense as half the fine gentlemen
+now-a-days――a pack of fellows, that do little else than eat, drink,
+and sleep. Can one exist with such persons as these? or is it to be
+supposed that God can tolerate such brutalities?”
+
+I sat by, as I was accustomed to do, on such occasions, mute; knowing
+that a word uttered at that moment would only increase her irritation,
+instead of appeasing it. She went on: “And whilst you show no more
+sensibility than that wall, here am I, a poor dying creature” (and
+then she wept so that it was piteous to hear her), “half killed by
+these nasty black beasts. Last night, instead of coming refreshed out
+of my bath, soothed by a gentle perspiration, I was drier than ever,
+with my mouth parched, my skin parched, and feebler than I was
+yesterday. But they will all suffer for it; not here, perhaps, but in
+the other world: for God will not see a poor miserable creature
+trampled under foot as I have been.”
+
+As she grew a little calm, I expressed my regret to see her so annoyed
+and tormented by her servants. The conversation then turned on blacks:
+and I asked――“Are they then never susceptible of feeling: can kind
+treatment never work on their sensibility?”――“Doctor,” answered Lady
+Hester, “they have neither one nor the other: it is a bit of black
+skin, which the people of the country say you must work on with the
+korbàsh, and with nothing else. I recollect an aga, who told me that
+he had a black slave, who, when he first bought her, one day got hold
+of his poniard, and seemed as if she was going to stab him with it. He
+started up, seized his sabre, and gave her a cut or two; then, with a
+switch, beat her pretty handsomely. From that day she became fond of
+him, faithful, and so attached, that, when he wanted to sell her, she
+would not be sold, but always contrived that the contract should be
+broken by her swearing she would kill herself, throw herself over the
+terrace, or something, that made the buyer refuse to take her.
+
+“I recollect another story. There were five European travellers coming
+down the banks of the Nile on horseback, when they saw an aga, who was
+sitting in the open air, lay hold of a black woman by the hair of her
+head, throw her down, and flog her most unmercifully with the korbàsh.
+One of the party was a German count, or something, who, being what you
+call a humane man, said he must interfere; but the others told him he
+had better not. However, he did: and what was the consequence? why,
+the woman immediately jumped up, called him an impudent rascal,
+slapped his face with her slipper, hooted him, and followed the party
+until she fairly frightened them by her violence.
+
+“No, doctor, they do not like mild people. They always say they want
+no old hens, but a _jigger_” (I believe her ladyship meant some
+ferocious animal) “for their master. As for what you say, that the
+common people of this country stand in respect of nobody, I can tell
+you that they do. You should have seen the Shaykh Beshýr, how they
+respected him. When I was at his palace, I recollect, one day, one of
+his secretaries brought in a bag of money. ‘Is it all here?’ said the
+Shaykh, with a terrible, cross, frowning face. ‘It is, your felicity,’
+said the man. ‘Very well,’ said the Shaykh, still with the same fierce
+countenance; and I asked him what he put on such a severe look for to
+a very pleasing-looking man. ‘Why,’ answered he, ‘if I did not, I
+should be robbed past imagination: if I said to him, I am much obliged
+to you, sir; you have given yourself a great deal of trouble on my
+account, and the like compliments, he would go away and chuckle in his
+own mind to think his peculations were not suspected; but now he will
+go, and say to himself, I will bet an _adli_ some one has told the
+Shaykh of the five hundred piasters that were left for me at my house:
+I must send directly, and desire they may be returned――or, he knows
+about the tobacco that was brought me by the peasant; I had better get
+rid of it; and so on. Their peculations are past all bounds, and they
+must be kept under with a rod of iron.’
+
+“There was Danna, the poor old Frenchman, who lost his trunk with all
+his doubloons in it: do you think he would ever have found them, if
+the Emir Beshýr had not sent Hamâady to that village about a league
+off――what do you call it?――where the robbery was committed? He
+assembled all the peasants, men and women, and he told them――‘Now, my
+friends, Monsieur Danna does not want anybody to be punished, if he
+can help it; therefore, you have only to produce the money, and
+nothing farther will be said: for the money was lost here, and some of
+you must know where it is.’ To see what protestations of innocence
+there were, what asseverations! and from the women more than the men.
+So Hamâady, finding that talking was of no use, heated his red-hot
+irons and his copper skull caps, and produced his instruments of
+torture; and, seeing that the women were more vociferous than the men,
+he selected one on whom strong suspicions had fallen, and drove a
+spike under her finger-nails. At the first thrust, she screamed
+out――‘Let me off! let me off! and I will acknowledge all.’ She then
+immediately confessed――would you believe it?――that the curate’s son
+had robbed Danna, and she had shared the money with him.
+
+“Now, tell me, was it best that the old Frenchman should die of
+starvation, or that the rascally thief of a woman, who had induced the
+curate’s son to commit the robbery, should be punished, as a warning
+to others? If such severe punishments were not used among them, we
+should not sleep safe in our beds. How well is it known that they have
+with pickaxes opened a roof, and thrown in lighted straw to suffocate
+people, that they might rob in security.
+
+“I recollect once, when Captain Y. was here, I was showing him the
+garden; and, seeing some lettuces which were badly planted, he said to
+me, ‘That’s not the way to plant lettuces: they should be so and
+so.’――‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I have told the gardener so a hundred times,
+and he will never listen to me.’――‘Oh! oh!’ said he, ‘won’t he? Let me
+bring a boatswain’s mate to him, and I’ll soon see whether he will or
+not?――‘You are very good,’ was my answer; ‘but then I should lose your
+company for half a day, and I had rather have no lettuces than do
+that.
+
+“When I first came to this country, you know perfectly well that I
+never behaved otherwise than with the greatest kindness to servants.
+You ask me why I don’t now try gentle measures with them, rewarding
+the good, and merely dismissing the idle and vicious: my reply is, I
+did so for years, until I found they abused my forbearance in the
+grossest manner. Do you think it would frighten the rest, were I to
+turn away one or two? no such thing. Why, upon one occasion, four of
+them, after they had received their wages, and had each got a present
+of new shawls, new girdles, and new kombázes, all went off together,
+clothes, wages and all, in the night. It is by degrees I am become
+what I am; and, only after repeated trials and proofs of the
+inefficiency of everything but severity, that I am grown so
+indifferent, that I do nothing but scold and abuse them.
+
+“But you talk of cruelty: it is such men as Mustafa Pasha, who was one
+of those who besieged Acre when Abdallah Pasha was _firmanlee_”
+(proscribed), “that you should call cruel; he was indeed a sanguinary
+tyrant. Doctor, he made a noise sometimes like the low growl of a
+tiger, and his people knew then that blood must flow. It was his
+custom, when the fit was on him, to send for some poor wretch from
+prison, and kill him with his own hand. He would then grow calm, smoke
+his pipe, and seem for a time quieted. But he was a shrewd man, and a
+clever pasha. He wrote with his own hand (which pashas never do,
+except on particular occasions) a letter to the Shaykh Beshýr,
+desiring him to pay marked attention to me. The Shaykh was highly
+flattered with the distinction shown him.”
+
+The recollection of the Pasha’s civility and the Shaykh Beshýr’s
+letter recalled her thoughts to what she had proposed to do at the
+beginning of the evening, which was to write an answer to Sir Gore
+Ouseley, and to thank the Oriental Translation Fund Society for their
+present. This was done in a letter from which the following are
+extracts:――
+
+
+              _To the Right Hon. Sir Gore Ouseley, Bart._
+
+                                         Djoun, on Mount Lebanon,
+                                            November 20, 1837.
+
+     Forgotten by the world, I cannot feel otherwise than much
+     flattered by the mark of attention which it has pleased the
+     society of learned men to honour me with. I must therefore
+     beg leave, in expressing my gratitude, to return them my
+     sincere thanks. You must not suppose that I am the least of
+     an Arabic scholar, for I can neither read nor write one word
+     of that language, and am (without affectation) a great dunce
+     upon some subjects. Having lived part of my life with the
+     greatest philosophers and politicians of the age, I have
+     been able to make this _observation_, that all of them,
+     however they may dispute and ingeniously reason upon
+     abstruse subjects, have, in moments of confidence, candidly
+     declared that we can go no _farther_. Here we must stop――all
+     is problematical: therefore I have wished, however it may
+     appear presumptuous, _to go farther_ and remove some of
+     these stumbling-blocks, not by erudition, but by trusting to
+     some happy accident.
+
+     It is extraordinary that many of this nature have occurred
+     to me during my residence in the East. First, many proofs of
+     the fallacy of history; next, the denial of many curious
+     facts, which are even scouted as gross superstitions, and
+     are pretended to be doubted, because no one knows how to
+     account for them, but which real knowledge can clearly
+     substantiate. Then there is a gap in history which ought to
+     be filled up with the reign of Malek Sayf (a second King
+     Solomon), and his family, and after him with that of Hamzy,
+     the sort of Messiah of the Druzes, who is expected to return
+     in another form. I once saw a work, which clearly proved the
+     Pyramids to be antediluvian, and that Japhet was aware the
+     deluge was to be partial, as he placed _that_ which was most
+     valuable to him in another quarter of the world.
+
+     The Bedoween Arabs may be divided into two distinct classes,
+     original Arabs, and the descendants of Ismael, whose
+     daughter married the ninth descendant of the great Katàn,
+     out of which germ sprang the famous tribe of the Koreish,
+     subdivided into many tribes, and which are a mixture of
+     Hebrew blood. One of the most famous tribes was that of the
+     Beni Hasheniz, from which spring the Boshnàk and the Beni
+     Omeyn, the Irish, always famed for the beauty of their
+     women. The Scotch are likewise Koreish――the nobility
+     descending from the King Al Yem (and his court), father of
+     Gebailuata, who headed the 50,000 horse, when they took
+     their flight from the Hedjáz, after a quarrel with the
+     Caliph Omar. They resided some time in Syria; but, when the
+     town of Gebeili became inadequate to contain their numbers,
+     many took themselves off to the Emperor Herculius,[13]
+     towards Antioch and Tarsus.
+
+     You must look over the Scotch titles and names of persons
+     and places, and you will see how many there are, who, it is
+     plain to perceive, are of Arabic origin; and you will soon
+     observe the relation they bear either to circumstances,
+     former employments, propensities, or tastes.
+
+     You cannot expect, as when a Frenchman remains forty years
+     in England, and can neither pronounce nor spell a name,
+     that, during such a lapse of time, many of these names
+     should not have undergone changes; but their origin is yet
+     evident.
+
+     The Duke of Leinster’s motto (_Croom Aboo_――his father’s
+     vineyards) has a grand signification, alluding to the most
+     learned of works, of which only two copies exist, and which
+     was not well understood even by the great Ulemas until about
+     five hundred years afterwards, when Shaikh Mohadeen of the
+     Beni Taya found out the key.
+
+     If the philosopher of chance should have presumed to have
+     offered a little heterogeneous information to the learned,
+     you, sir, must forgive me. Your star denotes you to be of
+     admirable good taste and great perspicuity, and therefore
+     well calculated to investigate the subjects I have had the
+     honour to lay before you.
+
+     You will forgive me for having used the pen of another, but
+     my sight and state of health will not at all times allow of
+     my writing a long letter.
+
+                      I salute all the philosophers with respect,
+                                       HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [12] See the History of the Temple of Jerusalem, translated
+          from the Arabic by the Rev. Mr. Reynolds, p. 403.
+
+     [13] Heraclius?
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER V.
+
+Rainy season――Lady Hester’s despondency――Her Turkish costume――Turkish
+servants――Terror inspired by Lady Hester in her servants――Visit of
+Messieurs Poujolat and Boutés――Lady Hester’s inability to entertain
+strangers――Her dejected spirits and bad health.
+
+
+November 24.――Still rain, rain! The courtyards were deep in mud and
+puddles, and the men-servants walked about in wooden clogs, such as
+are worn in breweries. The flat roofs, which cover the houses in most
+parts of Syria, are made of a cement of mortar and fine gravel, in
+appearance like an asphaltum causeway. In the hot months fissures show
+themselves; and it rarely happens, when winter comes on, that, during
+the first heavy rains, the wet does not filter through. Lady Hester,
+therefore, had to suffer, as well as all the house, from this
+annoyance, hardly bearable when a person is in health, but extremely
+distressing and even dangerous in sickness. For some days past pans
+had been standing on the bedroom floor to catch the droppings, and it
+continued to rain on. The sloppy communications from door to door,
+where every door opens into a courtyard, gave likewise a damp to the
+apartments only supportable in a climate as mild as that of Syria.
+Snow had covered the upper chain of Mount Lebanon in great abundance,
+and the wind blew furiously. Everybody was out of humour, and many of
+the servants were labouring under bad coughs and colds: but the women,
+notwithstanding, always moved about the house with naked feet. It was
+a wonder to see how, with coughs that might be heard from one
+courtyard to another, they constantly went barefoot, and yet got well;
+and a servant, if sent to the village, was sure to leave his shoes at
+the porter’s lodge, and, drawing his _sherwáls_ or trousers up above
+his knees, to set off as light as a deer through the pelting storm,
+careless of wet, if he could but cover his head.
+
+I saw Lady Hester about two in the day: she was in low spirits, lying
+in her bed with the window and door open from a sense of suffocation
+which had just before seized her.
+
+“Would you believe it,” said she, as I entered, “those beasts would
+leave me to die here before they came to my assistance! and, if I
+happen to fall asleep, there is not one would cover my shoulders to
+prevent my taking cold.”
+
+Poor Lady Hester! thought I, the contrast between your early days and
+your present sufferings is almost enough to break your heart. So I
+abused the maids handsomely; and then, being satisfied with the warmth
+of my expressions, and having vented her own anger, she began to talk
+composedly.
+
+I remained until near dinner-time, and, after dinner, went to her
+again. She observed that the nights were dreadfully long, and that she
+should be obliged to me if I would read to her. Her stock of books,
+and mine too, was very small, and, after naming a few, which did not
+please her, I recollected she had asked me once if I had by me a
+heathen mythology, and she immediately fixed on that. So, writing on a
+slip of paper to my daughter to send me hers, Lady Hester said, “First
+let me order a pipe for you:” for this was usually the preliminary to
+all business or conversation. Every sitting was opened with a pipe,
+and generally terminated with one; as her ladyship would say, “But,
+before you go, doctor, you must smoke one pipe more.” When the book
+came, she desired me to turn to the part about Jupiter Ammon, and it
+will be seen farther on why she did so. After a page or two, she began
+to talk of the coming of the Mahadi, and the conversation was
+prolonged far into the night. She afterwards ordered tea――for I now
+drank tea with her almost every evening――and I then returned to my
+house, covered with my thick capote, which, in the short distance of a
+few hundred yards, could hardly save me from being wet through.
+
+November 25.――The annual fast of the Mahometans, called Ramazàn, had
+begun on the preceding day. It is customary for persons of rank to
+make presents of clothes and other things to their dependants, during
+the lunar month that the Ramazàn lasts, in order that they may appear
+dressed up in finery on the first day of the succeeding new moon, at
+the holyday of the Byràm, which succeeds it, as Easter-day does Lent
+among Christians. Lady Hester, who never was behindhand in
+beneficence, made it a rule to clothe all her Mahometan servants anew
+at this season, as she did all her Christian ones on New Year’s Day or
+at Easter. New capotes, pelisses, sherwáls, shirts, shifts, turbans,
+gowns, &c., were always bought previous to the time; and, the best
+being given to the most deserving, the worst to the least so, with
+none at all to the lazy and worthless, some sort of activity was
+observable in their service previous to the expected time. But the
+objects they coveted once in their possession, they soon relapsed into
+their customary sloth.
+
+Some of these articles of dress were lying on the floor, Lady Hester
+having had them brought for her to look at. She said to me, “You must
+take home one of these abahs[14] to show to your family. You must
+tell them,” continued she, “that once I had all my servants clothed in
+such abahs as that: but they played me such tricks, I have given it
+up. Some sold them; and, on one occasion, four of them marched off
+within twenty-four hours after I had dressed them from head to foot,
+and I never saw them again: isn’t it abominable? At the time that I
+dressed them so well, and rode out myself with my bornôos, crimson and
+gold, the gold lace being everywhere where silk tape is generally put,
+I did not owe a shilling in the world.”
+
+“Once,” she continued, “when riding my beautiful Arabian mare Asfoor,
+near a place called Gezýn, in that crimson bornôos, with a
+richly-embroidered dress under it, and on my crimson velvet saddle, I
+happened to approach an encampment of the Pasha’s troops. Several
+_benát el hawa_” (street ladies), “who were living with the soldiers,
+ran across a field to come up with me, thinking I was some young bey
+or binbashi. Every time, just as they got near, I quickened my horse’s
+pace, that they might not see I was a woman: at last, two fairly came
+and seized my knees, to make me turn and look at them. But what was
+their confusion (for such women are not so hardened as in Europe) when
+they saw I had no beard or mustachios, and was one of their own sex!”
+
+Lady Hester related this droll adventure to me more than once, to
+show, I believe, what a distinguished and real Turkish appearance she
+made on horseback, which was perfectly true: but to return to the
+servants.
+
+A Turk for work is little better than a brute animal: he moves about
+nimbly, when roused by vociferation and threats, and squats down like
+a dog the moment he is left to himself. England produces no type of
+the Syrian serving-man. He sets about his work as a task that is given
+to him, and, when it is over, sits down immediately to smoke his pipe
+and to gossip, or seeks a snug place near at hand, and goes to sleep.
+You call him, and set him to do something else, and the same practice
+follows. The next day you expect he will, of his own accord,
+recommence what was shown to him on the preceding one; but no such
+thing: you have to tell him over again, and so every day. He is a
+thief from habit, and a liar of the most brazen stamp, as no shame is
+ever attached to detection. In plausible language, protestations of
+honesty and fidelity, he has no superior; and, if beaten or reviled,
+he will smother his choler, nay, kiss the hand that has chastised him,
+but waits a fit opportunity for vengeance, and carefully weighs kicks
+against coppers. He is generally so servile as to make you bear with
+his worthlessness, even though you despise him; and, when your anger
+appears to threaten him with the loss of his place and is at the
+highest, he smooths it down with an extraordinary day’s activity,
+making you hope that a reformation has taken place in him: but it is
+all delusion. And think not that you, a Christian, can raise your hand
+against the meanest servant, if a Mahometan: when you would have him
+beaten, you must employ another Mahometan to do it, who will, however,
+lay on to your heart’s content.
+
+What has been said above applies to the menials of towns and cities.
+Of another class of servants taken from the villages, Lady Hester used
+to say, “I have tried the Syrian _fellahs_” (peasants) “for twenty
+years as servants, and I ought to know pretty well what they are fit
+for. It is my opinion that, for hard work, lifting heavy things, going
+with mules and asses, for foot messengers across the country, and for
+such business, you may make something of them, but for nothing else.
+The women are idle, and prone to thieving; and it is impossible to
+teach them any European usages.”
+
+One day, in walking through the back yard, I observed two stakes,
+about six feet high and sharply pointed, stuck deep and firmly into
+the ground, which had before escaped my notice. I inquired what they
+were for, but got no satisfactory answer, the dairyman, to whom I
+addressed myself, using the reply so common throughout the East, _Ma
+aref_ (I don’t know); for no people in the world have so quick a scent
+of the danger of being brought into trouble by professing to know what
+is inquired about as the Orientals. A Jew, in a street in Turkey, and
+a Christian likewise, is sure to answer the most simple question by an
+“I don’t know”――“I have not heard”――“I have not seen;” for he fears
+what that question may lead to, and that, if he knows a little, a
+bastinadoing may be resorted to to make him know more: so I afterwards
+asked Lady Hester. “Oh!” replied she, “I’ll tell you how those stakes
+came there: I had forgotten all about them. One day, at the time they
+were robbing me right and left, I ordered the carpenter to make two
+stakes, such as people are impaled upon, and to erect them in the back
+yard. I spoke not to any one why or wherefore I had given the order;
+but if you had seen the fright that pervaded the house, and for weeks
+how well the maids behaved, you would then have known, as I do, that
+it is only by such terrible means that these abominable jades can be
+kept under. From that time to this it appears the stakes have
+remained; for, as I never go into that yard, I had forgotten them: but
+since they are there still, there let them be.”
+
+Thus Lady Hester was dying in a struggle to cure her men and maids of
+theft, lying, and carelessness, whilst they ended the month with the
+same indifference to honesty, truth, and cleanliness, as they began
+it.
+
+Each one was a sycophant to those who had authority over him; each one
+distrusted his comrade. Lady Hester might say with truth, “If I did
+not act so, they would cut your throat and mine:” but why did she keep
+such wretches about her? why not turn them away, and procure European
+servants? or why continue to live in such a wild mountain, and not
+make her dwelling-place in or near a city, where consular protection
+was at hand? The first three questions I have endeavoured to answer
+already; and, as for the last, respecting consular protection, he that
+had dared to suggest such an expedient of safety to her would have
+rued the observation. To name a consul in that sense to her was to
+name what was most odious; and the epithets that were generally
+coupled with their names were such as I have too much respect for that
+useful body of magistrates to put down in writing.
+
+Saturday, November 25.――As I was returning from the village about
+four in the afternoon, on ascending the side of the hill on which Lady
+Hester’s house stands, I met four persons mounted on mules, and
+conjectured them, by their boots, which were black, and reached up to
+the calf of the leg, not to be of the country; for in Syria either red
+or yellow boots are always worn. They had on Morea capotes, and their
+dress was that of the more northern provinces of Turkey. In passing
+them, I said, “Good evening!” in Arabic, but, on receiving no answer
+from the two nearest to me, I looked hard at them, and immediately saw
+they were Europeans.
+
+On alighting at my own door, I asked the servant if he had seen
+anybody go by, and his reply was, that three or four Turkish soldiers
+had passed. I then inquired of one of Lady Hester’s muleteers, who was
+unloading some provisions he had brought from Sayda, if he knew who
+the four men were whom I had seen; and he answered that, at the foot
+of the hill, they had inquired of him the road to Jôon, and that they
+were Milordi travelling: Milordo being the term applied to every
+European who travels in the Levant with a man-servant, and has money
+to spend.
+
+I went in to Lady Hester a few minutes afterwards, and told her that
+some travellers, as I thought, to get a nearer view of her house than
+could be had from the high road, had made a round, and had just ridden
+past the door. About a quarter of an hour afterwards, the maid
+brought in a message from the porter to say that two Franks, just
+arrived at the village of Jôon, had sent their servant with a note,
+and the porter wished to know whether the note was to be taken in. For
+Lady Hester had been so tormented with begging letters, petitions,
+stories of distress, &c., that it was become a general rule for him
+never to receive any written paper, until he had first sent in to say
+who had brought it, and from whom it came; and then she would decide
+whether it was to be refused or not. The note, accordingly, was
+fetched.
+
+Lady Hester read it to herself, and then the following conversation
+took place, which will explain some of the reasons why she did not
+always receive strangers who presented themselves at her gate. “Yes,
+doctor,” said she, “you were right: they are two travellers, who have
+been to Palmyra and about, and want to come and talk to me concerning
+the Arabs and the desert. Should you like to go to Jôon, and tell them
+I can’t see them, because I have been confined to my room for several
+days from a bad cold?” I answered, “Certainly; I would go with the
+greatest pleasure.” She then rang the bell, and desired the servant to
+order my horse. She continued, “One of the names, I think, is a man of
+a great family.”――“What is it?” I asked. She took up the note again.
+“Boo, poo, bon――no――Boo――jo――lais――Beaujolais, I think it is. No,
+Pou――jo――lat; it is Poujolat.”――“Then,” interrupted I, “I guess who
+they are: there was a Monsieur Poujolat, who came into the Levant six
+or seven years ago, to make researches respecting the crusades: I saw
+him at Cyprus; he and Monsieur Michaud were together. They were
+considered men of talent, and I believe were contributors to some
+Paris newspaper during Charles the Tenth’s time. They had published
+already some volumes of their travels before I left Europe, and the
+greatest part of the ground was travelled over, as I surmise, in the
+saloons of their consuls, during the long evenings when they were shut
+in by the plague of 1831 and 1832; for they speak of many places where
+they could hardly have gone. But this is not unusual,” I added, “with
+some writers; for Monsieur Chaboçeau, a French doctor at Damascus,
+told me, in 1813, when I was staying in his house, that Monsieur de
+Volney never went to Palmyra, although he leads one to suppose he had
+been there; for, owing to a great fall of snow just at the period when
+he projected that journey, he was compelled to relinquish the attempt.
+Monsieur Chaboçeau, an octogenarian, had known him, and entertained
+him as his guest in his house; and he answered me, when I reiterated
+the question, that Volney never saw Palmyra.”
+
+“Oh! if they have written about the crusades,” said Lady Hester,
+paying no attention to what I said about Volney, “tell them that all
+the crusaders are not dead, but that some of them are asleep only;
+asleep in the same arms and the same dress they wore on the field of
+battle, and will awake at the first resurrection. Mind you say the
+first resurrection; for I suppose you know there are to be two, one a
+partial one, and the last a general one.[15]
+
+“But there, doctor, I must not detain you. Now, just listen to what
+you have got to do. Mohammed shall take to them two bottles of red
+wine, and two bottles of _vino d’oro_” (ding, ding.) “Zezefôon, tell
+Mohammed to get out four bottles of wine, two of each sort; of my
+wine――you understand――and he is to put them in a basket, and be ready
+to go with the doctor to Jôon.” Then, addressing herself again to me,
+“You must say to them that I am very sorry I can’t see them, but that
+I am not very well, and that I beg their acceptance of a little wine,
+which, perhaps, they might not find where they sleep to-night. Say to
+them, I should be very much pleased to talk over their journey to
+Palmyra with them; and add that the respect I bear to all the French
+makes me always happy to meet with one of their nation. Say that the
+wine is not so good as I could wish it to be, but that, since Ibrahim
+Pasha and his soldiers have been in the country, they have drunk up
+all the good, and it is now very difficult to procure any. If they
+talk about Ibrahim Pasha, say that I admire his courage, but cannot
+respect him; that I am a faithful subject of the Sultan, and shall
+always be so, and that I do not like servants that rise against their
+masters; for whether Cromwells, or Buonapartes, or people in these
+countries, it never succeeds. If they allude to the horrors of the
+recruiting service, and to the nizàm troops, tell them that I never
+interfere in matters like that; but that, when heads were to be saved
+and the wounded and houseless to be succoured, as after the siege of
+Acre, then I was not afraid of Ibrahim Pasha, or any of them. Well, I
+think that’s all:” then, musing a little while, she added, “I ought,
+perhaps, to ask them to pass the night here; but, if I did, it would
+be all confusion: no dinner ready for them――and, before it could be,
+it would be midnight, for I must have a sheep killed: besides, it
+would be setting a bad example. There would be others then coming just
+at nightfall to get a supper and be off in the morning, as has
+happened more than once already. So now go, doctor, and” (ding, ding)
+“Fatôom! who is that woman that lodges strangers sometimes at
+Jôon?”――“Werdy, Sytty, the midwife.”――“Ah! so; very well. Tell them,
+doctor, that they had better not think of going to Sayda to-night, as
+the gates will be shut; and that they will be nowhere better off for
+sleeping in all the village than at Werdy, the midwife’s: for she has
+good beds and clean counterpanes: so now go.”
+
+I half rose to go, still hanging back, as knowing her ladyship would,
+as usual, have much more to say. “Oh! by the bye,” she resumed, “if
+they inquire about me, and ask any questions, you may say that
+sometimes I am a great talker when subjects please me, and sometimes
+say very little if they do not. I am a character: what I do, or intend
+to do, nobody knows beforehand; and, when done, people don’t always
+know why, until the proper time, and then it comes out.” Here she
+paused a little, and then resumed. “I dare say they came here to have
+something to put in their book, so mind you tell them about the
+crusaders; for it is true, doctor. You recollect I told you the story,
+and how these sleeping crusaders had been seen by several persons; and
+I don’t suppose those persons would lie more than other people; why
+should they?”――“Why should they indeed?” I answered. “They were
+martyrs,” resumed her ladyship, “and those who sleep are not only of
+the Christians who fought, but of the Saracens also; men, that is, who
+felt from their souls the justice of the cause they fought for. As for
+yourself, if you don’t believe it, you may add you know nothing about
+it; for you are lately come into the country, and all these are things
+which are become known to me during my long residence here.”
+
+At last I went, mounted my horse, and rode out of the gate, Mohammed
+following with the basket of wine. But, instead of having to go to the
+village, I found the strangers waiting on their mules about two or
+three hundred yards from the porter’s lodge. My horse, taken from his
+feed, for it was near sunset, and seeing the mules, jumped and pranced
+so that I was obliged to dismount before I could approach them. I
+delivered Lady Hester’s message to them, and in answer they expressed,
+in polite terms, their regret at not seeing her, and their still
+greater regret that the reason was from her ill state of health.
+Unlike what some Englishmen have done on similar occasions, they
+uttered not the slightest murmur about her want of hospitality, nor
+the least doubt of the veracity of the excuse; but, as soon as they
+found that they should not be admitted, they cut short all further
+conversation; lamenting, as night was fast approaching, that they
+could not stop, and that they were under the necessity of bending
+their way somewhere as fast as possible to get a night’s lodging. I
+pointed to the village, recommended them to go there, and repeated
+Werdy, the midwife’s name, two or three times, as a cottage where they
+would be comfortably lodged. But, yielding to the advice of their
+servant, who, as is the case with all travellers ignorant of the
+language in a strange country, seemed to lead his masters pretty much
+where he liked, they were induced to set off for Sayda, where they
+could not arrive in less than three hours, instead of passing the
+night at Jôon, where they would have been housed in ten minutes. So,
+presenting them with the wine, and having informed them of the name of
+the French consular agent at Sayda, where they would do well to demand
+a lodging, I wished them good night, and took my leave. They mounted
+their mules, and descended the bank by the narrow path that led under
+the hill to the Sayda road; when, as I was going back to the house, I
+heard one of the gentlemen calling out to me, “But the empty bottles?”
+Now the interview had been conducted, on my part, with all the
+etiquette I was master of, and on theirs, up to the moment of saying
+good night, with the politeness so natural to the French nation. But
+the exclamation, “What’s to be done with the empty bottles? you gave
+us the wine, but did you give us the bottles too?” sounded so comic,
+and in the vicinity of that residence too, where it was customary to
+give in a princely way, that the speaker fell a degree in the scale of
+my estimation on the score of breeding, how much soever he might be
+commended for his intended exactitude and probity.
+
+I returned to Lady Hester. During my short absence, one of her maids
+had informed her that the Franks, although they had made a show of
+going to Jôon when first they passed the gate, had in fact only
+retired into the valley between the two hills, where they had unpacked
+their saddle-bags and shifted themselves, in order to make a decent
+appearance before her. This increased her regret at the trouble they
+had so uselessly put themselves to. The rain came on soon after, and
+their unpleasant situation was the subject of conversation for a good
+half hour. The name of the other gentleman who accompanied Monsier
+Poujolat was Boutés.
+
+Much has been said of Lady Hester Stanhope’s rudeness to her
+countrymen and others in refusing them admittance when at the door,
+and probably Messrs. Poujolat and Boutés might have complained at
+Sayda of her inhospitable conduct: but it is scarcely necessary for me
+to say that her real motives for acting as she did were not from a
+dislike to see people, since nobody enjoyed half-a-day’s conversation
+with a stranger more than she did. A few days after,
+
+December 2.――I had taken a long ride in the morning, and had seen a
+frigate under her studding sails running towards Sayda. The arrival of
+a ship of war was always an event to set the house in commotion; for
+it was very well known that, if her colours were English or French,
+the chances were ten to one that either the captain or some of the
+officers would come up to Jôon. Accordingly, on returning home at
+about 4 o’clock, I told Lady Hester Stanhope of it: but she was not
+well, had passed the night badly, and all she said was,――“Well, if
+they come, I shall not see any of them.” Now, it is not improbable, if
+any of the officers had presented themselves, and had been told that
+her ladyship was unable to receive them, owing to the state of her
+health, that they would have gone away discontented, and disposed to
+attribute her refusal to any other cause than the real one: but let
+any one, who reads what follows, say if she was in a fit state to hold
+conversation with strangers.
+
+Her health was still very far from good, and this day was a day of
+sorrow. Her maids had been sulky and impertinent, and her forlorn and
+deserted situation came so forcibly across her mind, that she raised
+up her hands to heaven, and wept. “Oh!” said she, “if these horrid
+servants would but do as they are told, I could get on by myself, and
+should not want anybody to help me: but they are like jibbing horses,
+and the only good horse in the team is worked to death. Were I well, I
+would not care for a thousand of them; I should know how to manage
+them: but, sick as I am, hardly able to raise my hand to ring the
+bell, if anything were to happen to me, I might die, and nobody would
+come to my assistance.”
+
+I offered, as I had done almost daily, to have my bed removed to the
+room next to hers, and to sleep there, in order to be at hand if she
+should want my assistance: but she would not admit of it; and I could
+only use my best efforts to soothe her, which was no easy matter. I
+remained six hours with her, sitting the whole time in a constrained
+posture, that I might catch her words, so low was her voice. And I
+could not move without sensibly annoying her, as she was sure to
+construe it into a wish to be gone, or a disregard of her situation,
+and to say she was neglected by everybody.
+
+It is incredible how Lady Hester Stanhope used to torment herself
+about trifles. People, who never happened to meet with a person of her
+peculiar character, would be amazed at the precision with which she
+set about everything she undertook. The most trivial and fugitive
+affairs were transacted with quite as much pains and exactitude as she
+brought to bear upon the most important plans. This was, in fact, the
+character of her mind, exhibiting itself throughout her entire
+conduct. I have known her lose nearly a whole day in scolding about a
+nosegay of roses which she wished to send to the Pasha’s wife. For the
+purpose of sending nosegays safely to distant places, she had invented
+a sort of canister. In the bottom part was placed a tumbler full of
+water, in which the flower-stalks were kept moist; and the nosegay was
+thus carried to any distance, suspended to the mules, saddle, or in a
+man’s hand. The servants, who could not understand why such importance
+was attached to a few flowers, were remiss in keeping the canisters
+clean, nor would the gardener arrange the flowers as Lady Hester
+wished. For a matter like this she would storm and cry, and appeal to
+me if it was not a shame she should be so treated.
+
+December 3.――To-day, a servant, who was ill, had become the object of
+her immediate anxiety. “As for myself,” cried she, “I care not how
+ragged, how neglected I am; but I am in a fever if I think a poor
+creature is in want of such comforts as his illness may require. Such
+is my despotism: and I dread every moment of the day lest his
+necessities should not be attended to. Who is to see his room warmed,
+to take care he has proper drinks, to give him his medicine? I know
+nobody will do it, unless I see to it myself.” I assured her he should
+have every attention possible.
+
+It was in vain to expect any sentiment or feeling from servants and
+slaves, who had no prospect before them but one constant round of
+forced work, against their habits and inclinations. Although Lady
+Hester Stanhope had adopted almost all the customs of the East, she
+still retained many of her own: and to condemn the slaves to learn the
+usages of Franks was like obliging an English housemaid to fall into
+those of the Turks. Thus, the airing of linen, ironing, baking loaves
+of bread instead of flat cakes, cleaning knives, brightening pots,
+pans, and kettles, mending holes in clothes, and other domestic
+cleanly usages, were points of contention which were constantly fought
+over and over again for twenty years, with no better success at the
+last than at the first.
+
+Her conversation turned one day on Sir G. H. “What can be the
+reason?” said she, “I am now always thinking of Sir G. H. Seven years
+ago, when you were here, you spoke about him, and I thought no more of
+him than merely to make some remarks at the moment; but now I have
+dreamed of him two or three times, and I am sure something is going to
+happen to him, either very good or very bad. I have been thinking how
+well he would do for master of the horse to the Queen, and I have a
+good way of giving a hint of it through the Buckleys: for I always
+said that, next to Lord Chatham, nobody ever had such handsome
+equipages as Sir G.: nobody’s horses and carriages were so neatly
+picked out as theirs. Sir G. is a man, doctor, from what you tell me,
+that would have just suited Mr. Pitt. That polished and quiet manner
+which Sir G. has was what Mr. Pitt found so agreeable in Mr. Long. It
+is very odd――Mr. Pitt always would dress for dinner, even if we were
+alone. One day, I said to him, ‘You are tired, and there is no one but
+ourselves; why need you dress!’ He replied, ‘Why, I don’t know,
+Hester; but if one omits to do it to-day, we neglect it to-morrow, and
+so on, until one grows a pig.’”
+
+December 7, 1837.――Poor Lady Hester’s appearance to-day would have
+been a piteous sight for her friends in England. I saw her about noon:
+she was pale, very ill, and her natural good spirits quite gone.
+“Doctor,” said she, in a faint voice, “I am very poorly to-day, and I
+was still worse in the night. I was within that” (holding up her
+finger) “of death’s door, and I find nothing now will relieve me. A
+little while ago, I could depend on something or other, when seized
+with these spasmodic attacks; but now everything fails. How am I to
+get better, when I can’t have a moment’s repose from morning till
+night? When I was ill on former occasions, I could amuse myself with
+my thoughts, with cutting out in paper;――why, I have a closet full of
+models, in paper, of rooms, and arches, and vaults, and pavilions, and
+buildings, with so many plans of alterations, you can’t think. But
+now, if I want a pair of scissors, they can’t be found; if I want a
+needle and thread, there is none forthcoming; and I am wearied to
+death about the smallest trifles.”
+
+She here began to cry and wring her hands, presenting a most
+melancholy picture of despair. When she had recovered a little, she
+went on: “To look upon me now, what a lesson against vanity! Look at
+this arm, all skin and bone, so thin, so thin, that you may see
+through it; and once, without exaggeration, so rounded, that you could
+not pinch the skin up. My neck was once so fair that a pearl necklace
+scarcely showed on it; and men――no fools, but sensible men――would say
+to me, ‘God has given you a neck you really may be proud of: you are
+one of nature’s favourites, and one may be excused for admiring that
+beautiful skin.’ If they could behold me now, with my teeth all gone,
+and with long lines in my face――not wrinkles, for I have no wrinkles
+when I am left quiet, and not made angry: but my face is drawn out of
+its composure by these wretches. I thank God that old age has come
+upon me unperceived. When I used to see the painted Lady H. dressed in
+pink and silver, with her head shaking, and jumped by her footman into
+her sociable, attempting to appear young, I felt a kind of horror and
+disgust I can’t describe. I wonder how Lady Stafford dresses, now she
+is no longer young: but I can’t fancy her grown old.”
+
+She paused, and then resumed. “I have,” she said, “been under the saw”
+(drawing the little finger of her right hand backward and forward
+across the forefinger of her left) “for many years, and not a tooth
+but what has told; but it is God’s will, and I do not repine: it is
+man’s ingratitude that wounds me most. How many harsh answers have
+even you given me, when I have been telling you things for your good:
+it is that which hurts me.”
+
+I confessed my fault, and expressed my deep regret that I had ever
+caused her any pain.
+
+She went on. “When I see people of understanding moidering away their
+time, losing their memory, and doing nothing that is useful to
+mankind, I must be frank, and tell them of it. You are in darkness,
+and I have done my best to enlighten you: if I have not succeeded, it
+is not my fault. As for pleasing or displeasing me, put that out of
+your head: there is no more in that than in pleasing or displeasing
+that door. I am but a worm――a poor, miserable being――an humble
+instrument in the hands of God. But, if a man is benighted, and sees a
+light in a castle, does he go to it, or does he not? Perhaps it may be
+a good genius that guides him there, perhaps it may be a den of
+thieves: but there he goes.”
+
+In this mournful strain Lady Hester went on for some time. Every thing
+around me presented so affecting a picture, that, unable to restrain
+my emotions, I burst into tears. She let me recover myself, and then,
+making me drink a finjàn of coffee, with a little orange-flower water
+in it, to restore my spirits, she advised me to go and take a walk.
+
+An hour or two afterwards I saw her again. She was much better, and
+was sitting up in her bed, cutting out articles of clothing, and
+fixing on patterns for new gowns for her maids. “I hate money,” she
+said, “and could wish to have nothing to do with it but saying, ‘Take
+this, and lay it out so and so.’” Ever sanguine, she was forming plans
+of what she should do in the spring, when she purposed remodelling her
+household, and replacing her present servants by a fresh set. The
+world was to be convulsed by revolutions, nations were to be punished
+by sickness and calamities; and her object was to secure, for those in
+whose welfare she felt interested, an asylum in the coming days of
+trouble.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [14] An abah is either a long cloak, or else a woollen
+          frock-coat, sometimes brocaded in a triangle of gold
+          thread (the base going from shoulder to shoulder, and
+          the apex pointing at the waist), on a marone-coloured
+          ground, as this was, and presenting a very brilliant
+          appearance.
+
+     [15] It was by such speeches as these that Lady Hester
+          sometimes left an impression on her hearers that she
+          was insane. The reader must judge for himself. There
+          are, however, strong reasons for believing that there
+          was a profound and deeply-planned method in all her
+          actions, and those who said she was unsound in her
+          intellects would have had great difficulty in proving
+          it before a competent tribunal. The vast combinations
+          of her mind, when it was possible to get a glimpse of
+          them, filled one with surprise, and set at naught all
+          previous conjecture or conception; whilst separate and
+          particular conversations and reasonings wore the stamp
+          of great oddity and sometimes of insanity. Let Mr.
+          Dundas, Lord Hardwicke, Mr. Way, Lord St. Asaph, Count
+          Delaborde, Count Yowiski, if still alive, Count de la
+          Porte, Dr. Mills, M. Lamartine, Count Marcellus, and a
+          hundred others who have conversed with her, say what
+          was the impression she left on their minds; and not
+          till then let persons who have never held intercourse
+          with her of late years pronounce her mad.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VI.
+
+The Delphic priestess――Abdallah Pasha’s ingratitude――His cowardice――
+Lady Hester’s spies――Her emaciation――History of General Loustaunau.
+
+
+December 8.――A most violent storm of rain, thunder, and lightning,
+kept me prisoner. The courtyards were flooded. When all the house was
+in confusion from the wet, and clogs were heard clattering on all
+sides, I entered Lady Hester’s room, and remained for about an hour,
+talking on indifferent subjects, without hearing from her one word in
+allusion to the state of the weather. At last she said, “Doctor, I
+find myself better from the thunder!” And when I replied that there
+were many persons who felt oppressed from an electric condition of the
+atmosphere and were relieved by its explosion, she observed, with some
+sharpness, “that I must be a great booby to make such a remark to her,
+as there was not a servant in the house who did not know that she
+could always tell, three days beforehand, when a thunder-storm was
+coming on.”
+
+In the evening I sat with her about four hours. She was up, and had
+placed herself in a corner of her bed-room on a low ottoman (as it is
+called in England), which the Syrians name _terâahah_. The candle was
+put far back in the window recess, the light being thrown on my
+features, whilst it left hers in obscurity. This was her custom on
+almost all occasions, even when she had strangers visiting her, under
+pretence that she could not bear the light in her eyes, but, in fact,
+as I have reason to believe, to watch the play of people’s
+countenances.
+
+She resumed the subject of the preceding evening. I was too weary when
+I left her, and too busy next morning, to be able to write down her
+conversation, but, could I have done it, it must have left a profound
+impression on the reader’s mind, an idea of sublimity, whether he held
+her visionary opinions to be the mere rhapsodies of a disordered
+intellect, or the deductions of great reasoning powers, aided by
+remarkable foresight. Her language was so forcible and sublime, that I
+sometimes suspended my breath, and from time to time tried to assure
+myself that I was not hearkening to a superhuman voice. The smoke from
+our pipes by degrees filled the room, closely shut up as it was, and
+cast a deep gloom around us. The wind howled without, with now and
+then occasional echoes of the thunder among the mountains: and it
+required no great stretch of imagination to believe one’s self
+listening to the inspired oracles of the Delphic priestess, as she
+poured forth the warnings of what seemed a preternatural insight into
+futurity.
+
+December 9.――The morning was employed in writing letters, and in the
+evening I remained until half-past one with Lady Hester. She spoke of
+the alarm created in Mahomet Ali’s cabinet, by her affording
+protection to Abdallah Pasha’s people after the surrender of St. Jean
+d’Acre. “That impudent fellow C********,” said she, “sent me a packet
+of letters from Colonel Campbell, and told me I was to prepare a list
+of all the people in my house, giving their names, nation, a
+description of their persons, &c. I returned him the packet, and
+desired him to forward it to the quarter whence it came, adding,
+‘These are all the commands that Lady Hester Stanhope has at present
+to give to Mr. C********.’ To Colonel C. I wrote ‘that it was not
+customary for consuls to give orders to their superiors; that, as for
+the English name, about which he talked so much, I made over to him
+all the advantage he might derive from it.’ And my letter to Boghoz
+was to the effect that, ‘in confessing, as he did, that I rendered the
+state of this country unsettled by my measures, he acknowledged the
+weakness of his master’s cause; that I disdained all partnership in
+it; and that the column on which Mahomet Ali’s exaltation rested
+would, before long, sink beneath him, and his greatness melt like snow
+before the fire.’ I added, ‘there could be little honour for Mahomet
+Ali to make himself a gladiator before a woman;’ and here I meant
+that, as a gladiator was some criminal who descended into the arena to
+fight, so he was a malefactor too.
+
+“As for Abdallah Pasha, he was not worth the pains I took about him;
+but I did it for my master, the Sultan. I kept and maintained for two
+years two hundred of his people, wounded, sick, and proscribed; and
+when I wrote to him to know what I should do with them, as the expense
+was too great for me, the answer of this ungrateful wretch was to ask
+me for a loan of twenty-five purses, and not even to send his
+remembrance to one of those who had bled and suffered in his cause.
+His ingratitude, however, has partly met with its reward: for the
+Sultan himself has heard of his cold-hearted conduct, and has taken
+away half what he allowed him. This is the man whose head I saved by
+my intercession with a person in power.
+
+“He was a coward, after all. The last day of the siege of Acre he lost
+his senses quite. As Ibrahim Pasha had effected a breach, some of
+Abdallah Pasha’s officers forced him to come upon the ramparts to
+encourage the soldiers; for he had remained during the whole time shut
+up in a vault under-ground with his women and boys, and had never once
+appeared. Well, the first thing he did was to sit down amidst the
+fire, quite bewildered. He then asked for an umbrella: then he called
+for some water; and, when they presented to him an _ibryk_[16] as
+being the only thing they had near at hand, not supposing that at such
+a moment he would mind what it was he drank from, he would not drink
+out of it?”
+
+They fetched him a goblet, and he made them take it back, because it
+was a glass he drank sherbet out of, and not water. The very man who
+handed it to him told me the story. At last they placed him in one
+corner of the battery, and covered him with a cloak. All this time the
+bullets were flying about.[17]
+
+Lady Hester continued:――“Of all those to whom I gave an asylum and
+bread, after the siege, I can’t say there were many who showed the
+least gratitude――four perhaps: the rest robbed me, and abused my
+goodness in every possible manner. One family alone consisted of
+seventeen persons. Will it be believed, that when I had new clothes
+made for the women for the Byrám holyday, they had the baseness to
+grumble at the stuff, the make, and everything, complaining they were
+not good enough for them? But this did not hurt me half so much as the
+little credit I get for everything I do among my relations and the
+English in general. My motives are misconstrued, or not appreciated;
+and, whilst a mighty fuss is made about some public subscription for
+people in Jamaica, Newfoundland, or God knows where, I, who, by my own
+individual exertions, have done the like for hundreds of wretched
+beings, driven out of their homes by the sabre and bayonet, am reviled
+and abused for every act of kindness or benevolence.
+
+“I knew a pretty deal of what was going forward during the siege of
+Acre by my own spies. Hanah, your old servant――Giovanni, as he used to
+be called――was one of them. He carried on his trade of a barber, and
+was married in Acre; and, when the bombarding began, he got out
+somehow, and came to me. So I furnished him with a beggar’s dress. But
+first I made him take leave of the other servants, and set off from
+the door. Then, hiding himself under a rock, when he was at a
+distance, he dressed himself as a _fakýr_, and, so perfect was his
+disguise, that, when he came back to me, I did not know him. He was a
+poor timid fellow, and that was the reason why I chose him as fit for
+my purpose. In such a nice business as that, I wanted a man that would
+follow my instructions exactly, and do nothing out of his own head:
+and Giovanni was in such a fright, that I was sure of him in that
+respect. Well, he succeeded perfectly well. There was a poor devil of
+a _sacca_, or water-carrier, in the camp, who used to take water to
+Derwish Pasha’s tents. Meanly dressed, and with his head held down,
+like one in misery, nobody paid any attention to him; at night he
+would frequently creep between the ropes of the Pasha’s tent, and seem
+to sleep there like an unhappy being who had no hole to put his head
+in. Through a slit in the tent, he could see and hear much that
+passed, communicating whatever information he obtained to Giovanni,
+who brought it at convenient opportunities to me. But when I wanted a
+stout-hearted fellow to carry a letter through the entrenchments to
+the foot of the walls, to be drawn up, then I chose a different sort
+of a messenger; for I had them all ready.”
+
+December 16.――The last three days Lady Hester had suffered greatly.
+To-day she was in very low spirits, and sobbed aloud and wrung her
+hands, while she bitterly deplored her deserted state. “I believe it
+will do me good to cry,” she said, and she gave way freely to her
+emotions; but her weeping was not woman-like: it had a wild howl about
+it, that was painful to me to hear; she seemed not to be made of stuff
+for tears: and, if Bellona could have ever wept, she must have wept in
+this way. After she had given vent to her feelings, she gradually
+recovered, and her natural fecundity of language returned.
+
+December 17.――Christmas day was approaching, but the weather was of
+extraordinary mildness. Some idea may be formed of the climate of
+Syria from the circumstance that my house had no glass to the windows,
+and that the family sat always with the doors open. It was only during
+the heavy rains that the rooms felt chilly, and then a brazier, with
+lighted coals, was agreeable and quite sufficient to obviate the cold.
+
+Lady Hester made me observe how thin she had become. Her bones almost
+protruded through her skin, and she could not lie comfortably in any
+posture; so that it was difficult for her to get rest. Her fretfulness
+had increased to such a degree as to be equally distressing to herself
+and to those about her: yet the vigour of her mind never forsook her
+for a moment when anything called for its exertion.
+
+December 20.――was a rainy day, and, when I entered her ladyship’s
+chamber, I saw it would be a melancholy one. She was seated in the
+corner of the room, her features indicating great suffering. She burst
+into tears the moment I approached her. She had not slept the whole
+night, and had passed the hours, from the time I left her, in getting
+up and walking about supported by her women, and then lying down
+again, seeking relief from the feeling of suffocation and oppression
+which so much distressed her. The floor of the bed-room was covered
+with plates, pots, and pans, turnips, carrots, cabbages, knives and
+forks, spoons, and all other appurtenances of the table and kitchen.
+
+I must observe that, on the preceding day, at Lady Hester’s request, I
+had ridden over to Mar Elias to see General Loustaunau, the decayed
+French officer, who had now lived on her bounty for a period of more
+than twenty years. And although, from being of a choleric and violent
+temper, he had, on more than one occasion, embroiled himself with her,
+yet the only difference it made in her treatment towards him was
+merely to keep him at a distance from herself: but she had never, for
+one day, ceased to occupy herself with his wants and to provide for
+his comforts. He was now, as I was told, eighty years old, and his
+mind was possessed with hallucinations, which he fell into from a
+belief that he could interpret the prophecies in the Bible. He was
+constantly poring over that book, and he went very generally by the
+name of the Prophet: Lady Hester herself always called him so. He had
+a maid-servant to take care of him, a barber, on fixed days, to shave
+him. Lamb, mutton, or beef, flour for his bread, and wine, were sent
+as his consumption required, money being liberally furnished him for
+purchasing everything else from Sayda.
+
+Finding that he was very much neglected by the woman who was appointed
+to attend him, I mentioned the fact on my return to Lady Hester, and
+to this communication was to be attributed the extraordinary display
+on the floor of her bed-room; for, from her accustomed sensibility to
+the sufferings of others, she had fancied that the poor man was in
+want of everything. “See,” she said, “what I am reduced to: ever since
+daylight this morning” (and it was then nearly noon) “have I been
+handling pots and pans to make the Prophet comfortable. For on whom
+can I depend?――on these cold people――a pack of stocks and stones, who
+rest immoveable amidst their fellow-creatures’ sufferings? Why did not
+you give that woman a dressing? I’ll have her turned out of the
+village――an impudent hussy!”
+
+Here, from having raised her voice, she was seized with a spasm in the
+throat and chest, and, making a sudden start, “Some water, some water!
+make haste!” she cried, and gasped for breath as if almost
+suffocated. I handed her some immediately, which she greedily drank: I
+then threw the window open, and she became better. “Don’t leave me,
+doctor: ring the bell;――I can’t bear to be left alone a moment; for,
+if one of these attacks were to come on, and I could not ring the
+bell, what could I do? You must forgive me if I fall into these
+violent passions; but such is my nature: I can’t help it. I am like
+the horse that Mr. Pitt had. Mr. Pitt used to say, ‘You must guide him
+with a hair; if I only move my leg, he goes on; and his pace is so
+easy, it’s quite charming: but, if you thwart him or contradict him,
+he is unmanageable;’――that’s me.”
+
+But, to return to General Loustaunau, or the Prophet――as his name has
+already appeared several times, it may not be amiss to give a short
+outline of his life, the particulars of which he communicated to me
+himself. From a village in the Pyrenees, near to Tarbes, one day, a
+young man, about twenty-four years of age, sallied forth, he knew not
+whither, to seek his fortune. Sprung from a family of peasants, he had
+received little or no education, and had nothing to depend on but his
+well-knitted frame, an intelligent and handsome countenance, robust
+health, and activity. He directed his steps towards one of the great
+sea-ports of France, resolved to work his passage to America. But,
+when walking the quays and inquiring for a vessel bound across the
+Atlantic, he was told there was none; there was, however, a large
+merchant-ship freighting for the East Indies. Learning that the
+country she was chartered for was still more distant than the western
+colonies, he concluded, in his ardent and youthful mind, that it would
+open to him a still greater chance of meeting with adventures and of
+enriching himself. He accordingly got himself rated to work his
+passage as a seaman, and arrived in safety at the ship’s destination.
+
+It would be useless to occupy the reader’s time with the struggles
+which every man, unknown and without recommendations, has to make on a
+foreign shore, before he gets a footing in some shape congenial to his
+talents or his inclination. Natural talents Loustaunau had; for, in
+the space of a few months after his arrival on the Indian coast, he
+was spoken of as an intelligent young man to the French ambassador,
+Monsieur de Marigny, residing at Poonah, the Mahratta court, as far as
+I could understand: since it is to be borne in mind that Mr.
+Loustaunau, when he related all this, was eighty years old, had almost
+lost his memory, and was relapsing into second childhood. He soon
+after became an inmate of the embassy, on terms of some familiarity
+with Monsieur de Marigny, who discovered, in the young adventurer’s
+conversation, so much good sense and elevation of mind, that he used
+to say to him, “It strikes me that you are no common man.”
+
+It so happened that the war between the English and the Rajah of the
+Mahrattas brought the hostile armies into the field at no great
+distance from Poonah; and Mr. L. one day told the ambassador, that, as
+he had never seen what war was, and had not far to go to do so, he
+should be much obliged if he would permit him to absent himself for a
+short time to be spectator of the action, which, report said, must
+soon take place between the two armies. Monsieur de M. tried to
+dissuade him from it, asking him of what use it would be to risk his
+life for the satisfaction of an empty curiosity. Mr. L.’s reply was,
+“If I am killed, why then _bon jour_, and there will be an end of me:”
+M. de Marigny, therefore, complied with his wishes, and sent him with
+some of his own people and an introductory letter, to General Norolli,
+a Portuguese, who commanded the Rajah Scindeah’s artillery.
+
+He had not to wait long for the gratification of his curiosity. An
+action took place: the forces were warmly engaged, and Mr. L. walked
+about within musket-shot distance to observe the manœuvres of the two
+armies. The English had planted a battery on a rocky elevation, which
+made much havoc among the Mahratta forces. Between this battery on its
+flank and an opposite cliff there was a deep ravine, which rendered
+all access from one height to the other impracticable: but a sloping
+ground, by making a circuit in the rear of the Mahratta forces,
+afforded a practicability of bringing field-pieces to the summit of
+the cliff to bear on the English battery from the Mahratta side.
+
+Mr. L. took an opportunity of addressing himself to General N., and
+pointed out to him the probability of silencing, or, at least, of
+annoying the English battery from the cliff in question; but the
+general treated his remark in a slighting manner, and, riding to
+another part of the field, took no farther notice of him. Mr. L. had
+seated himself on a hillock, still making his reflections, when an old
+Mahratta officer, who had heard the conversation between Mr. L. and
+the general of the artillery, and had partly understood what Mr. L.
+proposed should be done, approached him. “Well, sir,” said he, “what
+do you think of our artillery?”――“If I were a flatterer,” replied Mr.
+L., “I should say that it was well served; but, as I am not, you will
+pardon me if I think it bad.” The officer went on――“You see the day is
+likely to go against us――what would you do if you had the
+command?”――“Oh! as for the command, I don’t know,” rejoined Mr. L.,
+“but this one thing I do know, that, if I had but two pieces of
+cannon, I would turn the day in your master’s favour.”――“How would
+you do that?” asked the officer: “perhaps I could put two field-pieces
+at your disposal.”――“If you could,” said Mr. L., “I would plant them
+on yonder height” (pointing at the same time to it), “and let my head
+answer for my presumption, if I do not effect what I promise.”
+
+The bearing of the Frenchman and his energetic manner of speaking,
+together with his evident coolness and self-possession on a field of
+battle, made a great impression on the Mahratta officer. “Come with
+me, young man,” said he, “I will conduct you to the rajah.”――“With all
+my heart,” replied Mr. L. When brought into his presence, Scindeah
+asked the officer what the stranger wanted, and the officer repeated
+the conversation that had just passed. “Well,” says Scindeah, “he does
+not ask for money, he only asks for guns: give them to him, and let
+them be served by some of my best gunners. The idea may be good: only
+be expeditious, or we may soon be where that infernal battery of the
+English can annoy us no longer.”
+
+Accordingly, without a moment’s delay, two field-pieces were dragged
+up by the back of the cliff to the spot pointed out, Mr. L. entrusting
+the command of one of them to another Frenchman, whose curiosity had
+brought him on the field also. The very second shot that was fired at
+the English battery blew up an artillery waggon (caisson) full of
+powder. The explosion dismounted some of the cannon, killed several
+men, and created so much confusion, that the English, in consequence
+of it, eventually lost the battle, and were forced to retreat. Mr. L.
+had two or three of his men killed. “There! you may take your cannon
+back,” said he, as soon as the explosion took place; “I have nothing
+farther to do;” and he and his brother Frenchman walked away to watch
+the result of the mischief they had done.
+
+When the day was over, an officer of the rajah’s conveyed to Mr.
+Loustaunau his master’s request that he would attend on him at his
+tent. Mr. L. presented himself, and Scindeah received him with marks
+of great consideration. Addressing himself to Mr. L., “You have done
+me, sir,” said he, “a most essential service to-day; and, as a small
+recompense for your gallantry and the military talent you have shown,
+I beg your acceptance of a few presents, together with the assurance
+that, if you like to enter my service, you shall have the command of a
+company immediately.” Mr. L. thanked him in proper language, and,
+declining the presents offered, said, “Your highness will excuse me if
+I refuse your gifts: I will, however, with pleasure accept the sword
+which I see among them, but nothing else. The offer of a commission
+in your army I must equally decline, as I am bound to return to our
+ambassador, to whom I owe too many obligations to take any step
+without his permission.” Scindeah could not but approve of this reply;
+and Mr. L., making his bow, returned towards the place where he was
+lodged.
+
+When night came, and General Norolli, having made his dispositions,
+had also returned to his quarters, whilst yet on horseback, and, as if
+moved by jealousy to repress the exultation which he imagined Mr. L.
+might have indulged in, he called out in a loud and angry tone, “Where
+is Mr. Loustaunau, where is that gentleman?” Mr. L., who was standing
+not far off, approached, and, as the general dismounted, said, “Here I
+am, general, at your command.”――“I saw,” observed Mr. L. (interrupting
+himself whilst relating this part of his story to me) “that the
+general was in a rage, which appeared more plainly as he
+continued.”――“Who, sir, authorized you to present yourself to the
+rajah without my leave? don’t you know that all Europeans must be
+introduced by me?”――“General,” replied Mr. L., “I was summoned by his
+highness, and I went: if you are angry because I have done some little
+service to your master, I cannot help it. You are not ignorant that I
+pointed out to you first of all the commanding position which struck
+me as fitted for planting a battery: you refused to listen to my
+suggestion; and, if it was afterward adopted by others, that is your
+fault, not mine.”――“Sir,” cried the general, irritated more and more
+by this remark, “you deserve to have this whip across your
+shoulders.”――“General,” retorted Mr. L., “you suffer your anger to get
+the better of your reason: if you have any whippings to bestow, you
+must keep them for your Portuguese――Frenchmen are not accustomed to
+take them.” The general’s fury now knew no bounds; he put his hand on
+one of the pistols in his girdle, intending to shoot Mr. L. “But I,”
+said Mr. L., “was ready; and, with my eyes fixed on him, would have
+seized the other, had he drawn it out, and I would have shot him; for,
+you know, in self-defence, one will not stand still to have a bullet
+through one’s body, without preventing it, if possible. However, some
+officers held the general’s arm, and shortly after I retired, and,
+remaining a day or two more in the camp, returned to the place where I
+had left our ambassador.
+
+“When I told him what had happened――‘Stay with me, Loustaunau,’ said
+he; ‘it is my intention to raise a few troops here, and, since you
+seem to like fighting, you shall be employed:’ but in a few weeks the
+ambassador was recalled to France, and he offered to take me with him,
+promising to get me employment at home. However, I considered that I
+had better chances in remaining where I was, than in going to my
+native country, where birth, patronage, and the usages of good
+society, are necessary for a man’s advancement, all which I wanted.”
+
+Mr. Loustaunau, left to his own exertions, recollected the rajah’s
+offer; and on applying to him, received a commission in the Mahratta
+army. Eminently qualified by nature for military command, his
+advancement was rapid; and, after distinguishing himself in several
+actions, and showing likewise a very superior judgment in political
+affairs, he finally became general of Scindeah’s troops, although I
+could not ascertain in how short a time. His reputation spread rapidly
+through the territory, and his noble conduct and intrepidity must have
+been very generally known, since, on one occasion, after having been
+severely wounded in his left hand, two fingers of which he had lost,
+the commander of the English forces sent a flag of truce and his own
+surgeon with an offer of his professional assistance, fearing that Mr.
+L. might not have a European surgeon to attend him. Scindeah, in his
+despatches to him, styled him a lion in battle, and a lynx in council.
+He consulted him in difficult negociations with the East India
+Company’s servants; and, in acknowledgment of his services, he gave
+him a village as an appanage to his rank. Mr. L. married the daughter
+of a French officer, by whom he had four or five children, one of whom
+is now living at Givet, in the department of the Ardennes.
+
+Mr. L. was fearless at all times, and inimical to despotism even in
+the centre of its worshippers. Scindeah had unjustly imprisoned an
+Armenian merchant, whose wealth he intended to confiscate for his own
+benefit. As the oppressive act was founded on no just grounds, and
+application had been made to General Loustaunau for his interposition,
+when he found that entreaties were of no avail, “one day,” said he, “I
+took fifty of my men, fellows _de bonne volonté_, and, marching strait
+to the rajah’s palace at a time when I knew he was in his divan, I
+entered, walked up to him, and in a mild, but pretty determined tone,
+said, ‘Your highness, be not alarmed, I am come to ask a favour of
+you: you must release the Armenian merchant, as I have sworn to set
+him free.’ Scindeah saw that I meant not to trifle, and, assuming a
+friendly air, he complied with my request. The guards were astounded
+at my audacity, but they dared not stir, for I and my men would have
+sabred them instantly.”
+
+After having covered himself with glory, as the French express it, he
+obtained his congé; and, being resolved to return to France, he
+visited some of the English settlements in his way to the place of his
+embarkation, where he was most honourably and hospitably treated. He
+always spoke of this period as the happiest of his life, and mentioned
+the names of some English gentlemen with the highest encomiums and
+most pleasing reminiscences.
+
+Having converted what property he could into money, he obtained bills
+on France, and set out for his native country. The revolution had
+broken out; and, on his arrival, his bills were all paid, but in
+assignats; so that in a few weeks he found himself almost penniless.
+Of this calamitous part of his history I could gather but few details.
+I have heard him say that some branch of the Orleans family assisted
+him. Certain it is that he had either money or friends yet left; for,
+with the wreck of his property, or by some other means, he established
+an iron-foundry near the place of his nativity. He was so close,
+however, to the frontiers of Spain, that, during the war with that
+country and France, in an incursion of the enemy, all his property was
+destroyed.
+
+How he got to Mahon, or for what purpose, I am equally ignorant: but,
+embarking from that port, he found his way to Syria, probably
+intending to make his way overland to India, there to reclaim his
+property. But his intellects must have been already somewhat
+disordered: for, when we heard him first spoken of in Palestine, in
+1812 or 1813, he was described as a man living almost on the alms of
+the Europeans, and generally to be seen with a bible under his arm,
+negligent of his person, housed in a hovel, and going, even then, by
+the sobriquet of the Prophet.
+
+At the time I am now speaking of, the bare mention of politics or
+catastrophes was sure to set him wandering on the prophetic writings,
+and then common sense was at an end. But I had known him for twenty
+years, when his lucid intervals were only occasionally interrupted by
+these hallucinations; and I had seldom met with a man who had such an
+independent character, such naturally noble sentiments couched in such
+appropriate language, and such an intuitive discernment of what was
+suitable in unlooked-for emergencies. He was bold as a lion; and, when
+in anger, had the physiognomy and expression of that noble animal. He
+had never served in diplomatic situations before his elevation, had
+never studied political economy, moral philosophy, literature, or
+anything else, that I could find; and yet, in all these, the innate
+dictates of his mind responded at once to the call, and he could see
+the right and wrong, the _utile et decorum_, the expediency and the
+evil, the loveliness and the ugliness of every subject presented to
+him. He had a strong memory, and retained many of the passages of the
+best French authors by heart. He was handsome in his person, rather
+tall, and his demeanour was suitable to his station in life. In a
+word, he was born to “achieve greatness.”
+
+General L. had now lived five and twenty years on Lady Hester’s
+bounty. His family, consisting of two or three sons and some
+daughters, were left with not very bright prospects in France. Lady
+Hester Stanhope had at different times employed persons to assist
+them, and, to my knowledge, had sent 1000 francs through a merchant’s
+hands at Marseilles, besides other sums, of which I have heard her
+speak. She also paid for the education of one daughter some years. In
+1825, one of the sons, who had by his military services obtained the
+rank of captain in Napoleon’s Imperial Guard, being left, by the fall
+of that Emperor, in inactivity, resolved to visit Syria, to see his
+father.
+
+General L.’s intellects were so far weakened, that nothing which
+happened to him personally seemed to affect him, only as it verified
+some of his favourite predictions, drawn from texts in the Bible. He
+therefore beheld his son’s arrival with indifference, as far as
+paternal affection went, but discovered in it other bearings, of
+immense importance in the political changes that were at hand. Not so
+Lady Hester Stanhope: she knew that the general had a right to the
+revenue of a whole village in the Mahratta country, which had been
+given to him by Scindeah; and she resolved to furnish Captain L. with
+money to enable him to go and recover his father’s possessions.
+
+The captain remained at Dar Jôon for some months: he had his horse,
+was lodged in a pavilion in the garden, and treated with every mark of
+respect. Restless, hasty in his temper, overbearing, and accustomed to
+the blustering manners of a camp, he occasionally got into
+difficulties with the natives, both Mahometans and Christians. Not
+aware of the necessity of much precaution in shunning checks of
+perspiration in hot climates, he one day caught a fever, which almost
+brought him to his grave. He recovered, however, and was convalescent,
+when his imprudence caused a relapse, and he died. He was buried in
+Lady Hester’s garden, where his tomb, ornamented with flowering
+shrubs, and entirely shaded by a beautiful arbour, still remains.[18]
+The poor father never would believe in his death. “He is not
+interred,” he used to say, “but is still alive and on the earth: do
+not be grieved about him; in the year 1847 he will join me here. I and
+my lady shall then be made young again, and your little daughter is
+destined to be my future wife.” The poor old general, it was observed
+by us, seemed to have no greater pleasure than watching our daughter
+whilst she watered her flowers or fed her _bulbuls_.
+
+The way in which Lady Hester herself sometimes sought to lighten the
+weight of the obligations she conferred on the general will serve to
+show the delicacy of her feelings. At different periods, several
+places had been chosen for his residence, according as he grew tired
+of one or the other: for he was a testy old man in some respects, and
+seemed to forget how much it was his duty not to put her ladyship to
+more trouble and expense than he could help. Once, when she had had a
+comfortable cottage fitted up for him in a village called Aynâaty
+(from taking in dudgeon something that happened to him), he suddenly
+quitted it, and went off to Beyrout. “He went off,” said Lady Hester,
+“with no less than five trunks full of clothes and other things, with
+two watches bought with the money I had given him, and with a good bag
+full of piasters: for he had little occasion to spend, as I sent him
+every two days fresh meat of my own killing, flour for his bread when
+it was wanting, sugar, tea, coffee――and everything, I may say, except
+milk and vegetables. He went to Beyrout, and there lived and talked
+away largely and foolishly, and gave out that he would sooner live
+with the devil than with such a woman as I was. After a time, his
+resources failed him, his friends grew cool, and he returned to
+Sayda, where he fastened himself on Monsieur Reynaud, who soon grew
+tired of keeping him, and little by little I heard he was reduced to
+great straits.” The fact is, he found no friend, except for an
+occasional invitation to dinner, and Lady Hester knew he must be in
+want; but she knew also, in the state of mind he was in, he would
+refuse assistance from her: she therefore made use of an expedient to
+furnish him with money.
+
+Sending for one of the Pasha’s Tartars, and putting a bag of gold into
+his hand, she told him he was to ride into Sayda, and proceed strait
+to the gate of the French khan (where Mr. Loustaunau was), dusty and
+sweating, as if from a long journey. There he was to inquire if they
+knew anything of a Frenchman, once a general in India; and, after
+apparently well ascertaining it was the man he was in search of, the
+Tartar was to desire to speak with him, and to say――“Sir, when on my
+road from Damascus, a Hindu mussulman on his pilgrimage to Mecca, who
+once served under you in India, but is now rich and advanced in years,
+learning that you were in these countries, and anxious to testify the
+respect which the natives of Scindeah’s territories still retain for
+you, has commissioned me to put this into your hands.”――“Having done
+so,” added Lady Hester Stanhope, “you are not to give him time to see
+what it is, but to ride away.” The vile fellow promised faithfully to
+execute his commission, received in advance a recompense for his
+trouble, and then rode off with the money, and kept it. But Lady
+Hester, who was careful to ascertain, by indirect means, whether a
+Tartar had made his appearance at the khan, on learning his perfidy,
+caused it to be spread among the Pasha’s and the government Tartars;
+and they were so indignant at his little trustworthiness, a quality on
+which, from the nature of their employ, they are obliged to value
+themselves, that they turned him out of their corps, and he never
+dared to show his face again.
+
+To finish what remains to be said of this once shining character, but
+now the pensioner of an English woman, he had resided for the last ten
+years at a distance from Lady Hester Stanhope’s residence, and they
+had not even seen each other for five or six years. “I have been
+obliged to keep him at a distance,” said her ladyship, “for the last
+ten years, in order that people might not think I had taken care of
+him to make him trumpet my greatness: for you don’t know what harm
+that man has done me. He used to go about preaching that all the
+queens in Christendom were a pack of women of the town, and that I was
+the only real queen. He told everybody he would not change situations
+with the first prince in Europe; for the day would come when, through
+me, he should be greater than any of them.”
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [16] An _ibryk_ is a common earthenware jug with a spout to
+          it, the usual drinking-vessel of the lower classes.
+
+     [17] This Pasha was so afraid, in the midst of all his
+          power, of being poisoned, that he had the dishes
+          brought to his table under padlock. When he travelled,
+          a horseman in his suite had the office assigned him of
+          carrying the implement that makes such a distinguished
+          figure in the farce of Pourceaugnac. When he was shaved,
+          he always had some of his guards standing round the
+          barber with their pistols cocked, and he himself had a
+          drawn sabre lying across his lap. Fancy the situation
+          of a man who, in the midst of these formidable
+          preparations, is obliged to keep his hand steady.
+
+     [18] In this same tomb Lady Hester herself was afterwards
+          interred.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER VII.
+
+Lady Hester like the first Lord Chatham――Her recollections of
+Chevening――Her definition of insults――Her deliberate affronts――Her
+warlike propensities――Earl C―――― Marquis of Abercorn――Logmagi――Osman
+Chaôosh――Letter from Colonel Campbell――George the Third’s flattering
+compliment to Lady Hester――Her Majesty Queen Victoria――Lord
+M.――Prophecy of a _welly_――Lady Hester’s poignant affliction――Her
+intractability――Her noble and disinterested benevolence.
+
+
+December 21, 1837.――I had sat up until two in the morning, despatching
+letters to Europe, which I had written by Lady Hester’s dictation,
+through the channel of M. Guys, the French consul at Beyrout, who,
+alone, among the Europeans there, had contrived to remain on friendly
+terms with her. In my letter to him, Lady Hester required that I
+should tell him she was in a state of convalescence. Alas! she was far
+from being so; for, on going to her, I found her labouring under many
+bad symptoms, against which she contended with a spirit that seemed to
+brook no control――not even from nature herself. As she could not talk,
+I read to her, out of the Speaker, a character of the first Lord
+Chatham. She recognized, and so did I, so many points of resemblance
+between herself and her grandfather, that she said, more than once,
+“That’s me.” At the words, “He reigned with unbounded control over the
+wilderness of free minds,” I observed that there was something
+contradictory in control and freedom. “No, there is not,” said she.
+“If you are walking on the road, and you inquire the way of some
+person you meet, he tells you the best road is in such a direction,
+and then takes his leave; you turn round, every now and then, as long
+as the person is in sight, to look at him to see if he points to you
+that you are going right; but you are free to go which way you will.”
+
+December 31.――I saw Lady Hester in the morning, after which I took a
+walk with my family: on my return, I went again to inquire how she
+was. One of her maids told me that, soon after I had left her, she
+suddenly burst into tears, and cried a great deal, they could not tell
+why; that she had called for Zezefôon to dress her, had, in a manner,
+rushed out of her bed-room, and had gone to the saloon, where, in
+consequence of her long confinement, she found all the sofa cushions
+piled up, and the sofa mattresses removed, so that she had not a place
+to sit down on; that then she had left the saloon abruptly, on seeing
+the state it was in, and returned to her bed-room, where she gave a
+loose to her sorrow.
+
+My presence being announced, I was admitted. “Doctor,” said she,
+“to-night in my father’s house there used to be a hundred tenants and
+servants sitting down to a good dinner, and dancing and making merry.
+I see their happy faces now before my eyes: and, when I think of that
+and how I am surrounded here, it is too much for me. When you left me
+this morning, things of former times came over my mind, and I could
+not bear to sit here, so I went out to break the chain of my thoughts.
+I would have gone into the garden, if it had not rained.”
+
+I endeavoured to say something consolatory to her. “Everybody,” she
+continued, “is unkind to me. I have sought to do good to everybody,
+either by relieving their distresses or purifying their morals, and I
+get no thanks for my pains. I sometimes make reproaches to myself for
+having spent my money on worthless beings, and think it might have
+been better otherwise; but God knows best. I had hoped to find some
+persons whose minds might have been enlightened, and who would have
+felt the importance of what I tell them. But you even, of whom I had
+some hope, are as bad as the rest; and, if you assent to the truth of
+what I say, you make so many hums and hahs that I don’t believe you
+care a farthing about it. I want nobody that has no conviction.”
+
+“I should think it a sin if I saw people acting foolishly, not to tell
+them of it. It does not signify who it is, you or the stable-boy; if I
+can make them aware of their folly, I have done my duty. Why do I
+scold you so much, but because I wish you to prepare yourself for the
+convulsions that will shortly take place. I always acknowledge your
+spotless integrity, and thank you for the care you bestow on my
+affairs, and in keeping things a little in order; but, in these times,
+something more is wanting: a man must be active, and prepared for
+great events. People are teaching their children to read and write,
+when they should be teaching them to drive a mule: for of what use are
+your reading men, who sit poring for hours over books without an
+object? I have a thorough contempt for them, and for all your
+merchants, and your merchants’ clerks, who spend their time between
+the counting-house and the brothel.”
+
+Lady Hester reverted again to Chevening, and spoke at great length of
+her grandmother Stanhope’s excellent management of the house, when she
+(Lady Hester) was a child. At all the accustomed festivals, plum
+puddings, that required two men to carry them, with large barons of
+beef, were dressed, &c., &c. All the footmen were like gentlemen
+ushers, all the masters and mistresses like so many ambassadors and
+ambassadresses, such form and etiquette were preserved in all the
+routine of visits and parties. Every person kept his station, and
+precise rules were laid down for each inmate of the family. Thus, the
+lady’s maid was not allowed to wear white, nor curls, nor heels to her
+shoes, beyond a certain height; and Lady Stanhope had in her room a
+set of instruments and implements of punishment to enforce her orders
+on all occasions. There were scissors to cut off fine curls, a rod to
+whip with, &c., &c.
+
+No poor woman lay-in in the neighbourhood, but two guineas in money,
+baby linen, a blanket, some posset, two bottles of wine, and other
+necessaries, were sent to her. If any one among the servants was sick,
+the housekeeper, with the still-room maid behind her, was seen
+carrying the barley-water, the gruel, the medicine, &c., to administer
+to the patient, according to the doctor’s orders. In the hopping time,
+all the vagrants and Irish hoppers were locked up every night in a
+barn by themselves, and suffered to have no communication with the
+household. A thousand pieces of dirty linen were washed every week,
+and the wash-house had four different stone troughs, from which the
+linen was handed, piece by piece, by the washerwomen from the scalder
+down to the rinser. In the laundry a false ceiling, let down and
+raised by pulleys, served to air the linen after it was ironed. There
+was a mangle to get up the table-linen, towels, &c., and three stoves
+for drying on wet days. The tablecloths were of the finest damask,
+covered with patterns of exquisite workmanship. At set periods of the
+year, pedlars and merchants from Glasgow, from Dunstable, and other
+places, passed with their goods. The housekeeper’s room was surrounded
+with presses and closets, where were arranged stores and linen in the
+nicest order. An ox was killed every week, and a sheep every day, &c.,
+&c. In the relation of these details, which I spare the reader, as
+being, probably, what he has observed in many other families, Lady
+Hester by degrees recovered her self-possession, whilst they only
+served to impress more forcibly on my mind the sad contrast which
+reigned in everything about her between her former and her present
+condition.
+
+January 10-15, 1838.――The cough continued, attended by spasms in the
+limbs. Yet, although she was thus exhausted and harassed by continued
+suffering, the elasticity of mind she exhibited in the few intervals
+of ease she enjoyed was astonishing. The moment she had a respite from
+actual pain, she immediately set about some labour for the benefit of
+others; and the room was again strewed over with bundles and boxes.
+But, in spite of these delusive appearances, I could not conceal from
+myself that a hectic spot occasionally marked the inroads which
+disease was now making on her lungs.
+
+January 17, 1838.――What a day of anxiety and sorrow for me, and of
+anguish for Lady Hester! From morning until midnight to see a
+melancholy picture of a never-dying spirit, in an exhausted frame,
+wrestling with its enemy, and daring even to set the heaviest
+infirmities of nature at defiance. Yet, who does not bend under the
+power of disease? Lady Hester held out as long as a human being could
+do; but at last her anguish showed that, like Prometheus bound, she
+was compelled to acknowledge the weight of a superior hand, and that
+resistance was vain.
+
+The reflections she made on her abandoned situation, neglected by her
+friends and left to die without one relation near her, were full of
+the bitterness of grief. In these moments, as if the excess of her
+indignation must have some object to waste itself upon, she would
+launch out into the most fierce invectives against me, and tell me I
+was a cannibal and a vulture that tore her heart by my insensibility.
+
+A day or two before, in defending myself against the accusation of
+coldness and want of feeling, I had inadvertently said that it was an
+insult to a person, whose intentions she could not but know were well
+meaning, to heap so much abuse on him. To this her ladyship said
+nothing at the time; but to-day, being in a state of excitement, the
+word _insult_ recurred to her recollection. “Do you not know,” she
+asked, “that people of my rank and spirit are incapable of insults
+towards their friends: it is only the vulgar who are always fancying
+themselves insulted. If a man treads on another’s toe in good society,
+do you think it is taken as an insult? It is only people like ―――― and
+―――― who take such things into their heads. I never have hurt a
+person’s feelings in my life intentionally, except, perhaps, by my
+wit. But if people expect that I should not tell them the truth to
+their face, they are much mistaken; and if you or anybody else act
+like a fool, I must say so. Such people as Lord Melville and Mr. Pitt
+would stop, perhaps, until a person was gone out of the room to say,
+‘That man is the most egregious ass I ever saw;’ but I, were he a
+king, must say it to his face. I might, if I chose, flatter and
+deceive you and a hundred others. There is no one whom I could not
+lead by the nose, if I chose to do it; I know every man’s price, and
+how to buy him: but I will not stoop to the baseness of making you run
+your head through a wall, even though I saw some advantage for myself
+on the other side. As for your saying, that’s your character, and that
+you can’t bear to be spoken to as I speak to you, what do you talk to
+me of character for? Everybody has a character, and so they have a
+behind: but they don’t go about showing the one any more than the
+other. Fools are always crying out, ‘That’s my disposition;’ but
+what’s their disposition to other people more than their anything
+else?
+
+“Let us have no more of that stuff; for, though not a man, I shall no
+more put up with it than if I were; and I warn you that, if you repeat
+that word, you stand a chance of having something at your head.”
+
+Let not the reader imagine that this was all, or even one half of what
+her ladyship said on this occasion: it is only a tissue of the most
+striking sentences. Never had I seen her so irritated as that one
+expression of mine had made her. She went on in this merciless way for
+four hours; and, although I frequently attempted to soothe her by
+assurances and explanations, she continued in the same strain until
+evening, when she subsided into a gentler tone. Being now restored to
+a calmer temper, she seemed desirous to atone by kindness for the
+wound she had inflicted on my feelings, and wanted, amongst other
+things, to get ponies for my children to ride. The generosity of her
+nature was obvious in all this, and I resolved, whatever language she
+might make use of in future, never to take the slightest notice of it.
+
+This haughty assumption of superiority over others on almost all
+occasions was a salient feature in her character. It must have created
+her a host of enemies, during the period when she exercised so much
+power in Mr. Pitt’s time; and probably those persons were not sorry
+afterwards to witness her humiliation and downfall.
+
+Once, at Walmer Castle, the colonel of the regiment stationed there
+thought himself privileged to take his wife occasionally to walk on
+the ramparts of the castle. I do not know the localities, and am
+ignorant how far, in so doing, these two persons might infringe on the
+privacy of Mr. Pitt and Lady Hester Stanhope: but, without intimating
+by a note or a message that such a thing was disagreeable, she gave
+orders to the sentry to stop them when they came, and tell them they
+were not to walk there. Let any one put himself in the place of
+Colonel W., and fancy how such an affront must have wounded his pride.
+
+Mr. B., a Frenchman, who for many years had been her secretary, and
+who afterwards held the post of French vice-consul at Damascus, paid
+her a visit at Jôon, and, in the leisure of the morning, took his gun
+and went out partridge-shooting. On his return to the house, he gave
+the birds he had shot to the cook, desiring they might be dressed for
+Lady Hester’s dinner; but, when they were served up, to his
+astonishment, she ordered them to be thrown out of the window;
+observing that it was strange he should presume to do that in Syria
+which he would not dare to do in his native country; for she thought
+that, at the restoration of the Bourbons, all the ancient game-laws
+were revived. She had a secretary afterwards who was an Englishman,
+who also went out shooting, and to whom she expressed her notions in
+much the same way, and wondered where he got his licence to carry a
+gun. Yet in Syria, every person, from the European stranger to the
+lowest Mahometan slave, is at liberty to go after the game wherever he
+likes.
+
+If any one expected from her the common courtesies of life, as they
+are generally understood, he would be greatly disappointed. In her own
+way, she would show them, that is, mixed up with so many humiliations,
+and with such an assumption of personal and mental superiority in
+herself, that much was to be borne from her, if one wished to live
+amicably with her. Her delight was to tutor others until she could
+bring them to think that nobody was worthy of any favour but by her
+sufferance. Where she had the means, she would assume the authority of
+controlling even thought. Her daily question to her dependants
+was――“What business have you to suppose? what right have you to think?
+I pay people for their hands, and not their stupid ideas.” She would
+say――“What business have people to introduce their surmises, and their
+‘probably this,’ and ‘probably that,’ and ‘Lady Hester Stanhope, no
+doubt, in so doing,’ and ‘the Pasha, as I conjecture, had this in
+view?’ how do they know what I intended, or what the Pasha thought? I
+know that newspapers every day take such liberties, and give their
+opinions on what ministers and kings intend to do; but nobody shall
+take such a liberty with me without my calling them out. My name is
+everything to me, and nobody shall say he presumes this was what I had
+in my mind, or that was what I intended to do. At least, if people
+must pick pockets, let them pick it of a clean pocket-handkerchief,
+and not of a dirty one. Others are not to be made responsible for
+their dirty opinions.”
+
+From her manner towards people, it would have seemed that she was the
+only person in creation privileged to abuse and to command: others had
+nothing else to do but to obey, and not to think. She was haughty and
+overbearing, impatient of control, born to rule, and more at her ease
+when she had a hundred persons to govern than when she had only ten.
+She would often mention Mr. Pitt’s opinion of her fitness for military
+command. Had she been a man and a soldier, she would have been what
+the French call a _sabreur_; for never was any one so fond of wielding
+weapons, and of boasting of her capability of using them upon a fit
+occasion, as she was. In her bed-room, or on her _divàn_, she always
+had a mace, which was spiked round the head, a steel battle-axe, and a
+dagger; but her favourite weapon was the mace. When she took it up,
+which sometimes was the case if vociferating to the men-servants, I
+have seen them flinch and draw back to be out of the reach of her arm;
+and, on one occasion, a powerful Turk, a man about forty, of great
+muscular strength, and with a remarkable black beard, on her making a
+gesture as if to strike him, flew back so suddenly that he knocked
+down another who was behind him, and fell himself. But, though
+fearless and unruffled in every danger, Lady Hester Stanhope was
+magnanimous, gentle to an enemy in her power, and ever mindful of
+those who had done her any service. Her martial spirit would have made
+a hero, and she had all the materials of one in her composition.
+
+Two more anecdotes may serve to show how she sometimes rendered
+herself disliked. Once, at a cabinet dinner, Lady Hester Stanhope
+entered the room in a way so as to pass the Earl C. who was ushered in
+just at the same moment; and, as she did not bow or speak to him, Mr.
+Pitt said, “Hester, don’t you see Lord C.?” Lady Hester replied, “No,
+I saw a great chameleon as I came in, all in pigeon-breasted colours,
+if that was Lord C;” this was because he was dressed in a
+pigeon-breasted coloured court-dress. “And,” she added, as she related
+the story, “I gave it him prettily once: I said his red face came from
+the reflection of red boxes; for, when at breakfast and dinner, he was
+always calling for his despatch-boxes, and pretending mysterious
+political affairs, although they were no more than an invitation to a
+party, or a present of a little Tokay, or something equally trivial.
+Lord C. had learned his manners, I suppose, from Lord Chesterfield, or
+some book or another. He attempted being pompous with his large
+stomach, and his garter on a bad leg, and his great whiskers sticking
+out as far as this,” (here Lady Hester put her fore-fingers indexwise
+to her cheeks to show how far) “and a forehead quite flat like the
+Bourbons. He would talk very loud in the lobby as he came in, or
+contrive to have his red box brought to him, as if he had papers of
+great importance in it.”
+
+“One day, at court,” continued Lady Hester, “I was talking to the Duke
+of Cumberland of Lord Abercorn’s going over to Addington, and saying I
+would give it to him for it, when Lord Abercorn happened to approach
+us. The prince, who dearly enjoyed such things, immediately cried
+out――‘Now, little bulldog, have at him.’ This was uttered at the
+moment I advanced towards him. You know, doctor, he had asked for the
+Garter just before Mr. Pitt went out, and, not having obtained it, had
+toadied Addington, and got it. I thought it so mean of him, after the
+numberless favours he had received from Mr. Pitt, to go over to
+Addington, that I was determined to pay him off. So, when I was close
+to him, looking down at the garter round his leg, I said――‘What’s that
+you have got there, my lord?’ and before he could answer, I
+continued――‘I suppose it’s a bandage for your broken legs:’ for Lord
+Abercorn had once had both his legs broken, and the remark applied
+doubly, inasmuch as it hit hard on Addington’s father’s profession.
+Lord Abercorn never forgot this: he and I had been very great friends;
+but he never liked me afterwards.”
+
+Tuesday, January 23, 1838.――I found Lady Hester to-day out of bed,
+seated on the ottoman. She wished me to talk or to read to her, so
+that she might not be forced to speak herself; but her cough, which
+was incessant, precluded the possibility of doing either. The
+accumulation of phlegm in her chest made her restless to a painful
+degree. Shortly afterwards, her spasms began, which caused her arms
+and sometimes her head to be thrown from side to side with jerks. Her
+irritability was excessive. Without consulting me, she had been bled
+the preceding night by a Turkish barber. Her conversation the day
+before had turned in a general manner on bleeding; and having
+ascertained my opinion that bleeding would not be proper for her, she
+said no more, but took the opposite course.
+
+The fear of remaining in a recumbent posture made her get up from her
+bed, and her figure, as she stalked about the room in a flannel dress,
+having thrown off her pelisse and abah, was strange and singular, but
+curiously characteristic of her independence.
+
+The only newspaper she received was “Galignani’s Messenger,” which,
+whether I was in Syria or in Europe, I had for some years caused to be
+sent to her from Marseilles, and a file generally came by every
+merchant-vessel that sailed for Beyrout, which, on an average, was
+about once a month. Sometimes there was much irregularity in the
+departure of vessels, as in the winter season, and then, in the
+solitude of Mount Lebanon, one might remain ignorant of every event in
+Europe for six weeks and even two months together.
+
+She had latterly shown a particular desire to have those passages read
+to her which related to the Queen, either as describing her court, her
+rides, or any other circumstance, however trivial, of a personal
+nature.
+
+Wednesday, January 24.――Lady Hester sent to me to say that she could
+see nobody, and requested that I would do nothing, as the day was an
+unlucky one.
+
+January 25.――Although suffering in a manner that would have
+incapacitated any other person from undertaking any occupation, Lady
+Hester was busily employed in making up a mule-load of presents for
+Logmagi. “You see, doctor,” said she, “how I act towards those who
+serve me: this man neglects his business in town for me, and I, in
+return, try to make him comfortable. I have packed up a few coloured
+glass ornaments to stick up in his cupboards, and some preserves and
+sweetmeats to treat his old messmates with, who would eat him out of
+house and home, I believe, if I did not take care of him. Only think,
+too, how he beat his breast and cried, and what signs of sorrow he
+showed at my illness, the last time I saw him!
+
+“I must have that stupid fellow, Osman, in, to talk to him about new
+roofing the dairy, but I shall stick him behind the curtain. Poor man,
+his mother is very ill, and I think I must let him go to Sayda. He,
+Mahjoob, and Seyd Ahmed, may have asses when they go to town, but all
+those other lazy fellows shall walk: I won’t have one of them ride,
+unless they have more than eight or ten rotoles in weight to bring
+back, idle beasts as they are!”
+
+Now Osman’s mother might be ill, and no doubt she was; the dairy, too,
+might be the ostensible cause of his being called in; but it is also
+more than probable that, besides all this, she wanted Osman for other
+purposes. The truth was, he was no stupid fellow, but a wily knave and
+a clever spy, and Lady Hester was often in the habit of employing him
+on secret missions――to find out the reason of any movement of the
+pasha’s troops for instance, or to get a clue to some intrigue of the
+Emir Beshýr’s. But she would say, “Osman is gone to town to see his
+sick mother;” and nobody dared to say otherwise.
+
+January 27.――To-day the secretary requested me to acquaint Lady Hester
+that he wished to see her on important business. He was admitted, and
+showed a letter from his father, the English consular agent at
+Sayda,[19] signifying that, in the course of the day, he should be the
+bearer of a letter to Lady Hester Stanhope, which had been sent by Mr.
+Moore, Her Britannic Majesty’s consul at Beyrout, which he was charged
+to deliver into her ladyship’s own hands himself. I had retired when
+the secretary entered; but, when he was gone, Lady Hester sent for me,
+and I found her in a violent passion. “There is that man, the old
+Maltese,” said she, “coming to pester me with his impertinence, but I
+have sent off his son to meet him on the road, and drive him back. If
+anything in the shape of a consul sets his foot within my doors, I’ll
+have him shot; and, if nobody else will do it, I’ll do it myself. See
+that he sets off this very instant, and tell him to return with the
+letter, without stopping.”
+
+I did so, and returned to Lady Hester. Conceiving that this letter was
+an answer she was expecting to one she had written to Sir Francis
+Burdett, about the property supposed to have been left her, her
+agitation and impatience rose to such a degree, that I thought she
+would have gone frantic, or that her violence would have ended in
+suffocation. She complained she could not breathe. “It’s here, it’s
+here,” she cried in extreme agitation, taking me by the throat to show
+me where, and giving me such a squeeze, that now, when I am writing,
+twenty-four hours after, I feel it still. I tried in vain to calm her
+impatience. I sent off a servant on horseback to hurry the secretary
+back, but he did not appear, and the day, until about four o’clock,
+was passed in this manner.
+
+To account for this extraordinary agitation, it must again be observed
+that, at the recurrence of the period of each steamboat’s arrival at
+Beyrout, Lady Hester anxiously expected an answer to her letter to Sir
+Francis Burdett; for it was on the strength of this property supposed
+to have been left her that she had intimated to some of her creditors
+her expectation of being soon enabled to satisfy all their demands. It
+was in reliance on this, too, that she had invited me to come over.
+And not doubting in the least the truth of the information secretly
+conveyed to her by some one of her friends, it may be supposed that a
+packet to be delivered into nobody’s hands but her own was readily
+conjectured to relate to this business.
+
+About four o’clock, Mr. Abella, the English agent, his son, and the
+servant, made their appearance. The secretary was called in. “Tell
+your father I shall not see him; and, doctor, go and take the letter,
+and bring it to me,” was Lady Hester’s exclamation. I went to Mr.
+Abella, but found him determined not to part with it, unless he gave
+it into Lady Hester’s own hand. I urged upon him the impossibility of
+his doing so, as she had seen nobody for some weeks; at last, on his
+still persisting, we became somewhat warm on the matter. This was
+better than going to Lady Hester to ask her what was to be done; for
+her answer probably would have been to desire two of her stoutest
+Turks to go with sticks, and take it from him by force. At last, Mr.
+Abella gave up his trust, upon condition that I would write a paper
+representing that he had done it forcibly; in such a fright was he
+lest Mr. Moore should turn him out of his place.
+
+Instead of being an answer from Sir Francis Burdett, the letter was
+from Colonel Campbell, signifying that, in consequence of an
+application made to the English government, by Mâalem Homsy, one of
+Lady Hester Stanhope’s creditors, an order had come from Lord
+Palmerston to stop her pension, unless the debt was paid.
+
+It might have been supposed that the double disappointment of not
+hearing from Sir Francis Burdett and of receiving such a missive from
+Colonel Campbell would have considerably increased her anger: but, on
+the contrary, she grew apparently quite calm, gently placed the letter
+on the bed, and read the contents:――
+
+
+          _Colonel P. Campbell, Her Majesty’s Consul-general for
+                Egypt and Syria, to Lady Hester Stanhope._
+
+                                            Cairo, Jan. 10, 1838.
+
+       Madam,
+
+          I trust that your ladyship will believe my sincerity,
+     when I assure you with how much reluctance and pain it
+     is that I feel myself again[20] imperatively called upon to
+     address you upon the subject of the debt so long due by you
+     to Mr. Homsy.
+
+     The Government of the Viceroy has addressed that of Her
+     Majesty upon the subject, and, by a despatch which I
+     have received from Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of
+     State for Foreign Affairs, I am led to believe that a
+     confidential friend of your ladyship will have already
+     written to you to entreat you to settle this affair.
+
+     Your ladyship must be aware that, in order to procure your
+     pension from Her Majesty’s Government, it is necessary to
+     sign a declaration, and to have the consular certificate,
+     at the expiration of each quarter.
+
+     I know that this certificate has hitherto been signed by M.
+     Guys, the consul of France at Beyrout; but, in strict
+     legality, it ought to be certified by the British, and not
+     by any foreign consul; and, should your ladyship absolutely
+     refuse the payment of this just claim, I should feel myself,
+     however deeply I may regret it, forced to take measures to
+     prevent the signature of the French, or any other consul but
+     the British, being considered as valid, and consequently
+     your bill for your pension will not be paid at home. I shall
+     communicate this, if your ladyship’s conduct shall oblige me
+     so to do, to M. Guys and the other foreign consuls of
+     Beyrout, in order that your certificate may not be
+     signed――and also send this under flying seal to Mr. Moore,
+     Her Majesty’s consul at Beyrout, in order that he may take
+     the necessary steps to make this known to those consuls, if
+     your ladyship should call on them to sign the quarterly
+     certificate for your pension.
+
+     I trust your ladyship will be pleased to favour me with a
+     reply, informing me of your intentions, and which reply will
+     be forwarded to me by Mr. Moore.
+
+     I beg your ladyship will be assured of the pain which I
+     experience in being obliged to discharge this truly
+     unpleasant duty, as well as of the respect with which I have
+     the honour to remain, your ladyship’s most obedient humble
+     servant,
+
+                                                P. CAMPBELL,
+                         Her Majesty’s Agent for Egypt and Syria.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When she had finished, she began to reason on the enormity of the
+Queen’s and her Minister’s conduct. “My grandfather and Mr. Pitt,”
+said she, “did something, I think, to keep the Brunswick family on the
+throne, and yet the grand-daughter of the old king, without hearing
+the circumstances of my getting into debt, or whether the story is
+true (for it might be false), sends to deprive me of my pension in a
+foreign country, where I may remain and starve. If it had not been for
+my brother Charles and General Barnard, the only two who knew what
+they were about when the mutiny took place against the Duke of Kent at
+Gibraltar, she would not be where she is now; for her father would
+have been killed to a certainty.”
+
+She mused for some time, and then went on. “Perhaps it is better for
+me that this should have happened: it brings me at once before the
+world, and let them judge the matter. It would have looked too much
+like _shucklabán_” (the Arabic for charlatanism――and Lady Hester was
+accustomed now to interlard her conversation with many Arabic words)
+“if I had to go and tell everybody my own story, without a reason for
+it: but now, since they have chosen to make a bankrupt of me, I shall
+out with a few things that will make them ashamed. The old king[21]
+wrote down on the paper, ‘Let her have the greatest pension that can
+be granted to a woman:’――if he were to rise from his grave, and see me
+now!”
+
+“Did I ever tell you what he said to Mr. Pitt one day, on Windsor
+Terrace? The king and all the princes and princesses were walking, and
+he turned round to him――‘Pitt,’ says he, ‘I have got a new minister in
+your room.’ Mr. Pitt immediately replied――‘At your majesty’s pleasure;
+and I shall be happy that your majesty has found one to relieve me
+from the burden of affairs: a little retirement and fresh air will do
+me good.’ The king went on, as if finishing his sentence, and without
+heeding what Mr. Pitt had said――‘a minister better than yourself.’ Mr.
+Pitt rejoined――‘your majesty’s choice cannot be but a wise one.’ The
+king resumed――‘I tell you, Pitt, I shall have a better minister than
+you, and, moreover, I shall have a good general.’ The raillery began
+to grow puzzling, and Mr. Pitt, with all his courtly manners, was at a
+loss to know what it meant. So he said, ‘Do, pray, condescend to tell
+me who this unknown and remarkable person is, that I may pay him the
+respect due to his great talents and your majesty’s choice.’ The king
+relieved him from his embarrassment: ‘_There_ is my new minister,’
+said he, pointing to me, whom Mr. Pitt had under his arm. ‘There is
+not a man in my kingdom who is a better politician than Lady Hester:
+and’ (assuming an air of seriousness, which his manner made quite
+touching) ‘I have great pleasure in saying, too, there is not a woman
+who adorns her sex more than she does. And, let me say, Mr. Pitt, you
+have not reason to be proud that you are a minister, for there have
+been many before you, and will be many after you; but you have reason
+to be proud of her, who unites everything that is great in man and
+woman.’ Doctor, the tears came in Mr. Pitt’s eyes, and how the court
+ladies did bite their lips!
+
+“The _what what what?_ certainly did the old king harm, in point of
+dignity, when no subject of conversation interested him; but he
+sometimes was more serious, and could assume a manner and a tone
+befitting a king. A peer, who had never known the Duke of Cambridge,
+told me that, on the return of the Duke from the continent, the king
+presented him to H.R.H. with this short but fine compliment――‘This is
+my son, my lord, who has his first fault to commit.’ How fond the king
+was of him and the Duke of York![22] He was a fine man, and with a
+person so strong, that I don’t think there was another like him in
+England.
+
+“The king liked me personally. I recollect once, at court, when we
+were standing, as he passed round the circle, he stopped at Harriet
+E., my cousin, and said to her something about her dress; and then,
+coming to me, he remarked how well I dressed myself, and told me to
+teach H. E. a little. She was so vexed that she cried: but it was her
+own fault; for, with a good person, good fortune, and fine dresses,
+she never could get a husband.
+
+“I suppose the Queen is a good-natured German girl. Did you ever see
+Lord M――――? he has got fine eyes; and, if he is fattened out, with a
+sleek skin and good complexion, he may be a man like Sir Gilbert, and
+about his age: such men are sometimes still loveable. He used to be a
+prodigious favourite with some of the handsomest women in London: so
+that his friends used to say, when he married Lady M., though she was
+not a bad-looking woman――‘Poor fellow! what will he do? you know he
+can’t like her long?’ I recollect seeing her and Lady ―――― sitting at
+a party on the top of the stairs, like two figures in a pocket-book――
+both little creatures; those that you call delicate.
+
+“Lord M. is a very handsome man. His eyes are beautiful, and he has
+spent forty years of his life in endeavouring to please the women. I
+recollect, the last time I saw him, he was behind Sir G. H., as they
+came into Lord Stafford’s. I had dined there, _en famille_, and there
+was a party in the evening. I was in the second room, and the Prince
+was standing by the fire, showing his behind, as usual, to everybody,
+and there was Lord M., always looking about after somebody whom he did
+not find perhaps for three or four hours. They say he is filled out:
+he was slim when I knew him. Doctor, he is a very handsome man; but he
+must be sixty, or more.”
+
+Ever and anon, Lady Hester Stanhope would revert to Colonel Campbell’s
+letter. “Yes,” she said; “if he feels regret at being obliged to write
+it, I will say to him, ‘No doubt, he feels pain at having to do with
+one of the most blackguard transactions I ever knew;’ but I dare say
+he feels nothing of the sort.” Then, after a pause, she added, “I
+think I shall take the bull by the horns, and send a letter to the
+Queen. If getting into debt is such a crime, I should like to know how
+the Duchess of K―――― got into debt.
+
+“Doctor, would you believe it? a _welly_” (in Arabic, a sort of
+soothsayer) “foretold what has happened to me now so exactly, that I
+must relate the story to you. He was sitting in a coffee-house one
+day, with one of my people, and had taken from the waiter a cup of
+coffee; but, in carrying it to his mouth, to drink it, his hand
+stopped midway, and his eyes were fixed for some time on the surface
+of the liquor in silence. ‘Your coffee will get cold,’ said my
+servant:――the _welly_ heaved a deep sigh. ‘Alas!’ said he, ‘I was
+reading on the surface of that cup of coffee the fate of your lady,
+the _meleky_. There will rise up evil tongues against her, and a
+sovereign will try to put her down; but the voice of the people will
+cry aloud, and nations will assemble to protect her.’ Now, doctor,”
+said Lady Hester, “does not that mean just what has happened? Is not
+the Queen trying to put me down, and going to deprive me of my
+pension?――and you will see, when I have written my letter, how many
+persons will turn on my side. But isn’t it very extraordinary how that
+man in a coffee-house knew what was going to happen?――yet so it is:
+they have secret communications with spirits. A glass, or something,
+is held before their eyes, which nobody else can see; and, whether
+they can read and write or not, they see future events painted on it.”
+
+January 30, 1838.――Lady Hester was still very ill; the convulsive
+attacks returning now regularly every day. She began to be sensible
+that fits of passion, however slight, did her injury, and she was more
+calm for a continuation than I had ever known her to remain since I
+had been here. But a fresh occurrence, trifling in its nature,
+although she gave much importance to it, excited her anger
+considerably to-day, and did her mischief in proportion. She had
+reason to suspect that her secretary had been endeavouring to
+ascertain whether she was consumptive, and how long she was likely to
+live. To dispel such a suspicion, she made a great effort, got up, and
+went and sat in the garden. Before she left her room, her wailings
+were for some moments heart-rending. “Oh, God, have mercy! oh, God,
+have mercy!” she cried; “only keep those beasts away: who is to take
+care of me, surrounded as I am with those horrible servants?――only
+take care they don’t rob me.”
+
+While she remained in the garden, her chamber was put to rights (a
+process which it much required, in consequence of her long
+confinement); and, at her earnest request, I superintended the
+performance. “Overlook them,” she said, “or they will rob me.” But oh!
+what a sight!――such dust, such confusion, such cobwebs! Never was a
+lady’s room seen before in such a condition: bundles, phials, linen,
+calico, silk, gallipots, clothes, étuis, papers, were all lying about
+on the floor, and in the corners, and behind and under the scanty
+furniture; for all this while she had been afraid to get the chamber
+put into order, lest her servants should take advantage of the
+opportunity to plunder her.
+
+When she returned to her room from the garden, she was raving. “You
+had better leave me to die,” she cried, “if I am to die; and, if I am
+not, oh! God, only let me crawl to my own country” (by her own country
+she meant Arabia, among the Koreýsh), “and there, with not a rag on
+me, I may be fed by some good-natured soul, and not such cannibals as
+these servants! What are they good for? I will be obeyed; and you are
+not a man, to see me treated in this manner.”
+
+Thus she went on, walking up and down her room, until she worked
+herself up into a state of madness. I was afraid she would rupture a
+blood-vessel. All my attempts to pacify her were in vain――indeed they
+only excited her the more. Seeing her in this way, I left the room,
+and sent Fatôom to her; but, before Fatôom could get there, she rang
+her bell violently, and I heard her say, “Where’s the doctor?――where’s
+the doctor?” so I returned again to her. “Don’t leave me;” she cried;
+and she expressed her sorrow for the excess of her passion. “I am much
+obliged to you, very much obliged to you, for the trouble you take on
+my account; but you must not be angry with me. Perhaps, if I get
+worse, I shall ask you to let Mrs. M. come and sit with me.” Soon
+after, as if her very violence had relieved her, she grew calmer.
+
+Up to this time she had never seen my wife, since her second visit to
+Syria; nor my daughter nor the governess at all. I had, since her
+illness, said more than once that they would be happy to come and sit
+with her by day or by night, to relieve the tedium of her solitary
+situation. But her dismantled room, her ragged clothes, her altered
+appearance――and, above all, her pride, compromised as it was by these
+unfortunate circumstances――always made her turn off the subject,
+although her secret feelings must have often prompted her to avail
+herself of the solace thus frankly and cordially offered to her. The
+exclamation by which she usually evaded the proposal was, “Oh! how I
+hate everything Frankified! how I hate everything Frankified!” or, “I
+must not see them until I get into my saloon.” After about half an
+hour I left her. “I must see nobody this evening,” she added; “so good
+bye!”
+
+I went home, and, for the first time, told my family how ill Lady
+Hester was. Alas! I had not dared to do so before: she had enjoined me
+not. “To say I am ill,” she would observe, “would be bringing a host
+of creditors upon me, and I should not be able to get food to eat.”
+Consequently, I had kept them and everybody, as much as I could, in
+ignorance of the real state of her health; indeed, there was too much
+truth in what she said not to make me see the mischief such a
+disclosure would entail. She had now only twenty pounds left in the
+house to provide for the consumption of two months; and, as her
+pension was stopped, there was every probability she would be left
+penniless, with the exception of a few dollars which I had by me. Yet,
+in spite of all this, she commissioned me, a day or two before, to
+give 150 piasters to a leper, 150 to a distressed shopkeeper, and some
+other small benefactions to other pensioners on her inexhaustible
+bounty.
+
+It may be said that any one, like myself, might have represented, from
+time to time, the necessity of a little more economy――I did so once:
+but I received such a peremptory injunction never to give my advice on
+that subject again, that I took good care how I committed myself a
+second time. She fired up, and said, “You will give me leave to judge
+what I ought to do with my own money. There are various ways of
+spending: you may think it best to be just before being generous; but
+I, with my character and views, must be even munificent, and trust to
+God, as I have hitherto done, for helping me on in my difficulties.
+Never touch on that subject again: I will have no human being
+interfere with me as to what I am to do with my money.”
+
+All I can say is that, like her grandfather, she was so intractable,
+that I never yet saw the mortal who could turn her an inch from her
+determinations. It was easy to lead the current of her bounty into
+one’s own pocket; for I believe any person who knew her foibles might
+have kept it flowing in that direction until he had enriched himself.
+It was only necessary to encourage her dreams of future greatness, to
+say the world was talking of her, to consider her as the associate of
+the _Mahedi_, the Messiah of nations, to profess a belief in visions,
+in aërial beings, in astrology, in witchcraft, and to bear witness to
+apparitions in which her coming grandeur was prognosticated, and then
+she would refuse nothing: but that was not my forte, and I never did
+so. I went to her with a small patrimony; was with her, off and on,
+for thirty years; and left her somewhat poorer than I went.
+
+But it is not to be supposed that knaves, such as some I have alluded
+to above, were the only objects of her bounty. No; the widow, the
+orphan, the aged, the proscribed, the sick, the wounded, and the
+houseless, were those she sought out in preference: and time will
+show, when gratitude can speak out, the immeasurable benevolence of
+her nature.
+
+It may not be useless to observe here that many stories have been
+circulated of Lady Hester’s harshness to petitioners who presented
+themselves at her door, which, if explained, would wear a very
+different aspect. Sometimes a suppliant, apparently unworthy of her
+commiseration, would gain admittance to her presence, and be dismissed
+with a handful of piasters; and sometimes another, known to be a fit
+object of benevolence, would receive nothing but a rude repulse. Lady
+Hester said to me, “Do you suppose, doctor, I don’t know that many
+people think I fool away my money in giving it to adventurers? that
+others say I am capricious? that some call me mad? Why, let them: I am
+not bound to give reasons for what I do to anybody. The good I do,
+first of all, I don’t wish to be known: and, again, many times the
+publicity of an act of charity would be injurious to him it was
+intended to serve. I’ll give you an instance. There was a merchant at
+Acre, who was _avanized_[23] by Abdallah Pasha, to whom he was
+obnoxious, until all his property was squeezed out of him, and nothing
+was left but a house, of which he was not generally known to be the
+proprietor――for, had it been known that the house was his, the Pasha,
+who fancied he had reduced him to beggary, would have persecuted him
+until he had got that also. The man wished to sell his house, and then
+to retire into Egypt; he therefore came to me, and told me his story,
+begging my assistance. As I was obliged to use an interpreter, who, I
+feared, would talk of any act of kindness of mine for the man, it
+appeared to me that the best thing I could do was to turn the
+applicant roughly out of doors, which I did at once, bawling out as he
+went, that I did not want to be pestered with beggars. Well, my
+strange harshness, of course, was talked of, and of course was
+repeated to the Pasha, who, thinking the object of his oppression was
+now an object of contempt also, was perfectly satisfied, and left the
+man, as he supposed, to utter ruin and degradation. But, after a few
+days, I privately sent to the poor distressed merchant, provided a
+purchaser for his house, smoothed the difficulties in the way of the
+sale, and, furnishing him from my own purse with a sum of money
+sufficient to begin the world with again, I shipped him off with his
+family to Egypt.”
+
+Lady Hester was indeed generous and charitable, giving with a large
+hand, as Eastern kings are represented to have given. She would send
+whole suits of clothes, furnish rooms, order camels and mules to
+convey two or three quarters of wheat at a time to a necessitous
+family, and pay carpenters and masons to build a poor man’s house: she
+had a munificence about her that would have required the revenue of a
+kingdom to gratify. Hence, too, sprung that insatiable disposition to
+hoard――not money, but what money could buy: she seemed to wish to have
+stores of whatever articles were necessary for the apparel, food, and
+convenience of man. Beds, counterpanes, cushions, carpets, and such
+like furniture, lay rotting in her store-rooms. Utensils grew rusty,
+wine spoiled; reams of paper were eaten by the mice, or mildewed by
+the damp; carpenters’ work lay unserviceable from an over-supply; mats
+rotted; candles, almonds, raisins, dried figs, cocoa, honey,
+cheese――no matter what――all was laid by in destructive profusion; and
+every year half was consumed by rats, ants, and other vermin, or
+otherwise spoiled. One store-room, which was filled with locked-up
+trunks, full of what was most valuable, had not been entered for three
+years: and, oh! what ruin and waste did I not discover!
+
+When I told her of all this, and suggested that it would be better to
+give them to her poor pensioners, she said――“Such things never cause
+me a moment’s thought: I would rather they should have been used to
+some good purpose; but, if I have got such rascals about me, why, let
+the things all rot, sooner than that they should profit by them. Money
+can replace all that; and, if God sends me money, I will do so; if he
+does not, he knows best what should be: and it would not give me a
+moment’s sorrow to lie down in a cottage with only rags enough to keep
+me warm. I would not, even then, change places with Lord Grosvenor,
+the Duke of Devonshire, the Duke of Buckingham, or any of them: they
+can’t do what I can; so of what use are all their riches? I have seen
+some of them make such a fuss about the loss of a ten guinea ring or
+some such bauble:――not that they cared for it, but they could not bear
+to lose it. But if I want to know what is passing at Constantinople,
+or London, or anywhere, I have nothing to do but to turn my thoughts
+that way, and in a quarter of an hour I have it all before me, just as
+it is; so true, doctor, that if it is not actually passing, it will be
+in a month, in three months――so true: isn’t it extraordinary?”...
+
+Upon some occasions, her munificence wore the appearance of
+ostentation. She would bestow on strangers, like dervises, sheykhs,
+and fakyrs, large sums of money, and yet drive hard bargains with
+those about her neighbourhood; and would sometimes make presents,
+apparently not so much to comfort those who received them as to
+display her own superiority and greatness over others.
+
+I have said, in a preceding chapter, that she used to give new suits
+of clothes to her people on Byràm day, and at Easter, according to
+their religion: but it should be mentioned that, on those days, every
+servant was called in, and received forty piasters; and one thousand
+piasters were divided by Logmagi among the persons in Sayda who in any
+way were occasionally useful to her or her people. These were the
+porter of the French khan and the janissary there; the porters of the
+town-gate; the harbour-master; the gardener who supplied vegetables;
+the fisherman who sent her choice fish, &c. Two hundred piasters were
+paid annually to old Jacob, a tailor; fifty here and there to the
+imàms of particular mosques; as much to the mistress of the bath to
+which she sent her maids to be washed. Mr. Loustaunau generally had
+about five hundred piasters a quarter. Of many of her benefactions I
+never knew anything. Had I kept a list of the sums which, besides
+these customary donations, she gave to the distressed, few would
+wonder that she was so beloved and so generally lamented. Thus, when
+the _ferdy_ and _miri_, two onerous taxes, fell due, she commonly paid
+them for such of her servants as were burdened with families, or whose
+means were scanty: she did the same when unusual contributions were
+levied, as during the conscription. On the 8th of December, I find a
+note that I gave fifty piasters and a counterpane to a poor shepherd
+boy, labouring under anasarca from an indurated spleen, a most common
+complaint in the country, the effect of protracted agues; and eighty
+to an old man, who had some years before been her _asackjee_. To
+Logmagi mostly fell the distribution of all these sums, and it was
+only occasionally that I was the almoner to this truly noble and
+disinterested woman; else I should have been able to have cited more
+examples.
+
+January 31.――Being Wednesday, it was a rule with Lady Hester Stanhope
+to shut herself up from Tuesday at sunset until the sunset of
+Wednesday, during which time she saw nobody, if she could avoid it,
+did no business, and always enjoined me to meddle in no affairs of
+hers during these twenty-four hours. Wednesday was an unlucky day with
+her, a _dies nefastus_. After sunset, I waited on her, and found her
+languid, moaning, and still visibly suffering from her yesterday’s
+exertion; for it appeared, although I had not seen her, that she had
+walked about her garden, forcing her strength so far as to deceive the
+gardeners, who had given out that she would soon be as well as ever;
+and this was what, no doubt, she aimed at, for the purpose of
+confounding the secretary.
+
+Reminding her of the wish she had expressed to have Mrs. M.’s company,
+I now proposed that she, my daughter, and the governess, should sit
+with her by turns, suggesting that, by this means, much of the
+disagreeable service of the maids, whom she constantly complained of,
+might be dispensed with. But to this she answered, “No, doctor, it
+will not do: you must tell them how very much obliged to them I am for
+their kind offers and intentions, but that their presence will only be
+an embarrassment to me. You don’t consider the matter in its true
+point of view, as you never do anything. In the first place, it kills
+me to talk; I can’t fatigue myself by giving them information about
+the country, and be a Pococke: and, as for giving them good advice,
+the world is so turned topsy-turvy, that everything one says is lost
+on everybody. Then, as for being of any use to me, they could be of
+none: if I wanted anything, they don’t know where it is; and how are
+they to tell the nasty wretches, who only speak Arabic? Besides, I am
+not sure their _nijems_ would suit me; and then they would do me more
+harm than good. Poor little Eugenia! I had thought that I might derive
+some consolation from looking on her innocent face whilst she sat
+working at my bedside; but some one told me her star perhaps would not
+agree with mine: is it so, doctor? I am like Mr. Pitt: he used to say,
+‘I hear that man’s footsteps in the passage――I can’t bear it; do send
+him away to town, or to Putney:’ so it is with me. There was my
+grandfather, too――how he felt the effect of the peculiar star of those
+people who did not suit him!――he could bear nobody near him, when he
+was ill, but Lady Chatham, and an old woman who had been a sort of
+woman of the town: he sent all his children to Lyme Regis; and even
+his tutor, Mr. Wilson, he could not bear. I know the reason of it now,
+from my recollection of them, but I did not at the time. My
+grandfather was born under Mars and Venus; Lady Chatham was born under
+Venus, and so was the old woman, but both in different _burges_
+[houses]: and that is why their sympathies were the same.”
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [19] The English consular agent at this time was Signor
+          Abella, whose father was a Maltese: hence Mr.
+          Abella was known as El Malty. The noble family of
+          Testaferrata and Abella is the stock from which Signor
+          Abella is descended; but in Turkey, _Stemmata quid
+          faciunt_?
+
+     [20] At the word “again,” Lady Hester made the following
+          remarks:――“He never addressed me on the subject,
+          neither has any one else. Nearly two years ago,
+          there was a report in the Bazar that my debts had
+          been spoken of to the King; that my pension was
+          to be seized; that I was to be put under consular
+          jurisdiction; and a set of extravagant things that
+          nobody ever heard the like; and certainly those
+          who had ventured to charge themselves with such a
+          message would have found that I was a cousin of Lord
+          Camelford’s.
+
+          “Another version was, that the King talked very good
+          sense upon the subject, and had taken my part, and had
+          been much surprised that I had been so neglected by my
+          family, to whom he said some sharp and unpleasant
+          things. There the matter rested, and I heard no more of
+          it, until Colonel Campbell’s letter.”
+
+     [21] Lady Hester means George III.
+
+     [22] The Duke of York’s behaviour is incomparable; he
+          is their great and only comfort and support at the
+          Queen’s house, and without his manly mind and advice
+          neither the Queen nor Princesses would be able to
+          bear up under their present distress.――_Diaries and
+          Correspondence_, p. 20, v. 4.
+
+          It is pleasing to find in persons so entirely different
+          in every respect a corresponding testimony to the
+          merits of an excellent prince.
+
+     [23] To _avanize_ is the expression used throughout the
+          Levant to signify oppressive and forcible exactions of
+          money from individuals, without right or claim.
+
+
+
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Lady Hester’s system of astrology――Sympathies and antipathies――
+People’s _nijems_ or stars――Mesmerism explained――Lord Suffolk――Lady
+Hester’s own star――Letter to the Queen――Letter to Mr. Speaker
+Abercrombie――Messieurs Beck and Moore――Letter to Colonel Campbell――The
+Ides of March――Lady Hester’s reflections on the Queen’s conduct to
+her――Letter to Sir Edward Sugden――What peers are――Junius’s
+Letters――Spies employed by the first Lord Chatham――Mr. Pitt’s opinion
+of the Duke of Wellington――Lady Hester’s letter to his Grace, &c.
+
+
+In order to render intelligible to the reader many passages which have
+occurred, and will occur again, in Lady Hester’s conversations,
+respecting what she called people’s _nijems_ or stars, it may not be
+amiss to give an outline of her system of astrology, and of the
+supposed influence that the position of the stars in the heavens at
+our nativity has on our future fate and on our sympathies. I must
+preface what follows by observing that she had a remarkable talent for
+divining characters by the make of a person. This every traveller will
+testify who has visited her in Syria; for it was after she went to
+live in solitude that her penetration became so extraordinary. It was
+founded both on the features of the face and on the shape of the head,
+body, and limbs. Some indications she went by were taken from a
+resemblance to animals; and, wherever such indications existed, she
+inferred that the dispositions peculiar to those animals were to be
+found in the person. But, independent of all this, her doctrine was,
+that every creature is governed by the star under whose influence it
+was born.
+
+Every star has attached to it two aërial beings, two animals, two
+trees, two flowers, &c.; that is, a couple of all the grand classes in
+creation, animal, vegetable, mineral, or etherial, whose antipathies
+and sympathies become congenial with the being born under the same
+star. She would say, “My brother Charles vomited if he ate three
+strawberries only: other people, born under the same star as his, may
+not have such an insurmountable antipathy as his was, because their
+star may be imperfect, whilst his was pure; but they will have it,
+more or less. Some persons again will have as much delight in the
+smell of particular flowers as cats have in the smell of valerian,
+when they sit and purr round it.
+
+“The stars under which men are born may be one or more. Thus Mr.
+H*****, an English traveller, who came to see me, was born under four
+stars, all tending to beauty, but of no good in other respects. His
+forehead was as white as snow; his mouth” (I think she said) “was
+good, with a handsome small black beard; but his stars were otherwise
+dull: for you know the stars in the heavens are not always bright and
+twinkling, but sometimes heavy and clouded. It is like engravings――some
+of them are proofs, and those are perfect. Some persons may have a
+good star, but it may be cracked like a glass, and then, you know, it
+can’t hold water.
+
+“The influence of stars depends, likewise, on whether they are rising,
+or in their zenith, or setting; and the angle at which they are must
+be determined by calculations, which good astrologers make very
+readily. But a clever man will, from his knowledge of the stars, look
+even at a child and say, ‘That child will have such and such diseases,
+such and such virtues, such and such vices;’ and this I can do: nay,
+what is more, I can give a description of the features of any person I
+have never seen, if his character is described to me, and vice versa.
+There is a learned man at Damascus, who possesses the same faculty in
+an extraordinary degree. He knew nothing of me but by report, and had
+never seen me: but a friend of his, having given him a description of
+my person and features, he noted down my virtues, vices, and qualities
+so exactly, that he even said in what part of my body I had got a
+mole, and mentioned the small mark on my shoulder, where Mr. Cline
+removed a tumour. There’s for you? do you believe these things, or do
+you not?
+
+“A man’s destiny may be considered as a graduated scale, of which the
+summit is the star that presided over his birth. In the next degree
+comes the good angel[24] attached to that star; then the herb and the
+flower beneficial to his health and agreeable to his smell; then the
+mineral, then the tree, and such other things as contribute to his
+good; then the man himself: below him comes the evil spirit, then the
+venomous reptile or animal, the plant, and so on; things inimical to
+him. Where the particular tree that is beneficial or pleasurable to
+him flourishes naturally, or the mineral is found, there the soil and
+air are salubrious to that individual; and a physician who understood
+my doctrines, how easily could he treat his patients!――for, by merely
+knowing the star of a person, the simples and compounds most
+beneficial to him in medicine would be known also.
+
+“How great the sympathies and antipathies are in stars that are the
+same or opposite I have told you before in my grandfather’s case, in
+Mr. Pitt’s, and in my own. Lord Chatham, when on a sick bed, could
+bear three people only to wait on him――Lady Chatham, Sarah Booby, and
+somebody else. My grandmamma’s star and Sarah Booby’s star were the
+same――both Venus――only grandmamma’s was more moderate; she could keep
+it down. Mr. Pitt, when he was ill at Putney, had such an aversion to
+one of the footmen, that he was nervous when he heard his step; for
+you know people, when they are sick, can hear a pin drop: he said to
+me, ‘Hester, do send that fellow to town.’ I did not let him know why
+he was sent to town, but I got him off as quickly as possible: he was,
+notwithstanding, a good servant, clean, and had otherwise good
+qualities; but Mr. Pitt’s and his star were different. As to myself,
+since I have been here, I had a professed French cook, called
+François――the people named him _Fransees el Franjy_. His skill was
+undoubted; yet, whenever he dressed my dinner, I was always sending
+for him to complain, and sometimes threw the dish in his face: a
+sweetmeat from his hand turned bitter in my mouth. But, what is most
+extraordinary of all, Miss Williams’s star was so disagreeable to me
+that I could not bear her to be near me when I was ill:――if I was in a
+perspiration, it would stop the moment she came into the room. You
+know how many good qualities she had, and how attached she was to me,
+and I to her: well, I always kept her out of my sight as much as I
+could, when anything was the matter with me.
+
+“Such is the sympathy of persons born under the same star, that,
+although living apart in distant places, they will still be sensible
+of each other’s sufferings. When the Duke of York died, at the very
+hour, a cold sweat and a kind of fainting came over me, that I can’t
+describe. I was ill beyond measure, and I said to Miss Williams,
+‘Somebody is dying somewhere, and I am sure it is one of my friends:
+so I made her write it down. Some time after, when she was poking over
+a set of newspapers, she came to me, and said, ‘It’s very singular, my
+lady; but, the time you were so very ill, and could not account for
+it, corresponds exactly with the date of the Duke of York’s death――the
+hour, too, just the same!’ Now, doctor, wasn’t it extraordinary? You
+drawl out ‘Y――e――s,’ just as if you thought I told lies: oh, Lord! oh,
+Lord! what a cold man!
+
+“The proof of sympathy between the stars of two persons, or, in other
+words, of the star of another being good for you, is, when a person
+puts his finger on you and you don’t feel it. Zezefôon, when
+Mademoiselle Longchamp touches her with her fingers in examining the
+Turkish dress, shudders all over: that is a proof that her star is not
+good for her, and yet Miss L. uses more kind expressions to her than
+anybody; but that makes no difference; there is no sympathy in their
+stars.
+
+“Animal magnetism is nothing but the sympathy of our stars. Those
+fools who go about magnetizing indifferently one person and another,
+why do they sometimes succeed, and sometimes fail?――because, if they
+meet with those of the same star with themselves, their results will
+be satisfactory, but with opposite stars they can do nothing. Some
+people you may magnetize, some you cannot; and so far will the want of
+sympathy act in some, that there are persons whom it would be
+impossible to put in certain attitudes: they might be mechanically
+placed there, but their posture never would be natural; whilst others,
+from their particular star, would readily fall into them. Oh! if I had
+your friend, Mr. Green,[25] here, I could give him some useful hints
+on choosing models for his lectures.
+
+“There are animals, too, under the same star with human beings. I had
+a mule whose star was the same as mine; and, at the time of my severe
+illness, this mule showed as much sensibility about me, and more, than
+some of the beasts who wait on me. When that mule was first foaled, I
+had given orders to sell the foal and its mother; but, happening to
+see it, I countermanded the order immediately. It received a hurt in
+its eye, and when, with my hand, I applied some eye-water with camphor
+in it, which, of course, made the eye smart, it never once turned its
+head away, or showed the least impatience of what I was doing. When
+this mule was dying some years afterwards, she lay twenty-four hours,
+every minute seeming to be going to breathe her last; but still life
+would not depart. They told me of this, and I went to the stable. The
+moment she saw me, she turned her eyes on me, gave an expressive look,
+and expired. All the servants said she would not die until my star,
+which was hers, had come to take her breath: isn’t it very
+extraordinary? Serpents never die, whatever you can do to them, until
+their star rises above the horizon.[26]
+
+“Some can do well only when under the guidance of another person’s
+star. What was Lord Grenville without Mr. Pitt? with him to guide him
+he did pretty well; but, as soon as Mr. Pitt was dead, he sunk into
+obscurity: who ever heard of Lord Grenville afterwards? So again Sir
+Francis Burdett has never been good for anything since Horne Tooke’s
+death. So long as Napoleon had Josephine by his side he was lucky:
+but, when he cast her off, his good fortune left him. You know you
+sent me her portrait: well, it was a good engraving, and I have no
+doubt was a likeness. I observed in her face indications of much
+falsity, and a depth of cunning exceedingly great: it was her _sâad_
+(luck) that held him up. You may see so many examples of such good
+fortune depending on men’s wives. Mahomet Ali owes all to his wife――a
+woman without a nose. What saved the Shaykh Beshýr but the sâad of the
+Syt Haboos? Hamâady told the Emir Beshýr, ‘You will never do anything
+with the Shaykh Beshýr until you get rid of her, and then the Shaykh
+is in your power.’ So what did he do? he sent his son――the little Emir
+Beshýr, as they call him――who surrounded her palace with twenty
+horsemen, and, when she attempted to escape, drove her into her own
+courtyard, and stabbed her: her body was cut in pieces, and given to
+the dogs to eat.
+
+“What is to account for some people’s good fortune but their star?
+There was Lord Suffolk, an ensign in a marching regiment, and
+thirteenth remove from the title――see what an example he was! It was
+predestined that he should arrive at greatness, although, when the
+news was brought him that he was come to the title, he had not money
+enough to pay for a post-chaise: but nothing could hinder what his
+good star was to bring him. Lady Suffolk, the daughter of a clergyman
+of a hundred a-year, was a very clever, shrewd woman, and filled her
+elevated station admirably.”
+
+I have embodied thus much in Lady Hester Stanhope’s own words of what
+may give a tolerable idea of her notion of planetary influence. What
+her own star was may be gathered from what she said one day, when,
+having dwelt a long time on this, her favourite subject, she got up
+from the sofa, and, approaching the window, she called me to
+her――“Look,” said she, “at the pupil of my eyes; there! my star is the
+sun――all sun――it is in my eyes: when the sun is a person’s star, it
+attracts everything.” I looked, and replied that I saw a rim of yellow
+round the pupil.――“A rim!” cried she; “it isn’t a rim――it’s a sun;
+there’s a disk, and from it go rays all round: ’tis no more a rim than
+you are. Nobody has got eyes like mine.”[27]
+
+Lady Hester Stanhope, in a letter she wrote to Prince Pückler Muskau,
+describes her system briefly as follows; and she desired me to keep a
+copy of it, that I might not, as she said, substitute my own ideas
+for hers.
+
+“Every man, born under a given star, has his aërial spirit, his
+animal, his bird, his fruit-tree, his flower, his medicinal herb, and
+his dæmon. Beings born under any given star may be of four different
+qualities and forms, just as there may be four different qualities of
+cherries, having little resemblance one to another, but being
+nevertheless all cherries. Added to this, there may be varieties in
+the same star, occasioned by the influence of other stars, which were
+above the horizon in particular positions at the hour of a man’s
+birth: just as you may say that a ship is more or less baffled by
+certain winds, though she is standing her course. Again, a man being
+born under the same star with another man, whilst that star is in one
+sign of the zodiac, changes somewhat the character and appearance when
+in another sign of the zodiac: just as two plants which are alike,
+when one grows where there is always shade and the other where there
+is constantly sunshine, although precisely of one and the same kind,
+will differ slightly in appearance, odour, and taste.
+
+“A man born under a certain star will have, from nature, certain
+qualities, certain virtues and vices, certain talents, diseases, and
+tastes. All that education can do is merely artificial: leave him to
+himself, and he returns to his natural character and his original
+tastes. If this were better known, young people would not be made to
+waste their time uselessly in fitting them for what they never can be.
+
+“I have learned to know a man’s star by his face, but not by
+astrological calculations, as perhaps you fancy; of that trade I have
+no knowledge. I have been told that the faculty which I possess is
+much more vague than the astrological art, and I believe it: but mine
+is good for a great deal, though not for calculating the exact epoch
+of a man’s maladies or death.
+
+“You will ask me how it is possible to know mankind by looking at
+their features and persons; and so thoroughly too. I answer――a
+gardener, when he sees twenty bulbs of twenty different flowers on the
+table before him, will he not tell you that one will remain so many
+days under ground before it sprouts, then it will grow little by
+little, very slowly, and in so many days or weeks will flower, and its
+flowers will have such a smell, such a colour, and such virtues: after
+so many days more, it will begin to droop and fade, and in ten days
+will wither: that other, as soon as it is out of the ground, will grow
+an inch and a half in every twenty-four hours: its flowers will be
+brilliant, but will have a disagreeable smell; it will bloom for a
+long time, and then will wither altogether in a day and why may not
+I, looking on men, pronounce on their virtues, qualities, and duration
+in the same way? This may not be well explained, but a clever person
+will divine what I mean.”
+
+Such were, in the main, the opinions of Lady Hester on astrology, to
+which several travellers have alluded, but which, from defective
+information, they have hitherto misrepresented. It will be seen that
+there was at least method in her belief. We will now return from this
+digression.
+
+Our narrative broke off in the middle of a conversation on the evening
+of January 31, 1838.
+
+Tea was ordered; but so simple a process as getting tea ready was now
+a painful business. If it did not come immediately, Lady Hester grew
+so impatient, that it was distressing to see her agitation. She would
+then ring for a pipe, and perhaps send it back to be fresh filled or
+changed four or five times in succession, each one being, for some
+trifling reason, rejected. Alas! it was not the tea nor the pipes that
+were in fault; it was Colonel Campbell’s letter that had given a stab
+to her heart, from which she never recovered; and, in proportion to
+the apparent calm which she endeavoured to assume, when speaking on
+that subject, did the feeling of the supposed indignity which she had
+received prey on her spirits and on her pride.
+
+She reverted to the letter. “The thing to be considered,” she said,
+“is whether I shall write a letter to the Queen, and ask the Duke of
+Wellington to give it to her, or whether I shall put it in the
+newspapers: for I am afraid, if I send it to him, he will not give it
+to her; or, if he does, they will say nothing about it. I should like
+to ask for a public inquiry into my debts, and for what I have
+contracted them. Let them compare the good I have done in the cause of
+humanity and science with the D――――s of K――――’s debts. When I am
+better, I’ll set all this to rights. I wonder if Lord Palmerston is
+the man I recollect――a young man just come from College, that was
+hanging about, waiting to be introduced to Mr. Pitt. Mr. Pitt used to
+say, ‘Ah! very well; we will ask him some day to dinner.’ Perhaps it
+is an old grudge that makes him vent his spite. He is an Irishman, I
+think.”
+
+February 1.――To-day Lady Hester was much the same as on the preceding
+days: her pulse was low; her lungs were loaded with phlegm; aphthæ had
+shown themselves on her tongue; her nails were cracked from the
+contraction of the surrounding integuments; the tips of her fingers
+were cold; her back, as she sat up in bed, was bent; her bones almost
+protruded through the skin, from being obliged to lie always on one
+side. Speaking of her inability to sleep, except in some particular
+position, she observed that she was like those little figures of
+tumblers; place her as you would, she rolled over to the left side, as
+if there was a weight of lead there.
+
+After the usual preliminaries of smoking a pipe and a little
+conversation, she dictated her letter to the Queen and to Mr.
+Abercrombie, speaker of the House of Commons.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+                   _Lady Hester Stanhope to the Queen._
+
+                                         Jôon, February 12, 1838.
+
+     Your Majesty will allow me to say that few things are more
+     disgraceful and inimical to royalty than giving commands
+     without examining all their different bearings, and casting,
+     without reason, an aspersion upon the integrity of any
+     branch of a family who had faithfully served their country
+     and the house of Hanover.
+
+     As no inquiries have been made of me what circumstances
+     induced me to incur the debts alluded to, I deem it
+     unnecessary to enter into any details upon the subject. I
+     shall not allow the pension given by your royal grandfather
+     to be stopped by force; but I shall resign it for the
+     payment of my debts, and with it the name of English
+     subject, and the slavery that is at present annexed to it:
+     and, as your Majesty has given publicity to the business by
+     your orders to consular agents, I surely cannot be blamed in
+     following your royal example.
+
+                                            HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+            _Lady Hester Stanhope to Mr. Speaker Abercrombie._
+
+                                         Jôon, February 12, 1838.
+
+          Sir,
+
+     Probably the wheel-horse has forgotten his driver, but the
+     latter has not forgotten him.[28] I am told that the chief
+     weight of the carriage of state bears upon you; if so, it
+     must be a ponderous one indeed, if I can judge by a specimen
+     of the talent of those who guide it.
+
+     You, who have read and thought a great deal upon men and
+     manners, must be aware that there are situations almost
+     unknown in Europe from which persons, in what is called a
+     semi-barbarous country, cannot extricate themselves with
+     honour without taking a part either for or against humanity:
+     besides, there are extraordinary gusts of knowledge――of
+     extraordinary information――which, if you do not take
+     advantage of them at the moment, are lost to you for ever. I
+     have, therefore, exceeded my pecuniary means, but always
+     with the hope of extricating myself without the assistance
+     of any one; or at least (and ever before my eyes, should the
+     worst come to the worst) with that of selling the reversion
+     of what I possess. Your magnificent Queen has made me appear
+     like a bankrupt in the world, and partly like a swindler;
+     having given strict orders that _one_ usurer’s account must
+     be paid, or my pension stopped, without taking into
+     consideration others who have equal claims upon me. Her
+     Majesty has not thrown the gauntlet before a driveller or a
+     coward: those who are the advisers of these steps cannot be
+     wise men.
+
+     Whatever men’s political opinions may be, if they act from
+     conscientious motives, I have always respected them; and you
+     know that I have had friends in all parties. Therefore,
+     without any reference to the present or past political
+     career of ministers, or her Majesty’s advisers, their
+     conduct would appear to me, respecting myself, identically
+     as it was, gentlemanlike or blackguard. But, having had but
+     too strong a specimen of the latter by their attempting to
+     bully a Pitt, and to place me under consular control, it is
+     sufficient for me to resign the name of an English subject;
+     for the justice granted to the slave of despotism far
+     exceeds that which has been shown to me. Believe me, with
+     esteem and regard, yours,
+
+                                            HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Friday, February 2.――To-day, I found her ladyship busied in sorting
+out certain articles of apparel, which had just before been brought
+home for herself: they had been made by the wife of Lufloofy, the
+person at Sayda who generally lodged English travellers. As the fair
+sex may like to know what the texture of ladies’ under-garments is in
+the East, these were made of half cotton and half silk, and, to the
+appearance and touch, not unlike crape. Some women have them all silk.
+Either kind is favourable for absorbing perspiration, and, under any
+circumstances, never strikes cold to the body.[29]
+
+There had arrived, also, from Marseilles six cases of claret, two of
+brandy, one of rum, twelve baskets of champagne, one case of Kirsch
+water; and from Leghorn six cases of Genoese _pâte_, two Parmesan
+cheeses, some Bologna sausages, pots of preserve, one barrel of salmon
+and tunny, one ditto of anchovies, brooms, scuppets, perfumery, two
+chests of tea, and numberless other good things, to meet the wants of
+her expected guest, the Baroness de Fériat, who was coming from the
+United States. It was sad enough that Lady Hester herself, with
+abundance of choice provisions and wines, was unable to partake of
+any. However, when samples of them were brought in, as the cases were
+opened one after another, to be shown her, her usual (what shall I
+call it?) greediness of manner manifested itself. She tasted
+everything, and swallowed a great deal: the natural consequence of
+which was that she threw herself back in her bed, gasping for breath,
+and suffering horribly. On these occasions, her favourite plan was to
+relieve the succession of momentary symptoms by a host of palliatives,
+never leaving her stomach empty or her digestive organs at rest, and
+always fancying that it was want of nourishment that generated
+uneasiness or caused the oppression on her chest, from both of which
+she never was free; nor would she listen to any arguments that tended
+to show she was in error.
+
+February 4, Sunday.――This morning it was discovered in my house that a
+silver spoon had been lost. I had a man-servant and a boy, the former
+a Greek, the latter a Mahometan. The Greek had one of the most
+sinister countenances I ever beheld: he was the same man who had
+accompanied Mr. Moore and Mr. Beck to the Dead Sea,[30] and had been
+sent to me from Beyrout by the innkeeper there: he was a knave, a
+drunkard, and a liar. Suspicion fell on him, and he, to throw it on
+others, first accused the milk-girl, and then the water-carrier.
+
+Theft, in houses in Turkey, where many are suspected, generally leads
+to the punishing of them all; and Logmagi suggested that he should
+apply the korbàsh to all three, to elicit the truth. However, I
+thought it more just to resort to the European way, saying if the
+spoon were not found, the two servants must pay for it, not doubting
+the innocence of the water-carrier, a hard-working fellow of good
+repute. Logmagi objected to this. “You must flog that Greek,” said he,
+“or you will lose, one by one, everything of value you possess.”
+
+Here the matter rested, as the morning had been fixed for answering
+Colonel Campbell’s letter: so I wrote from her ladyship’s dictation
+the following laconic epistle to him, and the friendly one to Mr.
+Moore, British consul at Beyrout. When I had finished them, I asked
+Lady Hester what she would have me put at the close, and how she chose
+to subscribe herself. “Say nothing,” replied she: “how many times I
+have said I could never call myself the humble servant of any body. I
+hate and detest all those compliments so unmeaning and so false: but
+to Mr. Moore you may express my esteem and regard. I know I shall have
+a great liking for Mrs. Moore, if ever I see her: is she so very
+handsome as they say? When you go to Beyrout, you must tell her that I
+consider it a duty to like her: she does not know why, no more do
+you.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+               _Lady Hester Stanhope to Colonel Campbell._
+
+                                          Jôon, February 4, 1838.
+
+          Sir,
+
+     I shall give no sort of answer to your letter of the 10th of
+     January (received the 27th), until I have seen a copy of her
+     Majesty’s commands respecting my debt to Mr. Homsy, or of
+     the official orders from her Majesty’s Secretary of State
+     for Foreign Affairs, as also of Mr. Homsy’s claim, as well
+     as of the statement sent to England――to whom, and through
+     whom――in order that I may know whom I have to deal with, as
+     well as be able to judge of the accuracy of the documents.
+
+     I hope in future that you will not think it necessary to
+     make any apologies for the execution of your duty; on the
+     contrary, I should wish to recommend you all to put on large
+     Brutus wigs when you sit on the woolsack at Alexandria or at
+     Beyrout.
+
+                                            HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+          _Lady Hester Stanhope to Mr. Moore, British Consul at
+                                Beyrout._
+
+                                          Jôon, February 4, 1838.
+
+          Sir,
+
+     The sacrifice which I have made of your acquaintance and
+     your society, that you might stand quite clear of everything
+     that affects me, appears to be to little purpose. You will
+     have some very disagreeable business to go through, as you
+     will be made Colonel Campbell’s honourable agent, and he the
+     agent of the wise Lord Palmerston, and he the agent of your
+     magnificent Queen. There is Colonel Campbell’s answer, which
+     I leave open for your perusal, as he did his.
+
+     If in the end I find that you deserve the name of a true
+     Scotchman, I shall never take ill the part that you may have
+     taken against me, as it appears to be consistent with your
+     duty in these dirty times.
+
+     I remain with truth and regard, yours,
+
+                                          HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Besides these letters, I wrote others for England and for Beyrout――in
+all about a dozen. What with waiting and listening to her
+conversation, I was with her five hours before dinner and five hours
+after. I had to seal and put covers to all these; and just at the
+moment when I was about to retire to my study, a little room set apart
+for me in her house, to do this, Lady Hester stopped me, and returned
+to the subject of the silver spoon. After some consideration, she
+recommended also the use of the korbàsh.[31]
+
+“How am I to live,” cried she, “with thirty servants in my house, and
+such a man as you are that can’t say boh! to a goose? How do you
+expect they will mind me, if you don’t keep them under? Hamâady is
+coming to-morrow to Jôon: he must be sent for, and shall interrogate
+the rascal; I warrant you, he’ll soon bring it to light.”
+
+When I left her for dinner, she had said to me, “Send me word a
+quarter of an hour before you return to say you are coming.” This, in
+my hurry to get through so much writing for her, I had neglected to
+do; and it, therefore, served now as the text for a new grievance.
+“Didn’t I say,” she asked me, “let me know a quarter of an hour
+beforehand when you are ready to come to me? that quarter of an hour
+was everything to me: I wished to have more candles brought in on
+account of your eyes, to have the paper and ink got ready, and to
+collect my thoughts; but no! everybody must do as they like, and poor
+I be made the sacrifice.――I _will_ live by the rule of grandeur.”
+
+Then she called her maids in, one after another, poured on them a
+torrent of abuse for their laziness, dirt, and insolence. My heart
+sickened to think what would be the consequence of all this to
+herself; for I knew very well that her whole frame, the next morning,
+would be debilitated from such excitement: yet all this time her
+passion was sublimely eloquent, and, sick though she was, terrible.
+Her maids tumbled over each other from fright, and the thunder that
+rolled in the sky (for a storm was raging at the time) was but a faint
+likeness of her paroxysm. When it was over, we drank tea, and at
+half-past one separated for the night.
+
+February 5. The weather was still stormy. Snow fell in abundance on
+the higher chains of Mount Lebanon, where it lay apparently very
+thick.
+
+When I paid my morning visit, Lady Hester held out her hand to me the
+moment I approached her bedside. “I said too much last night,” she
+observed; “think no more about it, doctor; but you know my
+irritability, and you must bear with it.” She was pale, languid, and
+extenuated: her hands and arms were jerked in convulsive flings.
+Strong electrical shocks could not have shaken her so much. Alas! I
+sympathised too deeply with her wrongs not to forget all her
+ebullitions of anger the moment they were over.
+
+When she found herself a little easier, she asked me to explain to her
+Julius Cæsar’s calendar, which she had on some occasion lighted on in
+Ainsworth’s dictionary. “When I was a girl,” said she, “I knew all the
+constellations in the heavens, and was so quick at astronomy, that
+they took my books and maps away, fearing I should give myself up to
+it, to the neglect of my other studies. I had it all before my eyes,
+just like a pocket-handkerchief. What day are the ides of March?” I
+told her. “I think,” she continued, “the word Ides must be derived
+from _âayd_, [Arabic: عيد].” I guessed at once what was passing in her
+mind. It was an illusion with her that her destiny and Cæsar’s, or her
+character and his, had some resemblance: and, when she mentioned
+Brutus-wigs in her letter to Colonel Campbell, it had a reference to
+the stabs they were giving her from England in depriving her of her
+pension, and putting insults upon her.
+
+She was deeply wounded in her pride by the treatment she had received
+from home. “The Queen,” she would say, “should have desired her
+ministers to write to me, and say, ‘It grieves me that you should have
+exceeded your income, and incurred debts, which you know, when
+complaints are made to me, I cannot countenance; endeavour to pay them
+by instalments, and all may yet be well,’ or something to that
+effect―― * * * * * * But no! she shall have my pension, and, if they
+make me a bankrupt, why, let them pay the usurers themselves.”
+
+February 9.――I did not see Lady Hester the whole of the preceding day:
+she had sent me a message to say she did not wish to trouble me. I
+attributed this to the state of the weather; for the wind was high,
+the atmosphere wet and cold, and everything about the residence
+uncomfortable. To go from my house to Lady Hester’s, I was obliged to
+wear high wooden clogs and a thick Greek capote with a hood to it.
+Umbrellas, from the gusts of wind, were out of the question. The
+ground was like soap. But it was not the weather that made her decline
+my visit: she had been closeted with a doctor of the country from Dayr
+el Kamar, the son of that _Metta_ of whom mention has been made in a
+former part of these pages as having bequeathed his family as a legacy
+to her. He was come, as it was supposed, to give his opinion on her
+case. I took no umbrage at this. Lady Hester and I differed _toto
+cœlo_ on medical points; and she told me very often, after discussions
+of this sort, that she had invited me to come this time, not as her
+physician, but as a friend; one in whom she had confidence to settle
+her debts.
+
+The muleteers had been sent on the 7th of February to Mar Elias, to
+bring away the effects which had been lying there, rotting and
+spoiling, since Miss Williams’s death. I accompanied them to
+superintend the moving, as also to pay a visit to General Loustaunau.
+Heavens! what waste was I witness to! In one closet was a beautiful
+wax miniature of Mr. Pitt, a portrait of the Duke of York, some other
+pictures, stationery, glass, china, medicines, &c., enough for a
+family. In one room were carpets, cushions, counterpanes, mattresses,
+pillows, all completely destroyed by mould and damp. In a store-room
+were large japan canisters with tea, preserves, sugar, wine, lamps,
+&c. From another room, (the roof of which had fallen in at the time of
+the great earthquake,) had disappeared, according to Lady Hester’s
+account, 3 cwt. of copper utensils, in cauldrons, boilers, saucepans,
+kettles, round platters, called _sennéyah_, and many other things. A
+leather portmanteau lay with the lock cut out; a trunk had its hinges
+wrenched off; and both were emptied of their contents. Everywhere
+proofs of pillage were manifest, and the village of Abra was
+notoriously thriving by it. For ten years this plundering system had
+been going on, and yet what still remained would have almost filled a
+house. Among other things were papers and boxes of seeds, roots, dried
+plants, and a variety of such matters, which Lady Hester had
+collected: “for,” she would say, “the importance of people’s pursuits
+is judged in a different way by different individuals. For example,
+Sir Joseph Banks would think I had done wonders if I found a spider
+that had two more joints than another in his hind-leg; and Sir Abraham
+Hume would embrace me if I had got a coin not in his collection; but I
+have hoarded up something for everybody. And yet, whether I have done
+good for humanity or for science, those English give me credit for
+nothing, and never even once ask how I got into debt.”
+
+February 10.――I spent four hours with Lady Hester Stanhope this
+evening. She was very ill, and greatly convulsed during the greater
+part of the time:――she moaned a good deal――yet, in the intervals of
+ease that she got, she had two baskets of good things packed up as a
+present to an old French widow, and two for an infirm old man, her
+pensioner, residing at Sayda.
+
+Monday, February 13.――Lady Hester to-day dictated the following letter
+to Sir Edward Sugden:――
+
+
+               _Lady Hester Stanhope to Sir Edward Sugden._
+
+                                         Jôon, February 12, 1838.
+
+          Sir,
+
+     Born an aristocrat (for this assurance I received from your
+     father, whom it appeared to annoy as much as it delighted
+     me), with these genuine feelings it will not be necessary
+     for me to make any excuses for bringing so abruptly before
+     you a subject, which relates to this cause as well as that
+     of justice.
+
+     I will not bore you with long details; for it will be
+     sufficient for you to know that after my arrival in the East
+     I was not regarded by any class of persons with the same
+     eyes of suspicion as strangers generally are. I have had it
+     in my power, without making use of intrigue or subterfuge on
+     my part, or hurting the religious or political feeling of
+     others in any way, to hear and investigate things which had
+     never yet been investigated. This fortunate circumstance
+     does not relate to those who profess Islamism alone, but to
+     all the curious religions (not sects) which are to be found
+     in the different parts of the East. Not that I have learned
+     the secrets of one religion to betray them to another――on
+     the contrary, I have observed an inviolable silence with
+     all; but it has served to enlighten, as well as consolidate
+     my own ideas, and given me an opportunity of seeking
+     corroboratory evidence of many wonderfully important and
+     abstract things, which has been hitherto very satisfactory.
+
+     The revolutions and public calamities, which often take
+     place in what is called a semi-barbarous country, call for
+     great presence of mind and energy, and a degree of humanity
+     and liberality unknown in Europe. To have unfortunate
+     sufferers starving at your gate until you have had an
+     opportunity of inquiring into their private life and
+     character, and of investigating how far it is likely to
+     endanger your own life, or risk your property, in receiving
+     them――these reflections are not made in the East. One takes
+     one’s chance; and if one wishes to keep up the character of
+     either an Eastern monarch or an Eastern peasant, you must
+     treat even an enemy in misfortune _avec les mêmes égards_
+     that you would do a friend. Starting upon this principle
+     (which is, indeed, a natural one, and was always mine),
+     there were times in which I have been obliged to spend more
+     money than I could well afford, and this has been the cause
+     of my incurring debts; not that I owe a farthing to a poor
+     peasant or a tradesman, but all to usurers and rascals, that
+     have lent their money out at an exorbitant interest. You may
+     judge of their conscience. In the last levy of troops, made
+     about two months ago by Ibrahim Pasha, some rich peasants
+     gave 100 per cent. for six months for money to buy off their
+     sons who were conscripts.
+
+     I often abuse the English; and for why? because they have
+     nearly lost their national character. The aristocracy is a
+     proud, morose, inactive class of men, having no great
+     fundamental principles to guide them, and not half the power
+     that they give to themselves――very little more worthy of
+     being trusted by their Sovereign than by the people――full of
+     ideas, all egotistical, and full of their own importance and
+     weight in a country, which may differ from an ounce to a
+     pound in twenty-four hours by the wavering political line of
+     conduct that they may observe during that time, and which
+     neither secures the confidence of the people, nor the
+     friendship of their Sovereign. And these columns of state
+     may be reckoned a sort of ministers without responsibility,
+     but who ought to be willing at all times to make every
+     possible sacrifice for the honour of the crown and for the
+     good of the people in cases of emergency and misfortune.
+
+     Had I been an English peer, do you suppose I would have
+     allowed the Duke of York’s debts to remain unpaid? I should
+     have laid down a large sum, and have engaged my brethren to
+     have done the same. If I had not succeeded, I should have
+     broken my coronet, and have considered myself of neither
+     greater nor smaller importance than the sign of a duke’s
+     head in front of a public-house. But, ever willing to come
+     forward with my life and property, I should expect that the
+     Sovereign would treat me with respect, * * * * * *
+
+     I have been written to by the Consul-General for Egypt and
+     Syria, Colonel Campbell, that, if I do not pay _one_ of my
+     numerous creditors, I shall be deprived of my pension. I
+     should like to see that person come forward who dares to
+     threaten a Pitt! Having given themselves a supposed right
+     over the pension, they may take it all. In the early part of
+     my life, there was nothing I feared so much as plague,
+     shipwreck, and debt; it has been my fate to suffer from them
+     all. Respecting my debts, of course I had expectations of
+     their being settled; but if I was deceived in these
+     expectations, I kept in view the sale of my pension, as well
+     as of an annuity of £1500 a-year, left me by my brother, if
+     the worst came to the worst. The importance of the plan I
+     was pursuing must, as you can easily imagine, have appeared
+     most arbitrary, from my coolly deliberating that the moment
+     might arrive when I should make myself a beggar; but I
+     should have done my duty. What sort of right, then, had the
+     Queen to meddle with my affairs, and to give orders, in
+     total ignorance of the subject, upon the strength of an
+     appeal from a man whose claims might be half fabulous, and
+     to offer me the indignity of forbidding a foreign consul to
+     sign the certificate that I was among the number of the
+     living, in order to get my pension into her hands? * * I
+     have written a few lines on the subject, and there is my
+     final determination:――“I shall give up my pension, and with
+     it the name of an English subject, and the slavery that is
+     entailed upon it.” I have too much confidence in the great
+     Disposer of all things, and in the magnificent star that has
+     hitherto borne me above the heads of my enemies, to feel
+     that I have done a rash act. I can be anything but ignoble,
+     or belie the origin from which I sprang.
+
+     I have been assured by those not likely to deceive me, that
+     a large property has been left me in Ireland, which has been
+     concealed from me by my relations. I have put this business
+     into the hands of Sir Francis Burdett; but should I in
+     future require a law opinion upon the subject, _the little
+     aristocratical rascal_ (whose acquaintance I was about to
+     make when a child, had not a democratical quirk of my
+     father’s been the reason of shutting up his family for some
+     time in the country, and preventing the execution of your
+     father’s intention of presenting you to me) will not, I
+     hope, take it ill that I should apply to his superior
+     talents for advice.
+
+     There is a horrible jealousy respecting the friendship that
+     exists between me and Mr. Henry Guys, the French Consul at
+     Beyrout. His grandfather, a learned old gentleman, was in
+     constant correspondence with the great Lord Chesterfield. It
+     is natural, therefore, that his son, the present Mr. Guys’
+     father, should feel interested about me when I first came
+     into the country, and Mr. Henry Guys has always put into
+     execution his father’s friendly intentions towards me. He is
+     a very respectable man, and stands very high in the
+     estimation of all classes of persons: and, as at one time
+     there was no English consul or agent at Sayda, the French
+     agent sent a certificate of my life four times a-year to
+     England. At the death of this man, Mr. Guys sent it himself.
+     If you honour me with a reply, I request you to address your
+     letter to him (_aux soins de M. le Chevalier Henri Guys,
+     Consul de France à Beyrout_), notwithstanding he has been
+     named for Aleppo; as it is the only way I am likely to
+     receive my letters unopened, or perhaps at all.
+
+                       Believe me, with esteem and regard, yours,
+
+                                                  H. L. STANHOPE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I was much exhausted to-day. I had written six hours to her dictation
+the preceding day, and now sat talking until midnight; but, from the
+late hour at which I left her, it was as usual impossible for me to
+note down even a hundredth part of what she said. For example, it is
+now nearly one o’clock in the morning; and much as I could wish,
+whilst my recollection is fresh, to make a few memorandums of the many
+things she has been saying, my eyelids droop, and I am forced to lay
+down my pen: yet one anecdote I must try to commit to paper. In
+reading over the letter to Sir Edward Sugden, she made the following
+remark: “The peers in England may be compared to doctors who have made
+their fortunes: if they continue to practise, they do it out of regard
+to some particular families, or from humane motives. They know better
+than those who are sick what is good for them, because they have had
+long practice; and, if their sons are no doctors, they have heard so
+much talk about the matter, that they sit in a corner, and watch the
+effect of the medicine.”
+
+I was struck with the resemblance of Lady Hester’s style to Junius’s
+in her letter to Sir Edward. This led me to reflect, as I had observed
+on many occasions, that Lady Hester’s language was the counterpart of
+her grandfather’s, whether Lord Chatham might not have been the author
+of Junius’s Letters; but it has since been suggested to me that there
+would be an absurdity in such a supposition (for I had no opportunity
+of consulting books where I was), because some of the most eloquent
+passages of Junius are his panegyrics on Lord Chatham, and it is not
+likely that he would have been guilty of writing a eulogium on
+himself; however, I mentioned it to her. She answered, “My grandfather
+was perfectly capable and likely to write and do things which no human
+being would dream came from his hands. I once met with one of his
+spies,” continued she, “a woman of the common class, who had passed
+her life dressed in man’s clothes: in this way she went, as a sailor,
+to America, and used to write him letters as if to a sweetheart,
+giving an account of the enemy’s ships and plans in a most masterly
+way, in the description of a box of tools, or in something so unlike
+the thing in question that no suspicion could be had of the meaning of
+the contents. This woman by accident passed me at a watering-place,
+whilst I was sitting near the sea-side talking to my brother, and
+stopped short on hearing the sound of my voice, which was so much like
+my grandfather’s that it struck her――and there is nothing
+extraordinary in this: I have known a horse do the same thing. My
+father had two piebald horses: they were very vicious, and hated one
+of the grooms so, that, one day, whilst he was taking them out for
+exercise, one threw him, and the other flew at him, and attempted to
+strike him with his fore-feet; but, as he could not succeed, the
+other, that had run off, turned back, seized the groom with his teeth,
+and bit him and shook him: that very horse went blind, and got into an
+innkeeper’s hands, who made a post-horse of him. One day, on the high
+road, I saw him, and made an exclamation to somebody who was with me.
+The horse, although blind, knew my voice, and stopped short, just like
+the woman. I too was struck with the woman’s manner; and, without
+saying anything, went next morning at daylight, before anybody was
+about, to the same spot, and, finding the woman there again, inquired
+who and what she was. A conversation ensued, and the woman was
+delighted, she said, to behold once again something that reminded her
+of her old employer. As for the ministers of the present day, she
+observed, they are good for nothing: when I went to prefer my claim
+for a pension, one called me Goody-two-shoes, and told me to go about
+my business.
+
+“A government should never employ spies of the description generally
+chosen――men of a certain appearance and information, who may be
+enabled to mix in genteel society: they are always known or suspected.
+My grandfather pursued quite a different plan. His spies were among
+such people as Logmagi*  *――a hardy sailor, who would get at any risk
+into a port, to see how many ships there were, and how many effective
+men――or a pedlar, to enter a camp――and the like. This was the way he
+got information as to the state of the armament at Toulon: and such a
+one was the woman I have just told you about, who knew me by the sound
+of my voice.
+
+“There were two hairdressers in London, the best spies Buonaparte had.
+A hairdresser, generally speaking, must be a man of talent――so must a
+cook; for a cook must know such a variety of things, about which no
+settled rules can be laid down, and he must have great judgment.
+
+“Do you think I did not immediately perceive that those four Germans
+we met at ―――― were spies?――directly. I never told B**** and Lord
+S**** because they would have let it out again: François was the only
+one who knew it besides myself. He took an opportunity one day of
+saying to me, when nobody was by, ‘My lady, one of those
+Germans....’――‘Yes, yes, François, I understand you,’ answered I,
+before he had said three words: ‘you need not put me on my guard, but
+I am much obliged to you.’――‘Why, my lady,’ said François, ‘when I was
+one day standing sentry at Buonaparte’s tent, there was one of those
+very gentlemen I have seen go in and out: I recollect his face
+perfectly.’ François was right, doctor: there they were――there was
+the sick one, and the learned one, and the musician, and the
+officer――for all sorts of persons.
+
+“You recollect, when we were at Constantinople, one day I went to meet
+the Count de la Tour Maubourg on the banks of the Bosphorus, and he
+intimated to me that I had kept him waiting. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘there was
+a spy following my boat: I knew him directly, and wanted to prevent
+his dogging me.’ ‘Pooh! nonsense,’ replied Mr. de la T. M.: but we had
+not talked for half an hour, when, lo! there he was, taking a look at
+us. Next day, when I saw Mr. Canning, ‘Oh! Lady Hester,’ said he, ‘how
+did you spend your day yesterday?’――‘Why,’ answered I, ‘your spy did
+not spoil it.’――‘Ah!’ rejoined he, laughing――for he perceived at once
+it was of no use to make a mystery of what he had done――‘you should
+not do such things――I must write it home to government.’――‘Yes,’ said
+I, ‘I’ll write a letter, too, in this way:――My lord, your excellent
+young minister, to show his gallantry, has begun his diplomatic career
+by watching ladies in their assignations, &c., &c.’ and then I laughed
+at him, and then I talked seriously with him, till I worked on his
+feelings in a way you can’t think!
+
+“Spies, as I said before, should never be what are called gentlemen,
+or have the appearance of such; for, however well they may be paid,
+somebody else will always pay them better;――unless fortune should
+throw in your way a man of integrity, who, from loyalty or a love of
+his country, will adventure everything for the cause he is engaged in:
+such a man is another sort of a thing!”
+
+February 14.――Being Wednesday, I was, as usual, deprived of the honour
+of seeing Lady Hester until night; I therefore remained with my
+family, and, having recovered the lost spoon, which my servant
+produced out of fear of Hamâady’s examination, pretending to have
+found it, I took the opportunity of settling his wages and turned him
+away.
+
+After sunset I waited on her. She was in low spirits. “I am very
+weak,” said she. “Look at my veins――they did not use to be so: look at
+my arms, too――mere skin and bone.” She pointed to the state of her
+room: “See how filthy it is again already,” she observed; “and if I
+say a word, those wretches seem not to mind me――they snub me, doctor.”
+
+She attempted to dictate the letter she proposed writing to the Duke
+of Wellington, but was unable. We drank tea. “Do you know,” she said,
+“when old Malti” (this was the name Mr. Abella, the English agent, was
+generally designated by) “came in such a hurry, the other day, with
+Colonel Campbell’s letter, and made such a fuss about delivering it
+with his own hand, people fancied I was going to die, and that he was
+come up to seal my effects the moment the breath should be out of my
+body. But, if I do die, they sha’n’t seal anything of mine, I’ll take
+care of that; for I am no longer an English subject, and therefore
+they have nothing to do with me.”
+
+Again she asked me to take my pen and paper, and returned to the Duke
+of Wellington’s letter. “I can’t collect my ideas,” she said: “one
+while I am thinking of what Mr. Pitt said of him; then of the letter
+he wrote when invited down to the country ball; then of what he is
+now: so put down your paper, and ring for a pipe. The duke is a man
+self-taught, for he was always in dissipation. I recollect, one day,
+Mr. Pitt came into the drawing-room to me――‘Oh!’ said he, ‘how I have
+been bored by Sir Sydney coming with his box full of papers, and
+keeping me for a couple of hours, when I had so much to do!’ I
+observed to him that heroes were generally vain: ‘Lord Nelson is so.’
+‘So he is,’ replied Mr. Pitt; ‘but not like Sir Sydney: and how
+different is Arthur Wellesley, who has just quitted me! He has given
+me details so clear upon affairs in India! and he talked of them, too,
+as if he had been a surgeon of a regiment, and had nothing to do with
+them; so that I know not which to admire most, his modesty or his
+talents: and yet the fate of India depends upon them.’ Then, doctor,
+when I recollect the letter he wrote to Edward Bouverie, in which he
+said that he could not come down to the ball which Bouverie had
+invited him to, for that his only corbeau coat was so bad he was
+ashamed to appear in it, I reflect what a rise he has had in the
+world. Bouverie said――‘You would like to dance with him amazingly,
+Lady Hester: he is a good fellow.’
+
+“He was at first, doctor, nothing but what hundreds of others are in a
+country town――a man who danced, and drank hard. His star has done
+every thing for him; for he is not a great general.[32] He is no
+tactician, nor has he any of those great qualities that make a Cæsar,
+or a Pompey, or even a Buonaparte. As for the battle of Waterloo, both
+French and English have told me that it was a lucky battle for him,
+but nothing more. I don’t think he acted well at Paris: nor did the
+soldiers like him.”
+
+Thursday, February 15.――This morning, the letter to the Duke of
+Wellington was written.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+
+            _Lady Hester Stanhope to the Duke of Wellington._
+
+                                         Jôon, February 13, 1838.
+
+          My dear Duke,
+
+     If you merit but half the feeling and eloquent praise I
+     heard bestowed upon you shortly before I saw you for the
+     first time, you are the last man in the world either to be
+     offended or to misconstrue my motives in writing to you upon
+     the subject in question, or not to know how to account for
+     the warmth of the expressions I may make use of, which are
+     only characteristic of my disposition.
+
+     Your Grace’s long residence in the East will have taught you
+     that there is no common rate character in England an
+     adequate judge what manner of living best answers among a
+     semi-barbarous people, and how little possible it is to
+     measure one’s expenses where frequent revolutions and petty
+     wars are carried on without any provision for the sufferers,
+     from its being considered the duty of every one to assist
+     them as his humanity may dictate or as his circumstances may
+     afford.
+
+     Acre besieged for seven months! some days, 7,000 balls
+     thrown in in twenty-four hours!――at last, taken by storm,
+     and little more than 200 of the garrison remaining!――then
+     the wretched inhabitants, who expected to find succour from
+     their old friends in the country, finding their backs turned
+     upon them in the dread and awe they stood in of Ibrahim
+     Pasha; nay, it is very strange to say that the Franks
+     likewise held back in a most extraordinary manner.
+     Therefore, these unhappy people had no resource but in me,
+     and I did the best I could for them all. Mahomet Ali,
+     Ibrahim Pasha, Sheriff Pasha, all set at me at once, in
+     order to make me give up certain persons, who immediately
+     would have lost their heads for having fought well in the
+     cause which they were engaged in. I opposed them all round
+     single-handed, and said that I neither protected these
+     persons in the English or French name, but in my own, as a
+     poor Arab, who would not give up an unhappy being but with
+     his own life; that there was no other chance of making me
+     bend by any other means than by attempting mine. In this
+     manner I saved some unfortunate beings, whom I got rid of by
+     degrees, by sending them back to their own country, or
+     providing for them at a distance in some way or another. Can
+     you, as a soldier, blame me for what I have done? I should
+     have acted in the same way before your eyes to the victims
+     of your own sword. Then the host of orphans, and widows, and
+     little children, who, to feed or clothe for nearly two
+     years, took away all the ready money with which I ought in
+     part to have paid my debts, and caused new ones!――yet I am
+     no swindler, and will not appear like one. Your Queen had no
+     business to meddle in my affairs. In due time, please God, I
+     should have known how to arrange to satisfy everybody, even
+     if I left myself a beggar. If she pretends to have a right
+     to stop my pension, I resign it altogether, as well as the
+     name of an English subject; for there is no family that has
+     served their country and the crown more faithfully than mine
+     has done, and I am not inclined to be treated with _moins
+     d’égards_ than was formerly shown to a gentleman-like
+     highwayman.
+
+     I have been every day in expectation of a reply from Sir F.
+     Burdett respecting a large property which is said to have
+     been left me in Ireland, and which has been concealed from
+     me for many years. In case of its coming into my hands, I
+     shall still not keep my pension, in order to cut off every
+     communication with the English Government, from whom only
+     proceed acts of folly, which any moment may rebound upon an
+     individual. I chose Sir Francis Burdett to look into my
+     affairs, because I believe him to be a truly conscientious
+     honest man. Although we always disagreed upon politics, we
+     were always the best friends, and it appears to me that he
+     is beginning to see things in their proper light. * * * *
+     All that I have to entreat of your Grace is to allow me to
+     appear in the light in which I really stand――attached to
+     humanity, and attached to royalty, and attached to the
+     claims that one human being has upon another. Nor can I
+     allow myself to be deemed an intriguer; because I have said
+     here, in all societies, that persons who abet those who
+     attempt to shake the throne of Sultan Mahmoud shake the
+     throne of their own sovereign, and, therefore, commit high
+     treason: and among that class of persons I do not choose to
+     rank myself. Nor am I to be reckoned an incendiary, when I
+     seek to vindicate my own character, that never was marked
+     with either baseness or folly:――it may have been, perhaps,
+     with too little consideration for what are called by the
+     world my own interests, and which I, in fact, despise, or at
+     least only consider in a secondary point of view. There is
+     nobody more capable of making the Queen understand that a
+     Pitt is a unique race than your Grace: there is no trifling
+     with them.
+
+     I have sent a duplicate of the enclosed letter to Her
+     Majesty to my Lord Palmerston, through the hands of the
+     English Consul, Mr. Moore. If it has not reached her safe, I
+     hope that you will see that this one does: or otherwise I
+     shall put it in the _Augsburg Gazette_, or in an American
+     newspaper.[33]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+                                            HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At eleven at night I joined her at tea in her bed-room. She then asked
+me to read all the letters over, to see if anything wanted correction.
+After that, calling for her old parchment-covered blotting-book, she
+took them one by one, and folded them herself, “in order,” as she
+said, “to give me instructions on that head.” Generally speaking, she
+never seemed more happy than when she had a huge packet of despatches
+to put up: I dare say it reminded her of former times.
+
+She began――“Now, doctor, a letter to a great man should fold over
+exactly to the middle――thus. Lord! what counting-house paper have you
+got here?――this will never do” (it was the thin paper common in France
+as letter-paper). I told her it was the very best there was in the
+house, and added, to quiet her, that thick paper, when fumigated in
+quarantine, as this must be, generally seemed to me to suffer more
+than thin; which is the fact. “Humph――ah! well, it is too late now to
+alter it; so it must go as it is.” She then folded the cover with
+great exactitude; but, looking round her, she cried, “There, now, that
+black beast has not given me the seal!” (ding, ding). “Zezefôon,
+where’s the seal?” Zezefôon was the only servant who was permitted to
+touch the seal, and she always had orders to put it away carefully, so
+that the other maids should not know where it was, for fear they
+should lend it to some rascal, (like Girius Gemmel, she would say,)
+who would put her signature to some forged letter or paper: and
+Zezefôon, as is customary with uneducated persons, hid it very often
+so carefully that she could not find it herself. After turning books
+and papers upside down, at last she produced it.
+
+Whilst melting the wax in the candle, Lady Hester went on:――“Doctor,
+you never now can seal a letter decently: you once used to do it
+tolerably well, but now you have lost your memory and all your
+faculties, from talking nothing but rubbish and empty nonsense to
+those nasty women; and that’s the reason why you never listen to
+anything one says, and answer ‘yes,’ and ‘no,’ without knowing to
+what.”
+
+I gave her the letters in succession to seal, until exhausted by the
+effort――for now the least thing was too much for her――she fell back in
+her bed. She roused herself again, and said, “Now let’s direct them:
+where is the one to the Queen? Write Victoria Regina――nothing else――in
+the middle ... that will do very well. Whose is that?――the Speaker’s:
+very well. I wonder if it _is_ the brother I used to play driving
+horses with; for there were several brothers. Now, look for his
+address――James――ah! that’s him: direct ‘To the Right Hon. Speaker’ ...
+no, stop: put ‘To the Right Hon. James Abercrombie, with three et
+ceteras, Carlton Gardens.’”
+
+The next letter was the Duke of Wellington’s. Lady Hester said, “Let
+me see――he’s a field marshal――ah, never mind: you must begin――‘To His
+Grace the Duke of Wellington, K.G.’” I accordingly did so, and, not
+knowing how much more was coming to complete the superscription, I put
+it all, for fear of wanting room, into one line. Her eye was on me as
+I wrote. “What’s that?――show it me?” she cried out; and, taking the
+letter in her hands, she put on her spectacles. What an exclamation
+burst from her! “Good God, doctor! are you mad?――what can you
+mean?――what is this vulgar ignorance, not to know that ‘His Grace’
+should be in one line, and ‘The Duke of Wellington, K.G.’ in the
+other: what people will he fancy I am got among! why, the lowest clerk
+in the Foreign Office would not have made such a blunder: this is your
+fine Oxford education!” and then she gave a deep sigh, as if in utter
+despair, to think that a letter should go forth from her hands so
+different in paper, seal, and address, from those of her early days,
+when she reigned in Downing Street, co-equal with Mr. Pitt. Now it was
+a rickety old card-table, a rush-bottomed chair, a white pipe-clay
+inkstand, wax that would not be used in a counting-house in Cheapside;
+and both the Sultaness and her vizir (for so I shall presume to style
+her and myself), fitting their spectacles on their noses, equally
+blind, equally old, and almost equally ailing.
+
+I finished the address to the Duke. “How many et ceteras have you
+put?” asked Lady Hester:――“what! only two? I suppose you think he’s a
+nobody!” The remaining letters were directed without farther trouble,
+but, by some unaccountable blunder, Sir Edward Sugden was made a Sir
+Charles of. A long deliberation ensued, whether the letter to Her
+Majesty should be enclosed in a cover to Lord Palmerston, or whether
+it should be left to be seen by the English consul at Beyrout, to
+frighten him.
+
+It was now three o’clock in the morning. I quitted Lady Hester, and
+had Ali Hayshem, the confidential messenger, called out of his bed. I
+repeated to him Lady Hester’s instructions as follows:――“You are to
+take this packet, and start at sunrise precisely――not before, and not
+after――and to take care you deliver the letters into M. Guys’s hands
+before sunset: for it is Friday, and Friday is an auspicious day.
+There are ten piasters for your two days’ keep, and let no one know
+where you are going, nor for what.”
+
+Ali was accustomed to this business――laid his hand on his head to
+signify that should answer for his fidelity――made a low salàam――went
+to the cook for his five bread-cakes――turned in again upon his
+libàd――pulled his counterpane over his body, face and all, and, I dare
+say, was punctual to his hour and his instructions. Men of this sort,
+who are generally chosen from the peasantry, are invaluable as
+foot-messengers. With a _naboot_ or small bludgeon, well knobbed at
+one end, and with a few bread-cakes in their girdle, they will set off
+at any hour, in any weather, for any place, and go as quick as a
+horseman. They sleep anywhere and anyhow, and deliver their messages
+and letters with exceeding punctuality. Ali was a handsome fellow, the
+picture of health, fearless of danger, and a great favourite with Lady
+Hester, to whose service he was devoted; therefore, at every Byràm,
+Ali was sure to be seen in a new suit of clothes, the envy of the men,
+and the admiration of all the girls of Jôon: but he knew how to make a
+proper use of his money. Already he had begun to trade with some
+success in silk, advancing small sums in the winter to the poor women
+who breed silkworms, for which he received silk in payment: this he
+resold in the city; and those who may chance to meet with Ali ten
+years hence might find in him a warm tradesman, smoking his pipe in
+the midst of his obsequious dependants, and dignified with the title
+of Shaykh or Maalem.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [24] Lady Hester one day said, “I have a little angel under
+          my command, the angel of my star――such a sweet little
+          creature!――not like those ridiculous ones who are
+          fiddling in Italian pictures. What fools painters are,
+          to think angels are made so!”
+
+     [25] Mr. Joseph Green, lecturer on anatomy at the Royal
+          Academy.
+
+     [26] There is a passage in an interesting domestic
+          tale recently published (_The History of Margaret
+          Catchpole_, by the Rev. Mr. Cobbold), which has a
+          strange coincidence with the superstitious belief of
+          the Syrians, considering how widely the English are
+          separated from them. It is as follows: “He told me he
+          was the most venemous snake in the country. His bite
+          is attended with swelling and blackness of the body,
+          and, _when the sun goes down_, death ensues.”――Vol.
+          ii., p. 188.
+
+     [27] I once showed Lady Hester Stanhope Raphael’s Madonna
+          della Seggiola, to hear what she would say about it.
+          “The face,” she observed, “is congruous in all the
+          lineaments; they all belong to the same star; but I
+          don’t like that style of face――that is not the star
+          that pleases me;” and she returned me the engraving,
+          with some signs of impatience. I imagined, as there
+          was a maid in the room, that she did so, lest the girl
+          should report that she adored the Virgin Mary. I then
+          showed her a painting of the Nozze Aldobrandini. “Ah!”
+          said she, after examining it, “that figure,” pointing
+          to the one farthest on the spectator’s right hand,
+          “is the star I like, only the eyes do not belong to
+          that countenance: if the eyes were as they ought to
+          be, that figure would be charming.” There was much
+          truth in the observations she made on the blunders
+          of artists and sculptors in giving incongruous
+          features to their works. An ordinary observer has
+          only to look at the statues of the ancients, and he
+          will find that the forehead, nose, mouth, ears, and
+          limbs of a Minerva, are such as he will see in grave
+          and dignified women, totally different from the same
+          features in a Diana or a Venus. Each temperament, each
+          class of beings in nature, has its external marks,
+          which never vary in character, but only in degree. But
+          painters are accustomed to make a selection of what
+          they suppose the most perfect Grecian lines, and to
+          clap them on to a body, whether it be for a muse, an
+          amazon, a nymph, or a courtezan: this is obviously
+          false. “There are some women who are born courtezans,”
+          Lady Hester would say, “and whatever their station
+          in life is, they must be so. Thus, Lady ―――― was so
+          by nature; from the time she first came out, she had
+          the air of a woman of the town: Mademoiselle de ――――,
+          who married one of the ――――, nothing could have ever
+          altered her. There was a woman for great passions! it
+          was almost indecent to be where she was.”
+
+     [28] This alludes to the childhood of Lady Hester Stanhope,
+          when she had played at horses with Mr. Abercrombie.
+
+     [29] Lady Hester one day showed me fourteen of these
+          articles of ladies’ apparel, six or seven of which
+          were in slits and holes, so that a maid-servant in
+          England would not have accepted them as a gift: she
+          said her maids had torn them by their rough handling
+          in dressing her. I had them sent to my house, and they
+          were all mended. She expressed herself as grateful for
+          this little service to my daughter and the governess,
+          as if she had been a pauper clothed at their door!
+
+     [30] I was once speaking of the great results which might
+          be expected from Messrs. Beck and Moore’s successful
+          investigation of the natural phenomena of the Dead
+          Sea: but Lady Hester damped my admiration of those
+          gentlemen’s hazardous undertaking, by exclaiming that
+          all English travellers were a pack of fools, and
+          that they entirely neglected the objects that ought
+          to be inquired into. “There are none of them,” said
+          she, “that know half as much as I do. I’ll venture to
+          say they never heard of the forty doors, all opening
+          by one key, in which are locked the forty wise men
+          who expect the Murdah. Didn’t I tell you the story
+          the other day?” I answered, if she had, I must have
+          forgotten it, which was fortunate, as I was always
+          reluctant to show my dissent from her opinions;
+          having, by experience, learned how necessary it was
+          to proceed cautiously in doing so. “Yes, so it is,”
+          rejoined Lady Hester: “I talk for half a day to you,
+          wasting my breath and lungs, and there you sit like a
+          stock or a stone――no understanding, no conviction!”
+
+     [31] The korbàsh is a thong of the raw hide of the buffalo
+          or rhinoceros, about the length of a hand-whip, and
+          cut tapering in a similar form. In the hand of a
+          powerful flagellant it becomes an instrument of great
+          torture.
+
+     [32] There is a strong resemblance between Lady Hester’s
+          character of the Duke of Wellington and that of
+          Frederick the Great of Prussia: for see what Lord
+          Malmesbury says of the latter, in his _Diaries and
+          Correspondence_, vol. i., p. 8:――
+
+          “His _fort_ is not so much his courage, nor what we
+          generally understand by conduct; but it consists in a
+          surprising discernment, in the day of battle, how to
+          gain the most advantageous ground, where to place the
+          proper sort of arms, whether horse or foot, and in the
+          quickest _coup d’œil_ to distinguish the weak part of
+          the enemy.”
+
+     [33] Several lines are here wanting, owing to a half sheet
+          of paper having been lost in the confusion created
+          by fumigating papers in quarantine. They were highly
+          complimentary to his grace, and their omission is to
+          be regretted.
+
+
+
+
+                               CHAPTER IX.
+
+Lady Hester in an alcove in her garden――Lucky days observed by
+her――Consuls’ rights――Mischief caused by Sir F. B.’s neglect in
+answering Lady Hester’s Letters――Rashes common in Syria――Visit of an
+unknown Englishman――Story of Hanah Messâad――Lady Hester’s love of
+truth――Report of her death――Michael Tutungi――Visit from the Chevalier
+Guys――His reception at Dayr el Mkhallas――Punishment of the shepherd,
+Câasem――Holyday of the Korbàn Byràm――Fatôon’s _accouchement_――Lady
+Hester’s aversion to consular interference――Evenings at Jôon――Old
+Pierre――Saady.
+
+
+Friday, February 16, 1838.――About two in the afternoon, on going to
+pay my visit to Lady Hester Stanhope, I proceeded to her bed-room,
+thinking, as usual, to find her there, but was told by her maids she
+was gone into the garden. The day was overcast, and there was every
+appearance of rain. I found her standing in one of the garden-walks,
+leaning on her stick (such as those which elderly ladies were
+accustomed formerly to use in England, and perhaps may now), and pale
+as a ghost. “Doctor,” said she, “I have got out of my room that those
+beasts may clean it? but, if you don’t go to them, they’ll steal
+everything.” After expressing my fears that she had chosen a bad day
+to come out, I left her. I saw her room put into as much order as the
+confusion in it would admit of. It was crowded with bundles one upon
+another, as before, which she dared not put into any other part of the
+house, lest they should be stolen.
+
+Independent of her desire to be more clean and comfortable, I guessed
+at once why she had left her bed-room to go into the garden. It was
+the struggle which the sick often make――the resolution of an unsubdued
+spirit, that finds corporeal ailments weighing down the body, whilst
+the mind is yet unsubdued. It was Friday too, the day in all the week
+she held as most auspicious.
+
+When I returned into the garden, I found her lying on a sofa, in a
+beautiful alcove, one of three or four that embellished her garden,
+and an attendant standing with his hands folded across his breast, in
+an attitude of respect before her. At these moments, she always wore
+the air of a Sultaness. In this very alcove, how often had she acted
+the queen, issued her orders, summoned delinquents before her, and
+enjoyed the semblance of that absolute power, which was the latent
+ambition of her heart! Hence it was that she at last got rid of all
+European servants, because they would not submit to arbitrary
+punishments, but would persist in raising their voices in
+self-justification. With the Turks it was not so. Accustomed, in the
+courts of governors and Pashas, to implicit obedience and submission,
+they resigned themselves to her rule as a matter of course. In
+transferring, however, their servility to her, as their mistress, they
+also transferred the vices and dangers which servility engenders:
+namely, lying, theft, sycophancy, intrigue, and treachery.
+
+Saturday, February 17.――During the whole of this day I did not see
+Lady Hester, and I was not sorry for it. Her thoughts were now
+constantly running on the inexplicable silence of Sir Francis Burdett.
+“He is a man of honour,” she would say. “I suppose he has to write to
+Ireland, and to the right and left about my property; or perhaps they
+have got hold of him, too;――who knows? I am sure something must have
+happened.” As each succeeding steamboat arrived, a messenger was sent
+to Beyrout, but still no answer. Then she reflected what she should
+do, if Sir Francis at last should furnish her with proofs that no
+property had been left her:――beggary stared her in the face. In the
+mean time she had no means of raising a single farthing before the
+first of March, when she could draw for £300. But of this sum £200
+were due to Mr. Dromacaiti, a Greek merchant at Beyrout, who had lent
+her money at an exorbitant interest, but on her word, and this,
+therefore, she would pay, I knew, if possible. During all this time,
+my family remained in almost total ignorance of what was going on
+within Lady Hester’s walls as much as if they had been living in
+China. I was also, as I have said above, obliged to conceal, in a
+great measure, her illness from them. They rode and walked out on the
+mountains, fed their bulbuls, enjoyed the fine climate, and wondered
+what made me look so thin and careworn: for thought and care preyed on
+my spirits, and I wasted away almost as perceptibly as Lady Hester
+herself.
+
+Sunday, February 18.――To-day Lady Hester was sitting up in the corner
+of her bed-room. Her look was deadly pale, and her head was wrapped up
+in flannels, just like her grandfather the last day he appeared in the
+House of Lords. Without intending it, everything she did bore a
+resemblance to that great man.
+
+Ali had returned from Beyrout without a letter. “Did Ali Hayshem,” she
+asked me, “set off at sunrise on Friday? I am glad he did. Do you
+know, I once sent Butrus to Beyrout to fetch money; and I said to him,
+‘If you get in on Monday night, don’t come away on Tuesday or
+Wednesday; for those are unlucky days; loiter away those two days, and
+be here on Thursday night. However, he paid no attention to my
+instructions, and on Wednesday evening he made his appearance. ‘Why
+did you come before Thursday?’ I asked him. He answered, ‘That the bag
+of money having been delivered to him, he had brought it immediately,
+and you see, Mylady, here it is: nobody, thank God! has robbed
+me.’――‘That does not signify,’ I told him; ‘you will see there is no
+_bereky_ [blessing] in it.’ Do you know, doctor, I paid the people’s
+wages immediately, and it was well I did; for some ten or twelve
+thousand piasters, chest and all, disappeared the next day. ‘There,
+look!’ said I to him; ‘I told you that money never would turn to
+account.’”
+
+The conversation reverted to Colonel Campbell’s letter. “I have told
+the secretary,” said she, “to tell his father, that, if he dares make
+his appearance here again, I’ll send a bullet through his body. Not
+one of them shall lay their vile hands on me or mine. I have strength
+enough to strangle him, and I would do it, though it should cost me my
+life. As for Mr. Moore, he may perhaps have a _habeas corpus_ by him;
+but it is good for twenty-four hours only, and I should know how to
+manage. Consuls have no right over nobility; they may have over
+merchants, and such people: but they never shall come near me, and I
+would shoot the first that dared to do it. The English are a set of
+intermeddling, nasty, vulgar, odious people, and I hate them all. The
+very Turks laugh at them. Out of ridicule, they told one, if he was so
+clever, to straiten a dog’s tail. Yes, he might straiten and straiten,
+but it would soon bend again; and they may bend me and bend me, if
+they can, but I fancy they will find it a difficult matter: for you
+may tell them that, when I have made up my mind to a thing, no earthly
+being can alter my determination. If they want a devil, let them try
+me, and they shall have enough of it.
+
+“When the steamboat came, and brought no letter to-day from Sir
+Francis Burdett, you thought I should be ill on receiving the news:
+but I am not a fool. I suppose he is occupied with his daughter’s
+legacy, or with parliamentary business.”
+
+I had received a letter from a lady, which I had occasion to read to
+her. When I had done, and she had expressed her thanks for the
+flower-seeds sent her, she added, “What I do not like in Mrs. U.’s
+letter is that foolish way of making a preamble about her not liking
+to leave so much white paper in all its purity, and all those turns
+and phrases which people use. That was very well for a Swift or a
+Pope, who, having promised to write to somebody once a fortnight, and
+having nothing to say, made a great number of points to fill up the
+paper; but a letter that has matter in it should be written with a
+distinct narration of the business, and that’s all. Do you think such
+people as Mr. Pitt or Lord Chatham, my grandfather, liked those
+nonsensical phrases? No, they threw the letter aside, or else cast
+their eyes over it to see if, on the other page, there was anything to
+answer about.”
+
+February 19.――I was riding this morning with my family beyond the
+village, which is separated by a deep valley from Lady Hester’s
+residence, when I saw two servants on the verge of the opposite hill,
+vociferating――“Come directly, come instantly!” and waving their white
+turbans. I reflected that, if I put my horse into a gallop, the people
+of the village would immediately conclude that Lady Hester was dying;
+and the news (as news always gains by distance) would be the next day
+at Sayda that she was dead: I therefore continued the same pace; and,
+although the servants redoubled their signs and cries, I steadily
+retraced my steps. When I had dismounted, I was told her ladyship was
+in a deplorable way, unlike any thing they had ever seen. I hurried to
+her bed-room. She was sitting on the side of her bed, weeping and
+uttering those extraordinary cries, which I have before compared to
+something hardly human. She clasped her hands and exclaimed
+repeatedly, “Oh God! oh, God! what misery! what misery!” When she was
+a little calmed, and I could collect from her what was the matter, she
+told me that, having fallen into a doze, she awoke with a sense of
+suffocation from tightness across her chest, and, being unable to ring
+or call, she thought she should have died: “thus,” said she, “am I
+treated like a dog, with nobody to administer to my wants;” and so she
+went on in the usual strain. I was suffering at this time from the
+nettlerash, but treated it lightly, and thought Lady Hester would do
+so too: until, having unluckily alluded to it, a fresh source of
+uneasiness was inadvertently started. “Good God, doctor!” she cried,
+“to come out of doors with a nettlerash on you! go to your house
+immediately; get to bed, keep yourself warm, and remain there until it
+is cured. After four or five days, take such and such things; then go
+to the bath, then take some bark, &c., &c. How many persons have I
+known go mad and die from it! You treat it as nothing? why, you will
+drive me crazy. In God’s name, never mind _me_; only go and take care
+of yourself. You will act in your own usual inconsiderate manner, and
+I shall have to bury another in this house. Oh, God! oh, God! what am
+I doomed to!” and then followed fresh cries and fresh lamentations.
+
+Could Sir Francis Burdett have seen all this, and have known that five
+words of a letter, sent a month or two sooner, in answer to her
+inquiries about the property she thought was left her, would have
+probably saved all this excitement, he would have found reason to
+reproach himself for his long silence. I knew the workings of her mind
+full well, and that her proud spirit, wounded by the general neglect
+she met with, vented itself in tears, seemingly, for other causes than
+the real ones. I recollected a succession of similar scenes about
+twenty years before at Mar Elias, when she was expecting letters from
+the Duke of Buckingham; but then she was sounder in bodily health, and
+could better bear such convulsive paroxysms of grief: now, she was
+labouring under pulmonary disease, was old, was in distress, and the
+consequences might prove fatal.
+
+I left her before dinner. “Good by, doctor!” she said, in a kind tone:
+“I cannot tell you how much I am obliged to you for everything you do
+for me; and send me a servant twice a day to let me know how you are.
+I shall be uneasy about you: I can’t help it: from my childhood I have
+been so. How many times in my life have I spent days and days in
+trying to make others comfortable! I have been the slave of others,
+and never got any thanks for it.”
+
+I went to my house, collected all the money that remained, which was
+about eleven pounds, and sent it to her to meet the current expenses
+of the household: for so she wished, that I might not be annoyed, she
+said, and have the rash driven in on my brain.
+
+I experienced no ill effects from the nettlerash. Few persons, new to
+the climate of Syria, escape a rash of some description, sometimes
+pustular, sometimes miliary, but most frequently in the form called
+prickly heat, which generally attacks them in summer or autumn, and is
+truly distressing by the pricking sensation it produces on the skin,
+as if thousands of needle-points were penetrating the cuticle. Little
+is required in such cases but cool diet, fruit, and diluents. I
+performed my quarantine of four days, in compliance with Lady Hester’s
+wishes, and then returned to my customary mode of life.
+
+Saturday, February 24.――As I had anticipated, a report had become very
+general in Beyrout and in the Mountain that Lady Hester was dead, and
+I received a letter from M. Guys acquainting me with it. This report
+was confirmed by an English gentleman, who presented himself at my
+gate this day after breakfast. I was carpentering at the time, and
+went down the yard to him with my hatchet and chisel in my hand. He
+seemed not to know what to make of me, dressed as I was in Turkish
+clothes, with a beard, and with my sleeves turned up like a mechanic.
+He held out a letter to me, addressed in a fair hand to Lady Hester: I
+told him this was not her gate, and that a little beyond he would find
+it. He said he had heard she was dead: I assured him that was not the
+case, but that she was greatly indisposed. I regretted to myself that
+I could not ask him in, or enter into conversation with him; but Lady
+Hester had exacted from me a solemn promise that I never would hold
+any parley with English travellers, until I had first conferred with
+her on the subject, and had described them, so that she might obtain
+the necessary indications to enable her to guess what their business
+was, or until she had read their letter of introduction, if they bore
+one. So he quitted me, first asking whether I was an Englishman; to
+which I answered that I left him to judge. He appeared to be about
+twenty-one years of age: he had with him for his servant a Ragusan,
+whom my servant knew, and who, he assured me, was a drunken reprobate.
+Short as the stop at the gate was, the Ragusan found time to tell the
+other that he had famous wages: I think it was eight dollars a month.
+Now I gave mine, who was also a European, four, which was considered
+good pay, the rate being, in Lady Hester’s house, from one to three.
+Europeans, however, always get more than people of the country, and
+have more wants to satisfy. How many travellers are obliged, on their
+landing in these countries, to take fellows into their service without
+a character, outcasts of society, and who in England would hardly be
+allowed to see the outside of a gaol!
+
+Of this English gentleman Lady Hester never spoke to me, nor did she
+ever even allude to his visit: he did not see her, and, I presume,
+continued his road; but, if these pages ever meet his eye, he may be
+assured that he would have met with a hospitable reception, had she
+been well enough to receive him, or had I been at liberty to entertain
+him.
+
+Whilst at dinner, a servant came to say Lady Hester would be glad to
+see me in the evening. I found her weak and wan: her cheeks were
+sunken, and her voice was less distinct than usual; for never was
+there a person who spoke generally with so clear an enunciation.
+Logmagi was with her. Instead of receiving her welcome, and those
+obliging expressions which she usually employed even after the most
+trifling ailment, she addressed me harshly, and seemed to take pains
+to mortify me by using slighting expressions in Arabic that Logmagi
+might understand what she said. The theme of her conversation was the
+debasement of men who suffered themselves to be controlled by their
+wives. Although to mortify people was one of her constant practices
+through life, whether in action, correspondence, or conversation, yet
+it never was done to gratify any malignant feelings of her own, but
+from a fearless disregard of the conventional rules of civilized
+society, where she hoped to rescue an individual from debasement, or
+counteract the machinations of designing and wicked men. On this
+principle it is true, likewise, that she would deliberately inflict
+those incurable insults which cover a man with a sort of shame for
+life; as may be shown, for example, by the case of Mr. Hanah Messâad,
+the son of the British agent at Beyrout, one of whose whiskers and
+eyebrows was shaved off before the whole village, for having made an
+assertion then supposed to be false, but which was afterwards, by her
+own confession to me, admitted to be true.
+
+Hanah, or John Messâad, a handsome young man, a native of Beyrout, and
+the son of a former English vice-consul, was interpreter and secretary
+to Lady Hester for some time, and her ladyship has since bestowed
+great praise, in my presence, on his capacity, usefulness, and
+knowledge of languages. There was in her service also Michael Tutungi,
+son of an Armenian, who had been under-dragoman, as I understood, to
+the English embassy at Constantinople. Messâad, it was thought, was
+jealous of Michael.
+
+It was reported in the family that Michael had been seen under a tree
+in very close conversation with a peasant girl, and the report was
+traced to Messâad. Now, the Emir Beshýr affected, or really felt, a
+great horror of all licentiousness, and never failed to bastinado
+severely every man detected, in his principality, in any such conduct.
+Lady Hester knew what imputations might be cast on her establishment,
+if such things were left unnoticed; and, fearing that Messâad’s
+intrigues (of which she thought this report but a link) might injure
+Michael’s character, and destroy his prospects of getting a place in
+the English embassy at Constantinople, to which he had some
+pretensions from his father’s services, she resolved to save him by
+making a signal example of Messâad.
+
+She, therefore, ordered all the villagers from Jôon to be assembled on
+the green in front of her house, and sent for Mustafa, the barber,
+from Sayda, with two or three other tradesmen to be witnesses. Seating
+herself on a temporary divan, with all the assembly in a circle around
+her, not a soul dreaming what was going to take place, and Michael and
+Messâad standing in respectful attitudes, with their arms crossed, and
+covered, down to the fingers’ ends,[34] with their benyshes, by her
+side, she began: “That young man,” said she, pointing to Michael, “is
+accused of irregularities with” (here she mentioned the girl’s name,
+and the place and time of the meeting). “Now, if any one of you knows
+him to have been guilty of similar actions, or if, from his general
+conduct, under similar circumstances, any one of you thinks the thing
+probable, speak out, for I wish to do justice. Messâad is his accuser:
+they are both my people, and equally entitled to impartiality.” As
+nobody answered, she appealed to them all again, and all replied they
+did not believe it.
+
+She then turned to Messâad, and said: “Sir, you have accused this
+young man, who is about to be launched into the world, and has only
+his good name to help him on, of abominable things: where are your
+witnesses?” Messâad, frightened out of his senses, replied, “that he
+had no witnesses; that he had seen, with his own eyes, what he had
+asserted, and, therefore, knew it to be so: but, as he was alone, it
+must rest on his own word.” Her ladyship told him his word would not
+do against the concurring testimony of all the servants, and of a
+whole village; and she added, in a judge-like tone, “As your mouth and
+your eye have offended, the stigma shall remain on them. Servants,
+seize and hold him; and, barber, shave off one side of his mustachios
+and one eyebrow.”
+
+This was done. Michael was kept about a month or two, in order that
+the protection he enjoyed might seal his unblemished reputation, and
+then was packed off to Constantinople. “Thus,” said Lady Hester, “I
+saved a young man from destruction. Messâad has now a good place under
+the Sardinian consul at Beyrout; his eyebrows and mustachios are grown
+again; he has married, and has a family; and I dare say the Sardinian
+consul, if he knows anything of the story, thinks not a bit the worse
+of him.”
+
+The above are the words in which Lady Hester, on the 20th of January,
+1831, related this singular punishment, inflicted with the best
+intentions on poor Messâad. One evening, in 1837, when writing a
+letter to the same Messâad, for certain commissions which he had to
+execute for her ladyship, who was in the habit of employing him to buy
+pipes, cloth, and sundry other articles found in the shops at Beyrout,
+she spoke to me as follows. “You know, doctor, all that affair about
+Michael and Messâad, and how I had one side of his face shaved. Well,
+I found out afterwards that what Messâad had said was every bit of it
+true. I have made it up to him since as well as I could: he does not
+want abilities, and kept my house in excellent order whilst he was
+with me.”
+
+But this was not the first time Lady Hester had resorted to this
+singular mode of punishment; some years before, a chastisement for
+similar frailties, not unlike that which Messâad underwent, as far as
+regarded the eyebrows, fell to the lot of a peasant girl in her
+ladyship’s service at a village called Mushmôoshy. This was in the
+year 1813. How fallible are the most clearsighted persons is the only
+comment which can be made on such unintentional errors!
+
+For those who were not exempt from the common weaknesses of our nature
+she was a dangerous person to hold intercourse with. “Live at a
+distance from my lady,” General Loustaunau used to say to Mrs. M.
+(when she wanted to remove from Mar Elias to Dar Jôon, in order to be
+near me); “live at a distance, or you will find, to your cost, that
+her neighbourhood is a hell.” But be it said, to her honour, that it
+was from an unfeigned horror of everything mean, dishonest, or
+vicious, she so resolutely refused to keep terms with people who
+suffered themselves to be led into the commission of such acts; and
+her indignation descended with equal impartiality on friends and foes
+when they happened to deserve it. Her disposition to utter the truth,
+whether painful or disagreeable, overruled all other considerations.
+
+Few people conversed with her, or received a letter from her, without
+being sensible of some expression or innuendo, which they were obliged
+to treat as a joke at the moment, but which was sure to leave its
+sting behind. Of upwards of a hundred letters which I have penned for
+her at her dictation to correspondents of every rank in life, there
+were few which did not contain some touch of merited sarcasm or
+reproof; except those which were expressly written to alleviate
+distress, or encourage the hopeful efforts of modest worth. Never was
+there so inflexible a judge, or one who would do what she thought
+right, come what would of it. _Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum_, might have
+been written on her escutcheon.
+
+Sunday, February 25.――Having recovered her tranquillity, she was
+to-day all kindness. I mentioned to her the report rife in Beyrout
+respecting her death, as M. Guys had written it. She observed on it,
+“If I do die, those consuls, thank God, can have nothing to do with
+me! I am no English subject, and they have no right to seal up my
+effects. Why do I keep some of my servants, although I know them to be
+desperate rascals, but because they have one or two qualities useful
+to me? It would not do for every one to run the risk, but it will for
+me, who know how to manage them. For example: I have got two that I
+can depend upon for shooting a man, or giving a consul a good blow, if
+he dares to set his foot within my doors, so as to prevent his ever
+coming again; and such are what I want just now.”
+
+She turned over in her mind how she could raise a little money, and
+bethought herself of Mr. Michael Tutungi, the Armenian, of
+Constantinople, who had formerly served her in the capacity of
+dragoman. To him she had written in 1836, offering him the same
+situation he had held before, and, on his promise to come, had
+forwarded to him 500 dollars for the expenses of his journey and for
+some commissions: but he subsequently declined the engagement, neither
+had he executed the commissions. She therefore desired me to draw a
+bill on him, payable to M. Guys’s order, and to request M. Guys to
+discount it; for, during my nettlerash, Lady Hester had given away the
+greatest part of the 1,190 piasters to a family ruined by the
+earthquake. It was in vain to represent to her that she was in want of
+the money herself: “I can’t help it,” she would say; “I am not
+mistress of myself on such occasions.”
+
+Tuesday, February 27.――Lady Hester got up, went into her garden, and
+felt better. She had at last found out that repletion, arising even
+from what would be called small quantities of food and drink in
+health, was very injurious in sickness; and she had grown more
+moderate in her diet, not swallowing one liquid upon another, nor
+eating four or five times a day. Honey and butter mixed was now what
+she derived most benefit from, and spermaceti linctuses. The moment
+she found anything soothed her cough, she immediately sent off an
+order to Beyrout for an immense quantity of it, or to Europe, if at
+Beyrout it was not to be had: she was never satisfied that her
+medicine-chest was full enough. It will hardly be credited that of
+Epsom salts she had a cask full, of the size of a firkin. She
+masticated aniseeds as a remedy against dyspepsia, and smoked them
+sprinkled on the tobacco of her pipe: of course, they were very
+injurious to her, but it was idle to remonstrate.
+
+February 29.――Lady Hester’s first topic of conversation to-day was her
+maids. “What a _hywán_ [beast] is that _Sâady_!” she said: “when she
+awakes in the morning, she crawls on all-fours exactly like an animal.
+I am convinced she is nothing more: her back is only fit to carry a
+pair of panniers.” I agreed with her ladyship, and told her what I had
+seen her do the day before. With one springing lift she raised from
+the floor to her head a circular _mankàl_ or chafingdish, two feet in
+diameter, and piled up with live coals――and, without holding it, but
+merely balancing it on her head, she stooped perpendicularly, and
+seized with her two hands another mankàl of baked earth of equal size,
+filled with live coals also, and, lifting it, carried them both at
+once into the drawing-room to warm the apartment. These are the feats
+of dexterity and strength in which Syrian women excel, and in which
+they far surpass all European maids.
+
+March 1.――Monsieur Henry Guys, the French consul, having been advanced
+to the superior situation of Aleppo, and being about to quit our part
+of the country, arrived unexpectedly at Jôon to take his leave. It was
+Tuesday, and just after sunset, when he entered the gate. Lady Hester
+had, about a quarter of an hour before, hurried me away from her, as
+the sun was going to set, and it would have been unlucky, had I left
+her a minute after the sun was down. “I shall not see you to-morrow,”
+said she, “as it will be Wednesday:” therefore, when she was told that
+Monsieur Guys was come, it discomposed her very much, and she sent
+word that, whatever his business was, she could not see him until
+after sunset next day.
+
+As M. Guys was thus transferred to me for twenty-four hours, I took
+the opportunity of letting him know how disquieted I felt at having
+such great responsibility on my shoulders, whilst Lady Hester was so
+ill, and surrounded by a set of servants whom I considered as so many
+cut-throats.
+
+My position was extremely uncomfortable. Should Lady Hester die, I
+foresaw that I should be exposed, alone as I was, to many difficulties
+and dangers. The Druze insurrection afforded every facility to an
+assassin or robber for putting himself beyond the reach of justice:
+since, in about five or six hours, he could find a sure refuge from
+capture. He revived my spirits by assuring me I need be under no
+alarm. “All of them are known,” said he, “and have their families and
+relations hereabouts: that one circumstance must always be a check
+upon them. If they were not natives of the province, then I should
+say you were not safe among them. As for Lady Hester, you know her
+determined character――if she is resolved to keep them, you cannot help
+it. There is one,” added he, “whom I could wish not to be here; I
+thought him gone a year ago:” this was the one whom Lady Hester relied
+on for sending a bullet through the consul’s body.
+
+There is a large stone edifice of great extent, distant about
+three-quarters of a mile, as the crow flies, from the village of Jôon,
+more like a fortress than the peaceable habitation of cenobites. It is
+the monastery of _Dayr el Mkhallas_, or the Saviour, and contains
+about fifty friars of the Greek Catholic church, which repudiates the
+pope, recognizing as its spiritual head its own patriarch. M. Guys
+enjoyed the unlimited confidence of these people as the well-tried and
+efficient friend of the Catholic church throughout Syria; and it was
+no sooner known that he was in the neighbourhood, than the superior of
+the monastery gave him to understand that a visit from him would be
+received as a great honour by the monks. M. Guys devoted the morning
+to this gratifying object, and his reception was in the highest degree
+flattering. When he arrived at the foot of the Mount, on the summit of
+which the monastery stands, he was saluted by a merry chime of
+church-bells, and then the whole body of the friars, with the cross
+borne before them, came out in procession to meet him. The greatest
+ceremony was observed on the occasion, and sherbet, coffee, pipes,
+aspersion of rose-water, and homage, were lavished on him, not less in
+the hope of securing a continuation of his good offices, than as
+expressive of gratitude for past kindnesses: for no man holding
+official rank in Syria has ever enjoyed more popularity, or obtained
+more general consideration, than the Chevalier Guys. Descended from an
+ancient family of Provence, in which the consular rank may be almost
+said to have become hereditary, the Levant saw, at the beginning of
+the present century, the rare occurrence of three brothers holding
+consulships at the same time.
+
+After dinner, M. Guys was summoned by Lady Hester Stanhope, and I
+availed myself of the opportunity it afforded me of remaining at home
+for the evening. The next morning he departed before I was up; but,
+being anxious to ascertain his opinions of Lady Hester’s situation, I
+mounted my horse, and, by taking a short but somewhat dangerous path
+down the mountains, I overtook him. Nothing particular, however, had
+transpired in their conversation, which lasted for four hours; but he
+told me that he was shocked to find her so much altered, and that he
+had never heard such a hollow sepulchral cough. He added that,
+frequently during the time he was with her, she fell back on the sofa
+from exhaustion. She spoke, too, a good deal, and in rather an odd
+way, of extraordinary sights she had seen, of two apparitions that had
+appeared to her, and of serpents near Tarsûs, which go in troops
+devouring all before them, and with a tone of conviction as if she
+believed it all. “What does it mean,” he asked me――“and why do you let
+her smoke so much?”
+
+March 2.――Lady Hester was now getting better slowly, but, as usual,
+her strength no sooner began to return than it brought out all the
+unmanageable points of her character in full relief. Something
+happened in the house which ruffled her, and produced a discussion
+between us, I hardly know how; but it ended by her calling me a
+crabbed old fool: upon which I observed, that I never heard such
+expressions from the lips of ladies before. This set her off upon her
+inexhaustible theme of fearless speaking. “If you were a duke,” said
+she, “I would use exactly the same expressions.”――“Your ladyship’s
+talents,” I ventured to observe again, “are inexpressibly great, but,
+without questioning that, I only lament the intemperate use of them.”
+Taking up this observation, she dwelt at great length upon the
+“sweetness of her temper,” and I made my peace at last, by saying that
+a physician should be the last person to complain of the irritability
+of his patients. Apophthegms of this submissive character were never
+lost upon her, provided they were true, as well as apologetic; so
+pipes were ordered, and we entered into an armistice for the rest of
+the evening.
+
+A curious but characteristic incident occurred about this time. In the
+ravines of the mountains, where the few living creatures that are to
+be found may be supposed to be drawn into closer communion by a common
+sense of loneliness, a shepherd named Câasem, who was nearly fifty
+years old, formed a _liaison_ with a village girl, whose occupation
+consisted in leading a cow about in the solitary green nooks where any
+scanty herbage was to be secured. The circumstance reached Lady
+Hester’s ears before it was known to anybody else, and she immediately
+ordered the man to be flogged at break of day, with instructions that
+nobody should tell him why or wherefore. “He will know what it is
+for,” she exclaimed; then turning reproachfully to Logmagi, to whom
+the execution of the order was entrusted, she added:――“How is it you
+leave me to be the first to discover these disgraceful acts, giving
+the Emir Beshýr an excuse to say that I encourage depravity in my
+servants, when it is your duty to know everything that passes about my
+premises?” Logmagi went, gave the shepherd a beating, and sent him
+about his business. Lady Hester used to justify severities of this
+description on the ground that it prevented the recurrence of similar
+licentiousness, and “kept the fellows in order.”
+
+March 5.――This being the vigil of the _Korbàn Byràm_, or the Mahometan
+Easter, which is their great holyday, Lady Hester, who had previously
+given her orders to a person who had some reputation as a pastrycook,
+despatched at twelve at night three servants, each with a _sennýah_,
+or round tray, on which they were to bring back from Sayda by daylight
+the _baklâawy_, _mamool_, and _karýby_, three delicious sorts of sweet
+cakes, which are scarcely exceeded in delicacy by the choicest pastry
+of Europe.
+
+At noon, the servants, dressed in all their new finery, sat down to a
+copious dinner composed of the most luxurious Eastern dishes. But
+there was no wine; for, whatever transgressions these people may
+commit in that way in private, they never touch wine in public.
+Logmagi and some others were known not to be much troubled with such
+scruples, when they could indulge themselves in secret: but Logmagi
+always excused himself on the score of being a Freemason, which is
+held in Turkey to be equivalent to a jovial fellow who does not care
+much what he does. The women, also, had their own feast, and a piece
+of gold the value of twenty piasters was presented to each of the
+servants. The day was literally abandoned to pleasure; but what a
+contrast do the sober manners of Mahometans form to those of
+Europeans? Gambling and noisy revels are out of the question in the
+tranquil and easy delights in this simple race. Dancing is generally
+confined to the boys, or to some buffoon who gets up and wriggles
+about to the music of a small tambourine, beaten with a single stick
+and producing a dull sound, which they consider musical, and which
+habit renders not disagreeable even to European ears. Every man smokes
+his pipe; and a good story-teller (for such a one is rarely wanting in
+a party of a dozen,) relates some traditionary tale, which absorbs for
+the time all the faculties of his hearers. The cook was one of this
+sort, a Christian of the village of Abra, a shrewd fellow, who went by
+the name of _Dyk_, or the Cock, from his rather strutting air, or from
+the vigorous exercise of his authority over his wife, whom he beat
+every now and then to keep her in proper discipline――a redeeming
+quality in the eyes of Lady Hester, who otherwise would have dismissed
+him from her service.
+
+Lady Hester’s astrological powers were put to a practical test to-day.
+Fatôom, one of her maid servants, whose name has frequently occurred
+in these pages, required my medical services, under the following
+circumstances. About six years before, having, in league with Zeyneb,
+a black girl, and some men of the village, robbed her mistress of
+several valuable effects, she was turned away: but, upon exhibiting
+great repentance, she was taken back again. Lady Hester found no
+difficulty, as may be supposed, in extracting from her a confession of
+the system of plunder that had been carried on, and the names of her
+accomplices. “I could hang them all,” was her constant expression in
+speaking of them. Fatôom had been in her ladyship’s service ten or
+eleven years, and was not yet twenty; and, being very pretty, and
+decked out in the finery to which she was enabled to help herself by
+her share of the plunder, she had vanity enough, when she was turned
+away, to hope that she should get at least an aga for a husband: but
+she was disappointed, and was obliged to put up with a small farmer.
+She consequently came back a married woman, in poor plight as to
+circumstances, with the prospect of having her difficulties aggravated
+by a speedy increase to her cares. On this day, 5th March, Fatôom
+complained of pains. There was not a moment to be lost: the midwife
+was instantly sent for; Fatôom was hurried away to her mother’s in the
+village, and, before the expiration of a quarter of an hour, she gave
+birth to a boy.
+
+As soon as Lady Hester learned the result, she requested me to go and
+see her. I found Fatôom sitting on a mattress on the floor (for nobody
+in the East has a bedstead) with from fifteen to twenty women squatted
+around her, the midwife supporting her back, and the child lying by
+her, covered with a corner of the quilt. Fatôom, very yellow, looked
+as if she had been in a great fright, and was astonished there was so
+little in it. After feeling her pulse, and delivering to her mother a
+basket of good things, such as lump sugar, six or eight sorts of
+spices, &c., with which it is customary to make the caudle upon these
+occasions, as also a new counterpane, and two silk pillows, for her
+lying-in present, I took a glance at the village gossips. There they
+were, holding forth much in the same way as the peasantry in other
+countries, with this difference, that here my presence was no
+restraint, and the minutest details of the recent event were discussed
+with as little reserve as if they had been talking of the ordinary
+incidents of the day.
+
+Having returned to Lady Hester with an account of what I had seen, she
+immediately set about casting the infant’s nativity, first
+ascertaining accurately the hour at which he was born――a quarter
+before two. “He will have,” said she, “arched eyebrows, rolling eyes,
+and a nose so and so: he will be a devil, violent in his passions, but
+soon pacified: his fingers will be long and taper, without being
+skinny and bony:” and thus she went on, in a manner so impressed with
+faith and earnestness, that it is not to be wondered at how persons of
+good judgment have lent their ears to astrologers, where the study has
+been fortified by a previous knowledge of man, his temperaments, and
+the innate and external characteristics of passions, of virtue, and of
+vice. She gave him the name of Selim, and sent word to say his star
+agreed with hers very well. This was good news for Fatôom, as it was
+equivalent to Lady Hester’s taking charge of the infant.
+
+The cradle had already been prepared: it was of wood, painted green,
+something like a trough, and perforated at the bottom, as is usual in
+the East. A tube of wood with a bowl to it, exactly of the form of a
+tobacco-pipe, is tied to the child’s waist, a rude but ingenious
+contrivance to save trouble to the nurse, the bowl serving as the
+immediate recipient, and the tube passing through the side of the
+cradle.[35]
+
+March 7.――This being Wednesday, Lady Hester, as usual, was invisible.
+What she did on these mysterious days I never heard: for a person
+once away from her might as well divine how the man in the moon was
+employed as guess how she was passing her time.
+
+Thursday, March 8.――I saw Lady Hester about four o’clock: she was in a
+very irritable state: she complained bitterly, as usual, of her
+servants――of their neglect, ignorance, and heartlessness: she said she
+would rather be surrounded by robbers; for there is some principle
+amongst thieves. “Oh!” she exclaimed, “that I could find one human
+being who knew his Creator!”
+
+She went on:――“I have had a very bad night, and whether I shall live
+or die, I don’t know: but this I tell you beforehand, that, if I do
+die, I wish to be buried, like a dog, in a bit of earth just big
+enough to hold this miserable skin, or else to be burnt, or thrown
+into the sea. And, as I am no longer an English subject, no consuls,
+nor any English of any sort, shall approach me in my last moments;
+for, if they do, I will have them shot. Therefore, the day before I
+die, if I know it, I shall order you away, and not only you, but
+everything English; and if you don’t go, I warn you beforehand, you
+must take the consequences. Let me be scorched by the burning
+sun[36]――frozen by the cold blast――let my ashes fly in the air――let
+the wolves and jackals devour my carcase;――let”――here the agitation
+she was in, and which had kept increasing, brought on a severe fit of
+coughing, and it was a quarter of an hour before she could recover
+strength enough to speak again. Her exhaustion reduced her to a little
+calm.
+
+After dinner I saw her again, but now her irritability had passed
+away. “Take your chair,” said she, “here by the bed――turn your back to
+the window to save your poor eyes from the light――never mind me:
+there――I am afraid I have overworked them by so much writing. But I
+know, if you did not write for me, you would be writing or reading for
+yourself: you are just like my sister Griselda.”
+
+She went on:――“You are angry with me, I dare say, because I told you I
+would not have you near me when I am dying: but I suppose I may do as
+I please. No English consul shall touch me or my effects: no: when I
+was going, sooner than that, I will call in all the thieves and
+robbers I can find, and set them to plunder and destroy everything.
+But I shall not die so:――I shall die as St. Elias and Isaac did; and,
+before that, I shall have to wade through blood up to here” (and she
+drew her hand across her neck), “nor will a spark of commiseration
+move me. The _bab el tobi_ [gate of pardon] will then be shut; for
+neither king, nor priest, nor peasant, shall enter when that hour
+comes. You and others will then repent of not having listened to my
+words.”
+
+Saturday, March 10.――Let us take this night as a sample of many
+others, to show sometimes what was doing in a solitary residence on
+Mount Lebanon, in which the vivid fancies of European writers had
+conjured up an imaginary mode of existence wholly different from the
+sad reality. From eight o’clock at night until one in the morning,
+Lady Hester Stanhope had kept the house in commotion, upon matters
+which would seem so foreign to her rank, her fortune, and her supposed
+occupations, that, when enumerated, they will hardly be believed.
+First, there was a deliberation of half an hour to decide whether it
+would be best to send the mules on the next day or the day after for
+wheat: then several servants were to be questioned, one after another,
+in order to compare their conflicting testimony, whether her fields of
+barley had come up, and how high, and what crops they promised; next,
+whether the oranges, now fit to be gathered, should be put under the
+gardener’s care, or into a store-room in the house. Then ensued a
+conversation with me, whether Fatôom was not playing some deep game in
+pretending to be separated from her husband; and so on, with a score
+of other topics equally unimportant, but with all of which she worried
+herself so effectively, that it seemed as if she wilfully sought
+refuge in such petty annoyances, for the sake of escaping from secret
+heart-burnings, which she did not choose to betray. In this way she
+had the secretary called up twice from his bed, and the bailiff once,
+keeping the rest of the servants in continual motion, whilst I was
+obliged, in civility, to sit and listen to it all.
+
+Old Pierre had been sent for from Dayr el Kamar. As a person who
+figures occasionally in these domestic scenes, I must make the reader
+a little acquainted with his history. In the year 1812, when Lady
+Hester was travelling from Jerusalem along the coast towards Damascus,
+we reached Dayr el Kamar, where Pierre came and offered himself to me
+as a servant. I took him; but his various talents as a cook, a guide,
+and an interpreter, and most of all as an adventurer, who had an
+extraordinary fund of anecdotes to relate, soon brought him into
+notice with Lady Hester, and she asked him of me for her own service.
+He accompanied us to Palmyra and through different parts of Syria,
+resided with her at Latakia and Mar Elias, and remained in her service
+many years. Having amassed a little money, he obtained permission to
+retire to Dayr el Kamar, where he kept a cook’s-shop, or, if you will,
+a tavern.
+
+But Lady Hester never lost sight of him. From time to time, when any
+traveller left her house to traverse Mount Lebanon, or to journey to
+Damascus and Aleppo, or even to Palmyra, Pierre was recommended as
+interpreter and guide, and, I understand, always discharged his duties
+to the satisfaction of his employers. He is known to many Englishmen,
+among the rest to the Rev. Mr. Way, who seems to have been very good
+to him; and Pierre, on his side, retains a most grateful remembrance
+of that gentleman’s bounty.
+
+Pierre springs from a good family, by the name of Marquis or Marquise,
+originally of Marseilles, and afterwards established as merchants in
+Syria. When he was a boy, he accompanied an uncle to France, who took
+him to Paris. The uncle wore the Levantine dress; and, having some
+business to transact connected with government, was on one occasion
+summoned to Versailles, where the court was. Chance or design threw
+Pierre in the way of the king, Louis XVI., who talked to him about the
+Levant, as did also Monsieur, afterwards Louis XVIII. Of this
+conversation Pierre never failed to make considerable boast.
+
+On his return to Syria, Pierre lived with his relations, until
+Buonaparte laid siege to Acre, where his knowledge of the French
+language recommended him to the notice of that general. He bore a
+commission in his army; and, on the retreat of the French into Egypt,
+accompanied them, and remained there until the final evacuation, when
+he obtained a pension; but of which, he declared, he had never touched
+a sou, in consequence of residing abroad.
+
+Mons. Urbain, a contributor to the _Temps_, happening to meet with
+Pierre when he was travelling in Syria, was so highly diverted with
+his anecdotes, that, on his return to France, he wrote no less than
+three _feuilletons_, or notices on _Le Vieux Pierre_; at least, so I
+was informed by Monsieur Guys.
+
+Pierre had been sent for by Lady Hester Stanhope, and she assigned him
+a room close to the doors of her own quadrangle, that he might be
+always within call. Pierre was a man exceedingly thin, with an
+aquiline nose, and a steady eye, full of gasconade to be mistaken for
+courage, wonderfully loquacious, and deeply imbued with all the mystic
+doctrines that Lady Hester sometimes preached about. But Pierre’s
+chief merit lay in his star, which, she assured me, was so propitious
+to her, that it could calm her convulsions, and lay her to sleep, when
+books, narcotics, and everything else failed.
+
+Glancing in these desultory memorials from one person to another, I
+may here mention, that one of the maids, named Sâady, incurred the
+particular aversion of Lady Hester, just as strongly as Pierre was
+favoured with her partiality. Poor Sâady never entered her presence
+without being saluted by some epithet of disgust or opprobium: yet
+Sâady worked from morning till night, and seldom got to bed until
+three, four, or five o’clock in the morning. But Lady Hester insisted
+on the necessity of treating her servants in this way for the purpose
+of keeping them on the alert; and she would frequently quote her
+grandfather’s example to prove how powerful particular aversions were
+in people of exalted minds――such as hers and his. In this way she kept
+herself in a state of constant irritation, as if she were determined
+obstinately to oppose the inroads of disease by increased exertion,
+exactly in proportion as her physical strength became more and more
+weakened and reduced.
+
+Monday, March 12.――Two servant boys were flogged by Logmagi for having
+quitted the courtyard both at the same time, when one at least was
+wanted to carry messages from the inner to the outer courts. These
+punishments were inflicted by making the delinquent lie at his full
+length flat on the ground, his head being held by one servant, and his
+feet by another while the stripes were administered. My disposition
+revolted at these whippings; although perhaps they were necessary, as
+Lady Hester said. The servants would not have borne them, but that
+they had in fact no choice, knowing well that they must either remain
+and be flogged, or be sent to the Nizàm, where they would be flogged
+twice as much, with the risk of being killed to boot.
+
+Wednesday, March 14.――Lady Hester was in very low spirits this
+evening, and, as night advanced, she had a paroxysm of grief, which
+quite terrified me. With a ghastly and frenzied look, she kept crying
+until my heart was rent with her wretchedness. When I left her for the
+night, although she was somewhat composed, her image haunted me, even
+when sleep had closed my eyes.
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [34] No dependant stands before his superior in the East
+          without covering his hands with his robe or with the
+          hanging sleeves customary among Orientals. In sitting,
+          the feet and legs are likewise hidden; at least, so
+          good-breeding requires, and persons alone who are on
+          terms of familiarity would thrust them out, or let
+          them hang pendent.
+
+     [35] In the cottages of Mount Lebanon there are many things
+          occurring daily which would greatly surprise an
+          English practitioner. A luxation of the shoulder-joint
+          in an infant, real or supposed, was cured, they told
+          me, by taking the child by the wrist and swinging it
+          round with its feet off the ground, until the bone got
+          into place again. I assisted, for the second time, at
+          the cure of a sore throat, in a man thirty-six years
+          of age, who suffered a pocket-handkerchief to be drawn
+          tightly round his neck until his face turned black
+          and he was half strangled. The man declared the next
+          day he was well, and the operator assured me it was a
+          never-failing remedy.
+
+     [36]    “Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis
+              Arbor æstivâ recreatur aurâ,” &c.
+
+          Yet Lady Hester had never read Horace.
+
+
+
+
+                                CHAPTER X.
+
+Visit of Mr. Vesey Forster and Mr. Knox――Lady S. N.’s pension and Mr.
+H.――Lady Hester undeservedly censured by English travellers――Mr. Anson
+and Mr. Strangways――Mr. B. and Mr. C.――Captain Pechell――Captain
+Yorke――Colonel Howard Vyse――Lord B.
+
+
+Mr. Forster and Mr. Knox, two English gentlemen, came up to Jôon this
+morning to pay a visit to Lady Hester. To my great surprise, I found
+them seated at the porter’s lodge among the servants, who were
+standing around them; a situation to which they accommodated
+themselves with the good sense of men of the world. They had sent in a
+message that two Franks were at the gate, having a letter for the Syt
+Mylady, and were patiently awaiting the result.
+
+I took the liberty of inquiring their names, and hastened to her
+ladyship; whilst orders were given to conduct them immediately to the
+strangers’ room. Lady Hester, who had got their letter in her hand,
+told me one was a relation of Sir Augustus Forster, our ambassador at
+Turin. “Go instantly to them,” said she, “for Sir Augustus is an old
+friend of mine, and be particularly attentive to Mr. Forster――indeed,
+to both of them. Tell them, I am very sorry I can’t see them; for,
+when I get into conversation, I become animated, and then I feel the
+effects of it afterwards; but assure them that they are welcome to
+make their home of their present lodging for a couple of days or a
+couple of hours, or as long as they like. Do they look gentlemanlike?”
+she asked. “Ah!” continued she, “what a charm good-breeding gives to
+mankind, and how odious vulgarity is after it! Only reflect! I, who
+have been all my life accustomed to the most refined society, what I
+must feel sometimes to have nothing to do but with beasts. But go, go!
+and make them as comfortable as you can.”
+
+They were in the strangers’ room, which stood in a small garden,
+ornamented with a few rose-bushes, pomegranate and olive-trees, and
+some flowering plants. It was a little enclosure, which had by no
+means a disagreeable aspect, surrounded by a wall topped with prickly
+thorn-bushes. Once inside this place, the new comer could know nothing
+of what was passing without. Such were Lady Hester’s contrivances:
+everything about her must wear an air of mystery.
+
+I lost no time in conveying Lady Hester’s message to them, and, for
+the short hour I enjoyed the pleasure of their conversation, had every
+reason to rejoice in the opportunity of making their acquaintance. As
+this visit of two travellers may serve as a specimen of what occurred,
+with slight variations, on every similar occasion, when Englishmen
+came to her house, who were little aware how much trouble their
+unexpected arrival sometimes caused her, I shall detail what passed as
+minutely as I can.
+
+I had hardly paid my compliments to them, and inquired whether they
+would take an English breakfast or something more solid, when a
+message came from Lady Hester to say she wanted to see me for a
+moment. This was always her way. The ruling passion of ordering what
+was to be done and what was to be said on all occasions made her
+impatient about things passing out of her sight.
+
+“Well, doctor,” cried Lady Hester, “what age do they appear to be, and
+where do they come from?” Having satisfied her on the first head, I
+told her they were last from the Emir’s palace at Btedýn: then, after
+some trifling observation, I added, the Emir complained to them that
+M. Lamartine, in his recent work on Syria, had greatly compromised him
+with Ibrahim Pasha, in having said that he, the Emir, had entertained
+the most friendly dispositions towards Buonaparte and the French
+during the siege of Acre. This the Emir denied, and averred that his
+great friend was Sir Sydney Smith: meaning, probably, as I observed
+from myself, to compliment his present guests at the expense of the
+absent French. “He was very civil to the two travellers,” I added,
+“and, understanding they were going to see your ladyship, he sent his
+compliments to you.”――“Ah!” replied she, “that looks as if he were
+fishing for friends, in case he should shortly have to fly; for they
+say that Sherýf Pasha has been defeated in the Horàn, and the Emir
+begins to tremble; for the Druzes will not spare him.”
+
+I then told Lady Hester they had refused tea or coffee, but, as they
+were come from a distance, would probably like something more
+substantial: they had expressed, too, a wish for a glass of lemonade.
+Here Lady Hester, suddenly raising herself in her bed, interrupted me
+with “Good God!――lemonade! why, the maid said that the secretary had
+been to ask for some violet syrup for them: now, which is it they
+want? Can nobody ever take upon them to direct the simplest thing but
+they must blunder? must everything fall upon me?”――“Well, but,”
+observed I, “lemonade, or violet syrup, it does not much matter
+which!”――“Not matter!――there it is again: and then who is there can
+make lemonade?――not a soul but myself in the whole house: and poor I
+am obliged to wear my little strength out in doing the most trivial
+offices. Here I am; I wanted to write another letter to go by the
+steamboat, and now all my thoughts are driven out of my head.
+Zezefôon!” (ding, ding, ding, went the bell) “Zezefôon! order the
+gardener to bring me four or five of the finest lemons on the tree
+next the alley of roses――you know where I mean――and prepare a tray
+with glasses.” This was accordingly done, and Lady Hester, sitting up
+in bed, went to work squeezing lemons and making lemonade.
+
+In my way to her ladyship’s room from the strangers’, I had called the
+cook, and directed him to dress a mutton-chop, to make a vermicelli
+soup, a dish of spinach and eggs, a little tunny-fish salad, and with
+a cold rice pudding (which I recollected and sent for from my house),
+and some Parmesan cheese, I trusted there would be enough for a hasty
+meal. Whilst making the lemonade, the following conversation went on.
+“Now, doctor, what can be got for their _déjeûner à la fourchette_?
+for there is nothing whatever in the house.” I mentioned what I had
+ordered. “Ah! yes,” resumed Lady Hester, “let me see:――there is a stew
+of yesterday’s, that I did not touch, that may be warmed up again, and
+some potatoes may be added; and then you must taste that wine that
+came yesterday from Garýfy, to see if you think they will like it. The
+spinach my maid must do. Dyk” (the cook) “does not know how to dress
+spinach, but I have taught Zezefôon to do it very well.” (Ding, ding,
+ding.) “Zezefôon, you know how to boil spinach in milk, and you must
+garnish it with five eggs, one in each corner, and one in the
+centre.”――“Yes, Sytty.”――“And, Zezefôon, send the _yackney_” (stew)
+“to Dyk, and let it be warmed up for the strangers. They must have
+some of my butter and some of my bread. Likewise give out the silver
+spoons and knives and forks; they are under that cushion on the
+ottoman, there; and mind you count them when you give them to
+Mohammed, or they will steal one, and dispute with you afterwards
+about the number:――a pack of thieves! And let the cook send in the
+dishes necessary: for I will not have any of mine go out.
+
+“You must tell the travellers, doctor, and especially Mr. Forster, for
+he is an Irishman, that I have a great deal of Irish and Scotch blood
+in me, and no English. Tell him I have made great investigations on
+the subject of the origin of the Scotch, and could prove to him that
+they came originally from this country. Tell him how beautiful the
+Irish women are, and that I, having had opportunities of seeing some
+of the finest Circassians and Georgians of the harýms of great Turks
+here and at Constantinople, think there are none like Irish women.
+
+“If Mr. Forster asks you anything about the Druzes (as he seems to
+interest himself concerning the religion of that people), say to him
+that the Druzes, the Ansàries, the Ishmäelites――all these sects――must
+and will remain a mystery to strangers. There was Monsieur Reynaud,
+one of the forty _savants_ who wrote the great book on Egypt, and was
+afterwards consul at Sayda――if any body could comprehend the secret,
+he could; yet, although he had four of the Druze books in his
+possession, and five learned persons of this country to assist him in
+translating and explaining them through a whole winter, he could make
+out nothing: because, even if you understand the text, you are still
+not a bit the wiser. Suppose, for example, you open a page, and you
+find these words――‘Do you use senna leaves?’ which is one of their
+questions of recognition, like similar apparently vague questions in
+freemasonry: what do you know about that? You may understand the
+answer clearly enough, so far as mere words go; but it is useless
+unless you understand the thing of which the words are a symbol; for
+they are all symbolical. You must know that it refers to an insurgent,
+who, in the cause of their faith, raised the standard of revolt,
+centuries ago, in the land where senna grows, and that it implies, ‘Do
+you adopt his tenets?’ and so of other passages. The chiefs of their
+religion cannot make any disclosures; for, if they did, their lives
+would be the forfeit. Tell him they are a bold, sanguinary race, who
+will cut a man in pieces themselves, or see it done by others, and
+never change colour. Why, one of them, not long since, killed or
+wounded with his own hands five of Ibrahim Pasha’s soldiers, who were
+sent to seize him as a refractory recruit.”
+
+Here Lady Hester, having finished making the lemonade, stopped for a
+moment to desire Zezefôon to take it out and send it to the strangers’
+room. She then resumed, “Tell them, doctor, that no people will bear a
+flogging like the Druzes. The Spartans were nothing to them: isn’t it
+the Spartans that were such floggers? for I am such a dunce that I
+never can recollect some things which every schoolboy knows; and I
+always said I was a dunce in some things, although Mr. Pitt used to
+say, ‘Hester, if you would but keep your own counsel, nobody could
+detect it.’ But it is the truth, and when you talk to me of paper
+money and the funds (although I may understand for the moment what you
+try to explain to me), I forget it all the next morning: yet, on
+subjects which my inclination leads me to investigate, nobody has a
+better judgment. My father, with all his mathematical knowledge, used
+to say I could split a hair. Talk to the point, was his cry: and I
+could bring truth to a point as sharp as a needle. I divested a
+subject of all extraneous matter, and there it was――you might turn and
+twist it as you would, but you must always come back to that.
+
+“The Druzes like me, and all the Emir Beshýr’s hatred of me arose from
+my friendship for the Shaykh Beshýr.[37] After you left me, I went to
+stay with him at Makhtâra, where he assigned me a wing of the palace
+to live in. He was a clever man, and afterwards, in his troubles, came
+to me for advice and succour: he offered me a third of his treasures,
+but I refused them. When he fled, the Emir Beshýr got about a third of
+them; an equal portion they say is buried: and the remainder was
+carried off by his wife, but afterwards lost. Poor woman! she is dead
+now. It was the attempt to relieve her, amongst other causes, that
+drew me into embarrassments. She had fled――her husband was a captive
+at Acre――and the Emir was pursuing her in every direction to take her
+life. The snow was thick on the ground. She had with her a child at
+the breast, one two years old, and another: two were with the father
+in prison. I despatched people with clothes and money to relieve her
+immediate wants; they found her in the Horàn, where she had taken
+refuge with an old servant. Her daughter also applied to me for
+assistance, but I was penniless, and could do nothing for her. Poor
+girl! she was afterwards married, but Ibrahim Pasha cut off her
+husband’s head, and she went raving mad. To complete the tragedy,
+Hanah Abôod, one of those I sent to look after her, fell asleep out of
+weariness, after having returned home on foot through the snow, and
+got an inflammation in his eyes, which ended in total blindness. The
+journey back occupied I think forty hours. I have been obliged
+partially to maintain the poor fellow and Werdy, his wife, ever since.
+
+“Perhaps, doctor, Mr. Forster and Mr. Knox may have heard of the
+extraordinary conduct of the English government towards me; so let
+them know that I am not low-spirited about it; and, although the Queen
+may think herself justified in taking away my pension, I would not,
+even if I were a beggar, change places with her. As for the Queen’s
+interfering in my affairs, she might just as well go and stop Sir
+Augustus Forster’s salary, on the plea that he had left his tailor’s
+bill unpaid. My debts were incurred very often for things I did not
+care about for myself. For example, what are books to me, who never
+look into them? If I had been like you doctors, who tell your patients
+to take turtle soup, and then contrive to be asked to dinner, it were
+another thing: but my researches were for the good of others, and for
+no advantage of my own.
+
+“When I think what I have done, and what I could have done if I had
+had more money! There was a book came into my hands, which the owner,
+not knowing its value, offered for my acceptance as you would offer an
+old brass candlestick. I consulted several persons about it; and, when
+all assured me it was a valuable manuscript, I scorned to take
+advantage of the man’s ignorance, and returned it to him, telling him
+when I was rich enough I would buy it of him. Ought not a person to
+act so?” “Undoubtedly,” I replied, “a person of principle would not
+act otherwise.” “Principle!” she exclaimed; “what do you mean by
+principle?――I am a Pitt.”
+
+As I did not understand precisely why a Pitt should be above
+principle, although it would seem there is a species of integrity
+higher than principle itself, I held my tongue, and Lady Hester went
+on. “I know where to find a book that contains the language spoken by
+Adam and Eve:[38] the letters are a span high. Such things have fallen
+into my hands as have fallen into nobody’s else. I know where the
+serpent is that has the head of a man, like the one that tempted Eve.
+The cave still exists not far from Tarsûs; and the villages all about
+are exempted from the _miri_ in consideration of feeding the serpents.
+Everybody in that neighbourhood knows it: isn’t it extraordinary? why
+don’t you answer? is it, or is it not? Good God! I should go mad if I
+were obliged to remain three whole days together in your society――I’m
+sure I should. Such a cold man I never saw; there is no getting an
+answer from you: however, think as you like. These serpents will march
+through the country to fight for the Messiah, and will devour
+everything before them.” Here she paused for about a minute, and then
+added, “I think you had better not tell them anything about the
+serpents; perhaps their minds are not prepared for matters of this
+sort.”
+
+I have already observed that Monsieur Guys had mentioned, with some
+surprise, the serious manner in which Lady Hester spoke of these
+serpents; and, although he did not express it, yet he half intimated
+that he thought her intellects a little disordered: we shall see
+hereafter if they were so.
+
+Lady Hester resumed: “But now, doctor, if you can spare a minute, you
+must write a line by the messenger to Monsieur Guys, and tell him I
+had begun a letter to him, but that the arrival of two English
+travellers, one of whom revived a number of recollections, had obliged
+me to stop short, and I could write no more. Doctor, this Mr. Forster
+must be one of the children of the Irish Speaker. He was left with
+ten; and I remember very well one day that H******** was standing
+before me at a party, making a number of bows and scrapes, turning up
+his eyes, and cringing before me so, that when we got home, Mr. Pitt
+said to me, ‘Hester, if I am not too curious, what could H********
+have to say that animated him so much: what could he be making such
+fine speeches about: what could call forth such an exuberance of
+eloquence in him?’――‘Oh! it was nothing,’ answered I; ‘he was telling
+me that all the power of the Treasury was at my service――that he would
+take care that Lady S**** N*****’s pension should be got through the
+different offices immediately――that he had nothing so much at heart as
+to execute my orders――that he would see all that was necessary should
+be done according to my wishes, and so on; but, as I despise the man,
+I only laughed at him and turned my back on him; for I drink at the
+fountain head.’
+
+“‘Now, this is really too good a thing,’ interrupted Mr. Pitt, lifting
+up his eyes in astonishment. ‘It was but this very day, at three
+o’clock, that he was urging me not to let this very pension be given,
+or at least to prolong the business for a year, if it were possible;
+till, by tiring her patience, the thing might be dropped, or something
+turn up to set it aside; adding, that it would be opening the door to
+abuses, and, if I granted this too readily, I should have Forster’s
+ten children to provide for.’”
+
+Lady Hester went on: “From that day, I knew my man. I then said to Mr.
+Pitt, ‘Let me show him who he has to deal with; do give your orders
+that the thing may be done immediately.’――‘Oh! but it is too late
+to-night,’ said Mr. Pitt. ‘No, it is not,’ I cried; ‘for I see a light
+in the Treasury.’ So I rang, and sent for” (here her ladyship
+mentioned a name which I could not catch, but I think it was Mr.
+Chinnery)――. When he came, I said to him, ‘Will you be so good, sir,
+the first thing in the morning, to see that all the signatures are put
+to Lady S. N.’s paper: there is Mr. Pitt; ask him if it is so or not.’
+Mr. Pitt of course assented, and there the matter ended. Doctor, I had
+a great deal of trouble with those sort of people, like H――――. Now, if
+Mr. Forster is about thirty-five years old, he must be one of that
+family.[39]
+
+“Do tell Mr. Forster what a pack of beasts those servants are. Ask him
+if he ever heard of women throwing themselves down to sleep in the
+middle of a courtyard, or on the floor of a kitchen, dragging their
+quilt after them from place to place: tell him that is what mine do,
+and that I am obliged to wait a quarter of an hour for a glass of
+water.
+
+“You may talk to them a little about stars, but I dare say you will
+commit some horrible blunder, as you always do, and that is what makes
+me so afraid of your having to say anything that concerns me. Tell Mr.
+Forster that in people’s stars lie their abilities, and that you may
+bring up a hundred men to be generals and another hundred to be
+lawyers, but out of these perhaps four or five only will turn out good
+for anything. When a grand Llama is to be chosen, why do they go about
+until they have found a particular boy with certain marks, known to
+the learned of that country――a child born under a certain star? It is
+because, when they have found such a one, he has no occasion for
+instruction; he is born the man for their purpose.
+
+“Thus, the Duke of Wellington is not a general by trade――I mean by
+instruction; for, if examined before a court-martial on all the
+branches of military tactics, perhaps he would be found deficient.
+Hundreds may know more of them than he does: but he is a general by
+his star. He acts under a certain impulse, which makes him hit on the
+stratagem he ought to practise, and, without the help of previous
+study or even the suggestions of experience, he knows that his
+manœuvre is right. It was thus with me when I was young. People might
+preach and talk; but, when I saw them doing things or reasoning about
+them, I could at once distinguish the things that were right from the
+things that were wrong; but I could not say why or wherefore. My
+father said I was the best logician he ever saw――I could split a hair.
+The last time he saw me, he repeated the same words, and said I had
+but one fault, which was being too fond of royalty.”
+
+I observed here to Lady Hester, that in many things she reminded me of
+the ancient philosophers, to whom she bore a strong resemblance on
+most points; but that in this one particular she differed from them
+widely, as most of them were strenuously opposed to royalty and
+monarchical power. “My liking for royalty,” she answered, “is not,
+indiscriminate, but I believe in the divine right of kings; for I have
+found it out. And you may ask Mr. Forster also why the bottle of oil
+came from India to anoint the kings of France. I dare say they never
+heard of Melek es Sayf, a hero whose exploits and name are hardly
+inferior in the East to those of Solomon. Is it not extraordinary,
+that in Europe they know nothing of those people――of him and his forty
+sons, all of whom were men of note in their time? This must be so; for
+some of the gates of Cairo are named after them.
+
+“If you happen to speak about the Albanians and the other soldiers
+that I had here, tell them I did not see them all; I only saw the most
+desperate, and those whose violence was to be kept under. When I
+admitted them to my presence, I was always alone, and they always wore
+their arms; but I never feared them.”
+
+Thus Lady Hester went on talking: the dish of potatoes, the dessert,
+and several other things were forgotten. So, reminding her that Mr.
+Forster and Mr. Knox must be all this time marvelling what could have
+detained me, I at last made my escape. In the mean while, the
+breakfast had been served up as well as the resources of the place
+would admit. The scene must have been highly curious to her ladyship’s
+guests, who could not fail to be amused as well as surprised at the
+sight of a deal table, rush-bottomed chairs, cheese put on first and a
+pudding in a copper dish after it, with other anomalies that would
+have made even a third-rate Brummell shudder. But the occasions for
+eating in the European way in Lady Hester’s house occurred very
+rarely, and the servants, who were habituated to Turkish usages or to
+the mongrel service of some Levantine dragoman, had no notions of the
+regulations of an English table. In my own house, I had two tolerably
+well-trained boys; but there was an interdict against their ever
+crossing the threshold of Lady Hester’s gate, in order that no
+information of what was going on within her walls should be carried
+out to the female part of my family. In the most common concerns, Lady
+Hester’s servants made much bustle and did little. They ran in
+different directions, jostled and crossed each other half a dozen at a
+time for the same thing, entirely reversing one of her favourite
+maxims, that everything in a great person’s house should be done as if
+by magic, and nobody should know who it was set it a going. These
+servants had but one spring of action, and that was the _bakshysh_, or
+present, which they all looked for on the departure of a stranger. It
+was a painful thought to me, as these gentlemen left the gate, that,
+when they were about to mount their horses, the mercenary spirit of
+such a set of varlets might be charged to the connivance of the
+mistress.
+
+The two travellers made a miserable repast, and, when it was over,
+signified their desire to take leave. It seems they had taken Lady
+Hester’s invitation “to make the place their home for two hours or two
+days” in its literal acceptation; and it is scarcely necessary to say
+that there was no time for me to enter into an explanation on the
+subject, nor, indeed, to deliver a tenth part of the discursive matter
+with which Lady Hester had charged me. It was from these gentlemen I
+learned, for the first time, that a committee had been appointed, on
+the motion of Mr. D. W. Harvey, for inquiring into the pensions on the
+civil list. It had so happened that no newspapers had reached us for a
+long time, and, consequently, this was the first intimation her
+ladyship had received of a measure in which it might be supposed she
+felt no inconsiderable interest, although in reality she did not.
+
+As Mr. Forster and his friend had to cross a deep valley and mount a
+steep ascent before they could take the road to Beyrout, to which town
+they were now going, I sent Ali Hayshem, the messenger, to put them on
+their way. He returned in the course of an hour or two, and was
+despatched the same evening on foot, with letters to Beyrout, where he
+arrived next day before Messieurs Knox and Forster. He told me, on his
+return, that their surprise was very great on finding him at the inn,
+knowing that they had left him behind them, the morning before, up the
+mountain. Ali’s account of Mr. Forster’s regimentals, in which he saw
+him dressed at Beyrout, was very flaming: and from that day, in
+speaking of the two, he always distinguished him from Mr. Knox by the
+title of ‘the general.’
+
+Lady Hester deeply regretted that she was not able to see these
+gentlemen. “Ah!” said she, “how many times have I been abused by the
+English when I did not deserve it, and for nothing so much as for not
+seeing people, when perhaps it was quite out of my power! There was
+Mr. Anson and Mr. Strangways, who, because I refused to see them, sat
+down under a tree, and wrote me such a note! Little did they know that
+I had not a bit of barley in the house for their horses, and nothing
+for their dinner. I could not tell them so; but they might have had
+feeling enough to suppose it was not without some good reason that I
+declined their visit. Many a pang has their ill-nature given me, as
+well as that of others. I have got the note[40] still somewhere.
+
+“Among the visitors I have had was the duchess of Gontaut’s brother,
+she that brought up the Duke of Bordeaux. I supposed she must have
+talked of me to her brother, whom I never recollect: however, he came
+with his two sons; but I would not see him. It was that time when
+Monsieur Guys, after sitting and staring at me some minutes,
+exclaimed――‘Madam, when I see you dressed in that abah’ (the Bedouin
+cloak), ‘in that _keffiah_’ (the Bedouin vizor), ‘and when I think you
+are that Lady Hester Stanhope, _qui faisoit la pluie et le beau temps
+à Londres_, I am lost in wonder how you could have come and fixed
+yourself in these desolate mountains.’
+
+“Another of Charles the Tenth’s courtiers came here, but a higher
+personage, whom I also refused to see: he was dreadfully savage about
+it too. I fancy Charles the Tenth had a secret intention of resigning
+the crown, and of coming to this country to finish his days in the
+Holy Land like another St. Louis? and I think this man had something
+to ask me about it: however, I refused to see him. But it was not
+caprice, nor, as this proves, was it Englishmen alone I denied myself
+to. Sometimes I was not well enough to sustain a conversation――sometimes
+I had no provisions in the house, perhaps no servant who knew how to
+set a table; but travellers never fancied that there could be any
+other reason for my refusal, but the determination to affront them.
+God knows, when I could, I was willing to receive anybody.
+
+“Once I had a visit from two persons whom we will call Mr. A. and Mr.
+B., or Mr. B. and Mr. C.――what letter you like. I thought Mr. B. very
+stupid, but, good God! doctor, there never was anything so vulgar as
+Mr. C. When I got his note to ask leave to come, the name deceived me;
+I thought he might be a son of Admiral C. But when he came into the
+room with his great thighs and pantaloons so tight that he could
+hardly sit down, I thought he was more like a butcher than anything
+else. He was a man entirely without breeding, with his Ma’ams and
+ladyships. I asked him a few questions, as――‘Pray, sir, will you allow
+me to ask if you are a relation of Admiral C’s.?’――‘No, ma’am, I am no
+relation at all.’――‘Will you permit me to inquire what is the motive
+of your visit to me?’――‘Only to see your ladyship, ma’am.’――‘Do you
+come to this country with any particular object?’――‘To be a
+merchant.’――‘You are probably conversant in mercantile affairs?’――‘No,
+ma’am, I am come to learn,’――and so on. After some time, I told them
+that I never saw people in the morning, and would take my leave of
+them, as they probably would wish to set off early; and I desired them
+to order what they liked for their breakfast. Next morning, when I
+thought, as a matter of course, they were gone, in came a note from
+them to say, they were not going till next day, and then another to
+say they did not know, and then a third to say that, as they expected
+ships, and God knows what, they must go.――Good God! they might go to
+the devil for me: I had taken my leave of them, and there was an end
+of it. Mr. C. was a downright vulgar merchant’s clerk, come to Syria,
+I suppose, to set up for himself. Lord St. Asaph said to me――‘Lady
+Hester, you really should consider who you are, and not allow people
+of that description to pay visits to you.’
+
+“There was a man who bore a great resemblance to the Duke of Cambridge
+and the Duke of Clarence, but something between both, who passed two
+or three years in this neighbourhood and sometimes came to see me; he
+was good-natured, and I liked him. He went about with a sort of
+pedlar’s box, full of trinkets and gewgaws to show to the peasant
+woman, thus bringing the whole population of the village out of their
+houses: and then giving away beads and earrings to get the young girls
+around him.
+
+“Of the English, who have visited me here, I liked Captain Pechell and
+Captain Yorke very much, and thought them both clever men.
+
+“Colonel Howard Vyse one day came up to the village and wrote me a
+note, and did everything he could to see me. He was an old
+Coldstream:――it broke my heart not to see him; but it would have
+revived too many melancholy reflections. Poor man! I believe he was
+very much hurt; but I could not help it.
+
+“A man came here――I believe the only one who was saved out of a party
+that was killed going across the Desert――and asked me for a letter to
+the Arabs. I sent him away, telling him that he might just as well
+come and ask me for a pot of beer. What had I to do with their schemes
+and their navigation of the Euphrates? Yet, for this, this officer
+wrote verses upon the wall of the room against me.
+
+“Then Mr. Croix de la Barre came, but I could not see him. He said he
+wanted to talk politics with me, and learn the customs and manners of
+the natives. I should tire you, doctor, if I were to tell you how many
+have come. I saw Lord B******, when he was travelling, at the baths of
+Tiberias, where Abdallah Pasha happened to be. Lord B. proposed
+calling on the pasha, and equipped himself for that purpose with a
+pair of pistols and a _yatagàn_ in his girdle, after the fashion of a
+Turkish subaltern; for the Franks, who surrounded him as dragomans and
+menials, had taught him to adopt what accorded with their ideas of
+finery, and not what was suitable to his rank. Luckily, he mentioned
+his intention the day before to me, and I told him that there was a
+full dress of ceremony in Turkey as well as in Europe, and I lent him
+the most essential part of it, a _benýsh_,[41] with which he presented
+himself. At first there was some hesitation, on his entering the room
+with his people, as to which was the great Mylord; for his lordship’s
+doctor, who sat down close by him, and poked his head forward with an
+air of great attention to what the pasha said, made him doubt whether
+the doctor was not the chief personage; it being a part of Oriental
+etiquette that no dependant should obtrude himself into the least
+notice in his superior’s presence: nay, generally speaking, it is
+required that doctors, secretaries, dragomans, and the like, should
+remain standing during such interviews. This difficulty being got
+over, the pasha, after some questions about Lord B.’s health, asked
+him what brought him to Tiberias, a part of his province the least
+beautiful and most barren. The question would have led most persons to
+say that, knowing the pasha was there, he seized the opportunity of
+paying his respects to him, or some such complimentary speech. But
+Lord B., with a _naïveté_ somewhat plebeian, replied, that he came to
+see the baths. The pasha coldly desired that proper persons should
+show them to him, and soon after broke up the interview. The very
+attendants of his Highness were struck with the incivility and want of
+tact which Lord B. showed, and it was one of them who told me the
+story. But this was not all: the pasha, who is fond of consulting
+European doctors, requested Lord B., who was to depart next day, to
+leave his doctor behind for twenty-four hours; which request Lord B.
+refused. After he was gone, the pasha sent me a pelisse of
+considerable value, with a request that I should present it in his
+name to Lord B., but I returned it, saying Lord B. was gone; for I did
+not think his incivility deserved it. So much for English breeding!
+and then let them go and call the Turks barbarians.
+
+“Mr. Elliot came to see me from Constantinople, in order to make the
+pashas and governors of the neighbouring provinces treat me well. He
+fell ill, and I sent for the doctor of a frigate that was on the
+coast for him――a man who could kick his forehead with his toe. I
+quizzed Mr. Elliot a great deal.
+
+“But now, doctor, what did Mr. Forster say about the Scotch? If he
+agrees with me that they sprang from hereabouts, I might have given
+him some useful hints on that subject: but we will write him a
+letter[42] about it.”
+
+When I told her that Mr. Forster had spoken of a work of Sir Jonah
+Barrington’s on Ireland, in which it was said that Mr. Pitt got up the
+Irish rebellion in order to make the necessity of the Union more
+palatable to parliament, she observed that, if she met him, she would
+settle his business for him. “Mr. Pitt liked the Irish,” said she.
+“There were some fools who thought to pay their court by abusing them,
+and would talk of men’s legs like Irish porters, or some such stuff:
+but I always answered, they would be very much pleased to have their
+own so, which was much better than having them like a pair of tongs:
+and I was certain to observe a little smile of approbation in Mr.
+Pitt’s eyes, at what I had said.”
+
+In this way her ladyship would run on from topic to topic――with a
+rapidity and fluency which frequently rendered it difficult to
+preserve notes of even the heads of her discourse. Her health was
+slightly improved: she attended a little more closely to my advice,
+but still would never allow me to see her until her coughing fit was
+over, which usually lasted for about a couple of hours. Notwithstanding
+this, her pulse maintained a degree of vigour which was very
+extraordinary, considering the state of attenuation to which she was
+reduced. She had a great reluctance in touching on her bad symptoms,
+but dwelt readily on such as were favourable. “I certainly have got
+small abscesses,” she answered to me, “but it is not consumption:
+because there are hours in the day when my lungs are perfectly free,
+as there are others when I can hardly breathe. Sometimes, doctor, my
+pulse is entirely gone, or so thin――so thin!――as to be but just
+perceptible, and no more. You pretend to find it very readily and tell
+me it is not bad: but Zezefôon can’t feel it, and Sàada can’t feel it,
+and old Pierre has tried, and says the same. I think, too,” continued
+she, “I was a little delirious this morning; for, when I awoke, I
+asked where Zezefôon had gone, although there she was, sitting up on
+her mattress by my bedside before my eyes.”
+
+
+FOOTNOTES:
+
+     [37] The reader ought to be informed that, a few years
+          before this time, Beshýr Jumbalàt, a man of the first
+          family of the Druzes, had risen by his possessions
+          and influence to such power in Mount Lebanon as to
+          excite the jealousy of the Emir Beshýr, the recognized
+          prince of the Druzes, by right of investiture from
+          the Porte. The Emir (who is a Mussulman) entertained
+          such fears of being supplanted by a chief of his power
+          and popularity, that, after a variety of intrigues
+          and plots, he at last succeeded in effectually
+          awakening the distrust of Abdallah, the Pasha of Acre,
+          who finally united with the Emir in a plan for his
+          destruction. The person of the unfortunate Beshýr
+          Jumbalàt was accordingly seized, his palace razed to
+          the ground, and his possessions confiscated; nor was
+          their jealousy set at rest until they ultimately got
+          rid of him by strangulation.
+
+     [38] Ben Jonson, in his “Alchemist,” alludes to such a
+          book, “Ay, and a treatise penned by Adam.”
+
+     [39] It may be right to mention that Mr. Forster, as I
+          believe, is not one of the family alluded to in this
+          anecdote: but, as Lady Hester’s remarks hinged on his
+          name, I thought it best to retain it.
+
+     [40] This note I afterwards read and copied. These two
+          gentlemen presented themselves at the gate, and Lady
+          Hester dictated the following message to them, which
+          Miss Williams wrote:――“Lady Hester Stanhope presents
+          her compliments to Mr. Anson and Mr. Strangways, and
+          acquaints them that she is little in the habit of
+          seeing European travellers, therefore declines the
+          honour of their visit.” To this was returned following
+          answer:――“Mr. Anson presents his compliments to Lady
+          Hester Stanhope, and begs to assure her he has not
+          the slightest wish to intrude where his visit is
+          accounted disagreeable: but having, during a three
+          months’ residence among the Arabs, met with universal
+          hospitality, he took for granted that he would not
+          have met with the first refusal in an English house.”
+
+     [41] The benýsh is a large mantle, reaching to the ground,
+          ample, and folding over, with bagging sleeves hanging
+          considerably below the tips of the fingers. When worn,
+          it leaves nothing seen but the head and face. This is
+          synonymous with a dress coat.
+
+     [42] A long letter was subsequently written, in which she
+          explained her theory of the origin of the Scotch; and,
+          having learned by a note from Mr. Forster that they
+          would return from Beyrout to Sayda in their way to
+          St. Jean d’Acre, I rode down to Sayda in the hope of
+          meeting him. Circumstances, however, made them set off
+          a day sooner than they intended and I missed them. The
+          letter Lady Hester took back into her own possession,
+          and seemed to set so much value on it that she would
+          not even give me a copy. At the time I could have
+          repeated the substance of it with tolerable accuracy
+          from memory; but, as she strictly regarded it in the
+          light of a private communication, I did not consider
+          myself justified in making any use of it without her
+          sanction. It will be sufficient to say that she found
+          a great resemblance between the names of the Scotch
+          nobility and certain terms in the Arabic language,
+          indicating patronymics, dignities, offices, &c. Her
+          general notion was that Scotland had been peopled
+          by the flight of some tribes of Arabs in the middle
+          ages. She once had an intention of writing to Sir
+          Walter Scott, to urge him to make some researches
+          on that head, and she showed me a list of Scotch
+          names apparently of Arabic origin. Thus she would
+          say Gower meant Gaôor, or infidel; and by a stretch
+          of deduction, commonly indulged in even to still
+          greater excess by people who have a favourite theory
+          to sustain, she would argue that, as Mr. Pitt used to
+          say that Lord Granville was the counterpart of the
+          statue of Antinous, with the same face and the same
+          _pose_ when he stood talking unconcernedly, therefore
+          the race of Antinous, which was also Eastern, was
+          continued in him.
+
+
+
+
+                             END OF VOL. II.
+
+
+
+
+                        FREDERICK SHOBERL, JUNIOR,
+               PRINTER TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT,
+                  51, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET, LONDON.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note
+
+This book was written in a period when many words had not become
+standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling
+variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been
+left unchanged unless indicated below. Obsolete and alternative
+spellings were left unchanged.
+
+Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the end of
+the chapter. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down,
+or partially printed letters and punctuation, were corrected. Final
+stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were added.
+Punctuation was adjusted to standard usage. Duplicate letters and
+words at line endings or page breaks were removed.
+
+Footnotes [3] and [22] were missing anchors in the text. Anchors were
+added where they may have belonged.
+
+The following items were changed:
+
+  that to than, line 756
+  Pourcignac to Pourceaugnac, Footnote [17]
+  Dairies to Diaries, Footnote [22]
+  he to she, line 4836
+  crew to grew, line 4909
+  venemous to venomous, line 5256
+  espistle to epistle, line 5622
+  Bankes to Banks, line 5805
+
+
+
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-<body>
-<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF THE LADY HESTER STANHOPE, AS RELATED BY HERSELF IN CONVERSATIONS WITH HER PHYSICIAN, VOL. 2 (OF 3) ***</div>
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<div class="figcenter">
- <br>
- <img src="images/frontispiece.jpg"
- alt="frontispiece">
- <p class="caption">LADY HESTER STANHOPE IN HER SALOON<br>
- London, Henry Colburn, 1845</p>
-</div><!--end figcenter-->
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-</div><!--end chapter-->
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h1>
-<span class="ls">MEMOIRS</span><br>
-<span class="muchsmaller allsmcap">OF THE</span><br>
-<span class="larger">LADY HESTER STANHOPE,</span></h1>
-
-<p class="center tall">
-<span class="smaller">AS RELATED BY HERSELF</span><br>
-IN CONVERSATIONS WITH HER<br>
-PHYSICIAN;<br>
-<br>
-<span class="smaller">COMPRISING</span><br>
-HER OPINIONS AND ANECDOTES OF<br>
-SOME OF THE MOST REMARKABLE PERSONS<br>
-OF HER TIME.
-</p>
-</div>
-
-<p class="muchsmaller">All such writings and discourses as touch no man will mend no
-man.—<span class="smcap">Tyers</span>’s <cite>Rhapsody on Pope</cite>.</p>
-
-<p class="p2 center">
-<span class="strong">Second Edition.</span><br>
-<br>
-IN THREE VOLUMES.<br>
-<br>
-<span class="larger"><abbr title="Volume Two">VOL. II.</abbr></span></p>
-<br>
-
-<p class="center tall"><span class="ls">LONDON:</span><br>
-HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,<br>
-<span class="smaller">GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.</span></p>
-<hr class="short">
-<p class="center">1846.</p>
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p class="center">
-<span class="ls">FREDERICK SHOBERL, JUNIOR,</span><br>
-PRINTER TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT,<br>
-<span class="muchsmaller">51, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET, LONDON.</span></p>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<p class="center">
-CONTENTS<br>
-<br>
-<span class="smaller">OF</span><br>
-<br>
-<span class="ls">THE SECOND VOLUME.</span>
-</p>
-</div>
-<table>
-
-<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="One">I.</abbr></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdl">Lady Hester Stanhope’s descent—The Author’s first introduction
-to her—Her reasons for quitting England—Anecdotes of
-her childhood and womanhood—Her motives for going to live
-with Mr. Pitt—Mr. Pitt’s opinion of Tom Paine—Lady Hester
-noticed by George III.—Anecdote of Sir A. H.—Of Lord G.—Of
-Lord A.—Impertinent questioners—Anecdote of the Marquis
-* * *—Mr. Pitt’s confidence in Lady Hester’s discretion—and
-in her devotion to him—His opinion of her cleverness,
-and of her military and diplomatic abilities—Her tirade against
-doctors—Her reflections on prudery—Anecdote of General
-Moore—Of the Duc de Blacas, &amp;c. </td>
-    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Two">II.</abbr></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdl">Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s Memoirs—The three duchesses—Anecdote
-of Mr. Rice—How Prime Ministers are employed on
-first taking office—The Grenville make—P—— of W——
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">iv</span>
-at Stowe—Mr. Pitt and Mr. Sheridan—Duke of H—— —Mr.
-Pitt’s disinterestedness exemplified—His life wasted in
-the service of his country—Mr. Rose—Mr. Long—Mr.—— —Grounds
-at Walmer laid out by Lady Hester—Mr. Pitt’s
-deportment in retirement—His physiognomy—How he got
-into debt—Lord Carrington; why made a peer—Extent of
-Mr. Dundas’s influence over Mr. Pitt—Mr. Pitt averse to
-ceremony—Mr. Pitt and his sister Harriet—His dislike to
-the Bourbons—Lady Hester’s activity at Walmer—Lord
-Chatham’s indolence—Mr. Pitt’s opinion of Sir Arthur
-Wellesley </td>
-    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Three">III.</abbr></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdl">Duchess of Gontaut—Duc de Berry—Anecdotes of Lord H.—Sir
-Gore Ouseley—Prince of Wales—The other princes—The
-Queen’s severity—Men and women of George the Third’s
-time—The Herveys—Lady Liverpool’s high breeding—Lady
-Hester’s declining health </td>
-    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_76">76</a></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Four">IV.</abbr></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdl">Conscription in Syria—Inviolability of consular houses—Panic
-and flight of the people of Sayda—Protection afforded
-by Lady Hester—Story of a boy—Mustafa the barber—Cruelty
-to mothers of Conscripts—Conscription in the villages—Lady
-Hester’s dream—Inhabitants of Sayda mulcted—Lady
-Hester’s opinion of negresses—Severity necessary in
-Turkey—Case of Monsieur Danna—Captain Y.—Mustafa
-Pasha’s cruelty </td>
-    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Five">V.</abbr></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdl">Rainy season—Lady Hester’s despondency—Her Turkish
-costume—Turkish servants—Terror inspired by Lady Hester
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">v</span>
-in her servants—Visit of Messieurs Poujolat and Boutés—Lady
-Hester’s inability to entertain strangers—Her dejected
-spirits and bad health </td>
-    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Six">VI.</abbr></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdl">The Delphic priestess—Abdallah Pasha’s ingratitude—His
-cowardice—Lady Hester’s spies—Her emaciation—History
-of General Loustaunau </td>
-    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_154">154</a></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Seven">VII.</abbr></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdl">Lady Hester like the first Lord Chatham—Her recollections
-of Chevening—Her definition of insults—Her deliberate
-affronts—Her warlike propensities—Earl C—— Marquis of
-Abercorn—Logmagi—Osman Chaôosh—Letter from Colonel
-Campbell—George the Third’s flattering compliment to Lady
-Hester—Her Majesty Queen Victoria—Lord M.—Prophecy
-of a <i>welly</i>—Lady Hester’s poignant affliction—Her intractability—Her
-noble and disinterested benevolence </td>
-    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Eight">VIII.</abbr></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdl">Lady Hester’s system of astrology—Sympathies and antipathies—People’s
-<i>nijems</i> or stars—Mesmerism explained—Lord
-Suffolk—Lady Hester’s own star—Letter to the Queen—Letter
-to Mr. Speaker Abercrombie—Messieurs Beck and
-Moore—Letter to Colonel Campbell—The Ides of March—Lady
-Hester’s reflections on the Queen’s conduct to her—Letter
-to Sir Edward Sugden—What peers are—Junius’s
-Letters—Spies employed by the first Lord Chatham—Mr.
-Pitt’s opinion of the Duke of Wellington—Lady Hester’s
-letter to his Grace, &amp;c.</td>
-    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Nine">IX.</abbr>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">vi</span></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdl">Lady Hester in an alcove in her garden—Lucky days observed
-by her—Consuls’ rights—Mischief caused by Sir F. B.’s
-neglect in answering Lady Hester’s Letters—Rashes common
-in Syria—Visit of an unknown Englishman—Story of Hanah
-Messâad—Lady Hester’s love of truth—Report of her death—Michael
-Tutungi—Visit from the Chevalier Guys—His
-reception at Dayr el Mkhallas—Punishment of the shepherd,
-Câasem—Holyday of the Korbàn Byràm—Fatôom’s <i lang="fr">accouchement</i>—Lady
-Hester’s aversion to consular interference—Evenings
-at Jôon—Old Pierre—Saady </td>
-    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_276">276</a></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Ten">X.</abbr></td></tr>
-
-<tr><td class="tdl">Visit of Mr. Vesey Forster and Mr. Knox—Lady S. N.’s
-pension and Mr. H.—Lady Hester undeservedly censured by
-English travellers—Mr. Anson and Mr. Strangways—Mr. B.
-and Mr. C.—Captain Pechell—Captain Yorke—Colonel
-Howard Vyse—Lord B.</td>
-    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_314">314</a></td></tr>
-
-</table>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">1</span>
-<h2>
-<span class="smaller ls">MEMOIRS</span><br>
-<br>
-<span class="muchsmaller">OF</span><br>
-<br>
-<span class="ls">LADY HESTER STANHOPE.</span></h2>
-</div>
-
-<hr class="tb">
-
-<h2 class="no-break"><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span> <abbr title="One"><span class="allsmcap">I.</span></abbr></h2>
-
-
-<p class="small short">Lady Hester Stanhope’s descent—The Author’s first introduction
-to her—Her reasons for quitting England—Anecdotes of
-her childhood and womanhood—Her motives for going to live
-with Mr. Pitt—Mr. Pitt’s opinion of Tom Paine—Lady Hester
-noticed by George III.—Anecdote of Sir A. H.—Of Lord G.—Of
-Lord A.—Impertinent questioners—Anecdote of the Marquis
-* * *—Mr. Pitt’s confidence in Lady Hester’s discretion—and
-in her devotion to him—His opinion of her cleverness,
-and of her military and diplomatic abilities—Her tirade against
-doctors—Her reflections on prudery—Anecdote of General
-Moore—Of the Duc de Blacas, &amp;c.</p>
-
-
-<p class="p2">It probably will be known to most readers that
-Lady Hester Stanhope was the daughter of Charles
-Earl of Stanhope by Hester, his first wife, sister to
-Mr. William Pitt, and daughter of the first Earl of
-Chatham. He had issue by this first wife three
-daughters—Hester, Griselda, and Lucy. The earl
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">2</span>
-married a second wife, by whom he had three sons:
-the present earl; Charles, killed at Corunna; and
-James, who died at Caen Wood, the villa of his
-father-in-law, the Earl of Mansfield.</p>
-
-<p>I became acquainted with Lady Hester Stanhope
-by accident. The chance that introduced me to her
-was as follows:—I was going to Oxford to take my
-degree; and, having missed the coach at the inn, I
-was obliged to hurry after it on foot, for the want of a
-hackney-coach, as far as Oxford-road turnpike, where
-I overtook it, and mounted the box in a violent perspiration.
-The day was bitterly cold, and, before
-night, I found myself attacked with a very severe
-catarrh. The merriment of a college life left me little
-time to pay attention to it; and, after about fifteen
-days, I returned with a troublesome cough, to London,
-where I took to my bed.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. H. Cline, jun., (the son of the celebrated
-surgeon) being my friend, and hearing of my indisposition,
-came to inquire after my health very
-frequently. One day, sitting by my bedside, he
-asked me if I should like to go abroad. I told him
-it had been the earliest wish of my life. He said,
-Lady Hester Stanhope (the niece of Mr. Pitt) had
-applied to his father for a doctor, and that, if I liked,
-he would propose me, giving me to understand from
-his father that, although the salary would be small, I
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span>
-should, if my services proved agreeable to Lady
-Hester, be ultimately provided for. I thanked him,
-and said, that to travel with such a distinguished
-woman would please me exceedingly. The following
-day he intimated that his father had already spoken
-about me, and that her ladyship would see me. In
-about four days I was introduced to her, and she
-closed with me immediately, inviting me to dine with
-her that evening. Afterwards, I saw her several
-times, and subsequently joined her at Portsmouth,
-whence, after waiting a fortnight, we sailed in the
-Jason, the Hon. Captain King, for Gibraltar.</p>
-
-<p>The reasons which Lady Hester assigned for leaving
-England were grounded chiefly on the narrowness of
-her income. Mr. Pitt’s written request, on his deathbed,
-that she might have £1500 a year, had been
-complied with only in part, owing to the ill offices of
-certain persons at that time in the privy-council, and
-she received clear, after deductions for the property-tax
-were made, no more that £1200. At first, after
-Mr. Pitt’s death, she established herself in Montague
-Square, with her two brothers, and she there continued
-to see much company. “But,” she would say,
-“a poor gentlewoman, doctor, is the worst thing in
-the world. Not being able to keep a carriage, how
-was I to go out? If I used a hackney-coach, some
-spiteful person would be sure to mention it:—‘Who
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">4</span>
-do you think I saw yesterday in a hackney-coach?
-I wonder where she could be driving alone down those
-narrow streets?’ If I walked with a footman behind
-me, there are so many women of the town now who
-flaunt about with a smart footman, that I ran the
-hazard of being taken for one of them; and, if I went
-alone, either there would be some good-natured friend
-who would hint that Lady Hester did not walk out
-alone for nothing; or else I should be met in the
-street by some gentleman of my acquaintance, who
-would say, ‘God bless me, Lady Hester! where are
-you going alone?—do let me accompany you:’ and
-then it would be said, ‘Did you see Lady Hester
-crossing Hanover Square with such a one? he looked
-monstrous foolish: I wonder where they had been.’
-So that, from one thing to another, I was obliged to
-stop at home entirely: and this it was that hurt my
-health so much, until Lord Temple, at last, remarked
-it. For he said to me one day, ‘How comes it that
-a person like you, who used to be always on horseback,
-never rides out?’—‘Because I have no horse.’—‘Oh!
-if that is all, you shall have one to-morrow.’—‘Thank
-you, my lord; but, if I have a horse, I must have
-two; and, if I have two, I must have a groom; and,
-as I do not choose to borrow, if you please, we will
-say no more about it.’—‘Oh! but I will send my
-horses, and come and ride out with you every day.’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span>
-However, I told him no: for how could a man who
-goes to the House every day, and attends committees
-in a morning, be able to be riding every day with me?
-And I know what it is to lend and borrow horses and
-carriages. When I used to desire my carriage to go
-and fetch any friend, my coachman was sure to say,
-‘My lady, the horses want shoeing;’ or the footman
-would come in with a long face, ‘My lady, John would
-like to go and see his sister to-day, if you please:’
-there was always some excuse. All this considered, I
-made up my mind to remain at home.”</p>
-
-<p>For some time did Lady Hester remain in Montague
-Square: but her brother and General Moore, having
-fallen at the battle of Corunna, I believe she grew
-entirely disgusted with London; and, breaking up her
-little establishment, she went down into Wales, and
-resided in a small cottage at Builth, somewhere near
-Brecon, in a room not more than a dozen feet square.
-Here she amused herself in curing the poor, in her
-dairy, and in other rustic occupations: until, not
-finding herself so far removed from her English
-acquaintances but that they were always coming
-across her and breaking-in upon her solitude, she
-resolved on going abroad, up the Mediterranean.</p>
-
-<p>Arrived at Gibraltar, she was lodged at the governor’s,
-in the convent, where she remained some
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">6</span>
-time; and then embarked for Malta in the Cerberus,
-Captain Whitby, who afterwards distinguished himself
-in Captain Hoste’s victory up the Adriatic. At
-Malta, she lived, at first, in the house of Mr. Fernandez:
-afterwards, General Oakes offered Lady
-Hester the palace of <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Antonio, where we resided
-during the remainder of her stay.</p>
-
-<p>We departed for Zante in the month of June or
-July, 1810. From Zante, we passed over to Patras,
-where she bade adieu to English customs for the rest
-of our pilgrimage. Traversing Greece, we visited
-Constantinople, and, from Constantinople, sailed for
-Egypt. At Rhodes we were shipwrecked, and I there
-lost my journals, among which were many curious
-anecdotes that would have thrown much light on her
-ladyship’s life. I shall relate what I have since
-gathered, without observing any order, but always, as
-far as I could recollect, using her very expressions;
-and, in many instances, there will be found whole
-conversations, where her manner would be recognized
-by those who were acquainted with it. I shall sometimes
-preface them with observations of my own.</p>
-
-<p>Speaking of her sisters, Lady Hester would say:
-“My sister Lucy was prettier than I was, and
-Griselda more clever; but I had, from childhood, a
-cheerfulness and sense of feeling that always made me
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span>
-a favourite with my father. She exemplified this by
-an anecdote of the second Lady Stanhope, her stepmother,
-referring to the time when her father, in one
-of his republican fits, put down his carriages and
-horses.</p>
-
-<p>“Poor Lady Stanhope,” she said, “was quite unhappy
-about it; but, when the whole family was
-looking glum and sulky, I thought of a way to set all
-right again. I got myself a pair of stilts, and out I
-stumped down a dirty lane, where my father, who was
-always spying about through his glass, could see me.
-So, when I came home, he said to me, ‘Why, little
-girl, what have you been about? Where was it I saw
-you going upon a pair of—the devil knows what?—eh,
-girl?’—‘Oh! papa, I thought, as you had laid down
-your horses, I would take a walk through the mud on
-stilts; for you know, papa, I don’t mind mud or anything—’tis
-poor Lady Stanhope who feels these things;
-for she has always been accustomed to her carriage,
-and her health is not very good.’—‘What’s that you
-say, little girl?’ said my father, turning his eyes away
-from me; and, after a pause, ‘Well, little girl, what
-would you say if I bought a carriage again for Lady
-Stanhope?’—‘Why, papa, I would say it was very
-kind of you.’—‘Well, well,’ he observed, ‘we will
-see; but, damn it! no armorial bearings.’ So, some
-time afterwards, down came a new carriage and new
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span>
-horses from London; and thus, by a little innocent
-frolic, I made all parties happy again?”<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester continued. “Lucy’s disposition was
-sweet, and her temper excellent: she was like a
-Madonna. Griselda was otherwise, and always for
-making her authority felt. But I, even when I was
-only a girl, obtained and exercised, I can’t tell how,
-a sort of command over them. They never came to
-me, when I was in my room, without sending first to
-know whether I would see them.</p>
-
-<p>“Mr. Pitt never liked Griselda; and, when he
-found she was jealous of me, he disliked her still more.
-She stood no better in the opinion of my father, who
-bore with Lucy—ah! just in this way—he would say
-to her, to get rid of her, ‘Now papa is going to
-study, so you may go to your room:’ then, when the
-door was shut, he would turn to me, ‘Now, we must
-talk a little philosophy;’ and then, with his two legs
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span>
-stuck upon the sides of the grate, he would begin—‘Well,
-well,’ he would cry, after I had talked a little,
-‘that is not bad reasoning, but the basis is bad.’</p>
-
-<p>“My father always checked any propensity to finery
-in dress. If any of us happened to look better than
-usual in a particular hat or frock, he was sure to have
-it put away the next day, and to have something coarse
-substituted in its place.</p>
-
-<p>“When I was young, I was always the first to promote
-my sister’s enjoyments. Whether in dancing,
-or in riding on horseback, or at a feast, or in anything
-that was to make them happy, I always had
-something to do or propose that increased their pleasure.
-In like manner, afterwards, in guiding them in
-politics, in giving them advice for their conduct in
-private life, in forwarding them in the world, I was
-a means of much good to them. It was always Hester,
-and Hester, and Hester; in short, I appeared to be
-the favourite of them all; and yet now, see how they
-treat me!</p>
-
-<p>“I was always, as I am now, full of activity, from
-my infancy. At two years old, I made a little hat.
-You know there was a kind of straw hat with the
-crown taken out, and in its stead a piece of satin was
-put in, all puffed up. Well! I made myself a hat
-like that; and it was thought such a thing for a
-child of two years old to do, that my grandpapa had a
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span>
-little paper box made for it, and had it ticketed with
-the day of the month and my age.</p>
-
-<p>“Just before the French revolution broke out, the
-ambassador from Paris to the English Court was the
-Comte d’Adhémar. That nobleman had some influence
-on my fate as far as regarded my wish to go abroad,
-which, however, I was not able to gratify until many
-years afterwards. I was but seven or eight years old
-when I saw him; and when he came by invitation to
-pay a visit to my papa at Chevening, there was such a
-fuss with the fine footmen with feathers in their hats,
-and the count’s bows and French manners, and I
-know not what, that, a short time afterwards, when I
-was sent to Hastings with the governess and my
-sisters, nothing would satisfy me but I must go and
-see what sort of a place France was. So I got into a
-boat one day unobserved, that was floating close to the
-beach, let loose the rope myself, and off I went. Yes,
-doctor, I literally pushed a boat off, and meant to go,
-as I thought, to France. Did you ever hear of such
-a mad scheme?</p>
-
-<p>“But I was tired of all those around me, who, to all
-my questions, invariably answered, ‘My dear, that is
-not proper for you to know,—or, you must not talk
-about such things until you get older; and the like.
-So I held my tongue, but I made up for it, by treasuring
-up everything I heard and saw. Isn’t it extraordinary
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span>
-that I should have such a memory? I can recall
-every circumstance that ever occurred to me during
-my life—everything worth retaining, that I wished to
-remember. I could tell what people said, how they
-sat, the colour of their hair, of their eyes, and all about
-them, at any time, for the last forty years and more.
-At Hastings, for example, I can tell the name of the
-two smugglers, Tate and Everett, who attended at
-the bathing-machine, and the name of the apothecary,
-Dr. Satterly, although I have never heard a word
-about those persons from that day to this.</p>
-
-<p>“How well I recollect what I was made to suffer
-when I was young! and that’s the reason why I have
-sworn eternal warfare against Swiss and French governesses.
-Nature forms us in a certain manner, both
-inwardly and outwardly, and it is in vain to attempt
-to alter it. One governess at Chevening had our
-backs pinched in by boards, that were drawn tight
-with all the force the maid could use; and, as for me,
-they would have squeezed me to the size of a puny miss—a
-thing impossible! My instep, by nature so high,
-that a little kitten could walk under the sole of my foot,
-they used to bend down in order to flatten it, although
-that is one of the things that shows my high breeding.</p>
-
-<p>“Nature, doctor, makes us one way, and man is
-always trying to fashion us another. Why, there was
-Mahon, when he was eight or nine years old, that
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span>
-never could be taught to understand how two and two
-make four. If he was asked, he would say, four and
-four make three, or ten, or something: he was shown
-with money, and with beans, and in every possible
-way, but all to no purpose. The fact was, that that
-particular faculty was not yet developed: but now,
-there is no better calculator anywhere. The most
-difficult sums he will do on his fingers; and he is
-besides a very great mathematician. There was a son
-of Lord Darnley’s, a little boy, who was only big
-enough to lie under the table, or play on the sofa,
-and yet he could make calculations with I don’t know
-how many figures—things that they have to do in the
-Treasury. Now, if that boy had gone on in the same
-way, he would by this time have been Chancellor of
-the Exchequer. But I hear nothing of him, and I
-don’t know what has become of him; so I suppose he
-has not turned out anything extraordinary.</p>
-
-<p>“But nature was entirely out of the question with
-us: we were left to the governesses. Lady Stanhope
-got up at ten o’clock, went out, and then returned to
-be dressed, if in London, by the hair-dresser; and
-there were only two in London, both of them Frenchmen,
-who could dress her. Then she went out to
-dinner, and from dinner to the Opera, and from the
-Opera to parties, seldom returning until just before
-daylight. Lord Stanhope was engaged in his philosophical
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span>
-pursuits: and thus we children saw neither the
-one nor the other. Lucy used to say that, if she had
-met her step-mother in the streets, she should not have
-known her. Why, my father once followed to our own
-door in London a woman who happened to drop her
-glove, which he picked up. It was our governess; but,
-as he had never seen her in the house, he did not know
-her in the street.</p>
-
-<p>“He slept with twelve blankets on his bed, with no
-nightcap, and his window open: how you would have
-laughed had you seen him! He used to get out of
-bed, and put on a thin dressing-gown, with a pair of
-silk breeches that he had worn overnight, with slippers,
-and no stockings: and then he would sit in a
-part of the room which had no carpet, and take his
-tea with a bit of brown bread.</p>
-
-<p>“He married two wives; the first a Pitt, the second
-a Grenville; so that I am in two ways related to the
-Grenvilles.”</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester continued: “As I grew up, Lady
-Stanhope used to chuck me under the chin, and cry,
-‘Why the kurl (girl) is like a soap ball; one can’t
-pinch her cheek:’ and I really used to think there was
-something very strange about me. Soon after Horne
-Tooke took notice of me, and pronounced flatteringly
-on my talents. And when Mr. Pitt followed, and
-kindly said, ‘Why I believe there is nothing to find
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span>
-fault with, either in her looks or her understanding,’
-I began to know myself. Mr. Elliott, (who married
-Miss Pitt) used to say to me, dear man! in his <i lang="fr">bontonné</i>
-manner, ‘You must not be surprised, my love,
-if you make a great noise in the world.’</p>
-
-<p>“Sir Sydney Smith said of me, after he had known
-me fifteen years, and when my looks were much
-changed by illness, ‘When I see you now, I recall
-to my recollection what you were when you first <em>came
-out</em>. You entered the room in your pale shirt, exciting
-our admiration by your magnificent and majestic
-figure. The roses and lilies were blended in your face,
-and the ineffable smiles of your countenance diffused
-happiness around you.’</p>
-
-<p>“The Duke of Cumberland used to say to me—‘You
-and Amelia (Princess Amelia) are two of the
-most spanking wenches I ever saw; but, if (alluding
-to my ill-health) you go on in this way, I do not
-know what the devil you will make of it.’”</p>
-
-<p>When mentioning this, her ladyship added:
-“Doctor, at twenty, my complexion was like alabaster;
-and, at five paces’ distance, the sharpest eye could
-not discover my pearl necklace from my skin: my lips
-were of such a beautiful carnation, that, without
-vanity, I can assure you very few women had the like.
-A dark blue shade under the eyes, and the blue veins
-that were observable through the transparent skin,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span>
-heightened the brilliancy of my features. Nor were
-the roses wanting in my cheeks; and to all this was
-added a permanency in my looks that fatigue of no
-sort could impair.”</p>
-
-<p>I am now writing when disappointments and sickness
-have undermined her health, and when she has
-reached her 54th year. Her complexion had now
-assumed a yellow tint, but her hands were still exceedingly
-fair, and she had the very common though
-pardonable fault of often contriving to show them.
-There were moments when her countenance had still
-something very beautiful about it. Her mouth manifested
-an extraordinary degree of sweetness, and her
-eyes much mildness.</p>
-
-<p>She never would have her likeness taken, when in
-the bloom of her beauty, and it is not probable it can
-be ever done now. There is a sort of resemblance
-between her and Mr. Pitt, (if I may judge from his
-portraits.) She has told me also, that she was like
-the late Duchess of Cumberland. Her head, seen in
-front, presented a perfect oval, of which the eyes
-would cover a line drawn through the centre. Her
-eyebrows were arched and fine, I mean slender; her
-eyes blue, approaching to gray; her nose, somewhat
-large, and the distance from the mouth to the chin
-rather too long. Her cheeks had a remarkably fine
-contour, as they rounded off towards the neck; so that
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span>
-Mr. Brummell, as has been related, once said to her
-in a party, “For God’s sake, do take off those earrings,
-and let us see what is beneath them.” Her
-figure was tall (I think not far from six feet), rather
-largely proportioned, and was once very plump, as I
-have heard her say. Her mien was majestic; her
-address eminently graceful; in her conversation, when
-she pleased, she was enchanting; when she meant it,
-dignified; at all times, eloquent. She was excellent
-at mimickry, and upon all ranks of life. She had more
-wit and repartee, perhaps, than falls to the lot of most
-women. Her knowledge of human nature was most
-profound, and she could turn that knowledge to
-account to its utmost extent, and in the minutest
-trifles. She was courageous, morally and physically
-so; undaunted, and proud as Lucifer.</p>
-
-<p>She never read in any book more than a few pages,
-and there were few works that she praised when she
-looked them over. History she despised, considering
-it all a farce: because, she said, she had seen so many
-histories of her time, which she found to be lies from
-beginning to end, that she could not believe in one.
-She had a great facility of expression, and, on some
-occasions, introduced old proverbs with wonderful appositeness.
-Conversation never flagged in her company.
-But to return to Lady Hester’s own account
-of herself.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span>
-“I can recollect, when I was ten or twelve years old,
-going to Hastings’s trial. My garter, somehow, came
-off, and was picked up by Lord Grey, then a young
-man. At this hour, as if it were before me in a picture,
-I can see his handsome but very pale face, his
-broad forehead; his corbeau coat, with cut-steel buttons;
-his white satin waistcoat and breeches, and
-the buckles in his shoes. He saw from whom the
-garter fell, but, observing my confusion, did not
-wish to increase it, and with infinite delicacy gave
-the garter to the person who sat there to serve tea
-and coffee.</p>
-
-<p>“The first person I ever danced with was Sir Gilbert
-Heathcote.</p>
-
-<p>“When I was young, I was never what you call
-handsome, but brilliant. My teeth were brilliant, my
-complexion brilliant, my language—ah! there it was—something
-striking and original, that caught everybody’s
-attention. I remember, when I was living with
-Mr. Pitt, that, one morning after a party, he said to
-me, ‘Really, Hester, Lord Hertford’ (the father of
-the late lord, and a man of high pretensions for his
-courtly manners) ‘paid you so many compliments
-about your looks last night, that you might well be
-proud of them.’—‘Not at all,’ answered I: ‘he is
-deceived, if he thinks I am handsome, for I know I
-am not. If you were to take every feature in my
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span>
-face, and put them, one by one, on the table, there is
-not a single one would bear examination. The only
-thing is that, put together and lighted up, they look
-well enough. It is homogeneous ugliness, and nothing
-more.’</p>
-
-<p>“Mr. Pitt used to say to me, ‘Hester, what sort
-of a being are you? We shall see, some day, wings
-spring out of your shoulders; for there are moments
-when you hardly seem to walk the earth.’ There
-was a man who had known me well for fifteen years,
-and he told me, one day, that he had tried a long
-time to make me out, but he did not know whether I
-was a devil or an angel. There have been men who
-have been intimate with me, and to whom, in point of
-passion, I was no more than that milk-jug” (pointing
-to one on the table); “and there have been others
-who would go through fire for me. But all this depends
-on the star of a person.</p>
-
-<p>“Mr. Pitt declared that it was impossible for him to
-say whether I was most happy in the vortex of pleasure,
-in absolute solitude, or in the midst of politics; for he
-had seen me in all three; and, with all his penetration,
-he did not know where I seemed most at home. Bouverie
-used to say to me, when I lived at Chevening, ‘I know
-you like this kind of life; it seems to suit you.’ And
-so it did: but why did I quit home? Because of my
-brothers and sisters, and for my father’s sake. I
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span>
-foresaw that my sisters would be reduced to poverty if
-I did not assist them; and, though people said to me,
-‘Let their husbands get on by themselves; they are
-capable of making their own way,’ I saw they could
-not, and I set about providing for them. As for my
-father, he thought that, in joining those democrats, he
-always kept aloof from treason. But he did not know
-how many desperate characters there were, who, like
-C——, for example, only waited for a revolution, and
-were always plotting mischief. I thought, therefore,
-it was better to be where I should have Mr. Pitt by
-my side to help me, should he get into great difficulty.
-Why, they almost took Joyce out of bed in my
-father’s house; and when my father went to town,
-there were those who watched him; and the mob
-attacked his house, so that he was obliged to make his
-escape by the leads, and slip out the back way. Joyce
-was getting up in the morning, and was just blowing
-his nose, as people do the moment before they come
-down to breakfast, when a single knock came to the
-door, and in bolted two officers with a warrant, and
-took him off without even my father’s knowledge.
-Then, were not Lord Thanet, Ferguson, and some
-more of them thrown into gaol? and I said, ‘If my
-father has not a prop somewhere, he will share the
-same fate;’ and this was one of the reasons why I
-went to live with Mr. Pitt. Mr. Pitt used to say
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span>
-that Tom Paine was quite in the right; but then he
-would add, ‘What am I to do? If the country is
-overrun with all these men, full of vice and folly, I
-cannot exterminate them. It would be very well, to
-be sure, if everybody had sense enough to act as they
-ought; but, as things are, if I were to encourage Tom
-Paine’s opinions, we should have a bloody revolution;
-and, after all, matters would return pretty much as
-they were.’ But I always asked, ‘What do these
-men want? They will destroy what we have got,
-without giving us anything else in its place. Let
-them give us something good before they rob us of
-what we have. As for systems of equality, everybody
-is not a Tom Paine. Tom Paine was a clever man,
-and not one of your hugger-mugger people, who have
-one day one set of ideas, and another set the next, and
-never know what they mean.’</p>
-
-<p>“I am an aristocrat, and I make a boast of it. We
-shall see what will come of people’s conundrums about
-equality. I hate a pack of dirty Jacobins, that only
-want to get people out of a good place to get into it
-themselves. Horne Tooke always liked me, with all
-my aristocratical principles, because he said he knew
-what I meant.</p>
-
-<p>“No, doctor, Bouverie was right: I liked the country.
-At the back of the inn, on Sevenoaks common, stood
-a house, which, for a residence for myself, I should
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span>
-prefer to any one I have ever yet seen. It was a perfectly
-elegant, light, and commodious building, with
-an oval drawing-room, and two boudoirs in the corners,
-with a window to each on the conservatory.
-When I visited there, it was inhabited by three old
-maids, one of whom was my friend. What good ale
-and nice luncheons I have had there many a time!
-What good cheese, what excellent apples and pears,
-and what rounds of boiled beef?”</p>
-
-<p>The next day these personal recollections were renewed.</p>
-
-<p>“I remember, when Colonel Shadwell commanded
-the district, that, one day, in a pelting shower of rain,
-he was riding up Madamscourt Hill, as I was crossing
-at the bottom, going home towards Chevening with
-my handsome groom, Tom, a boy who was the natural
-son of a baronet. I saw Colonel Shadwell’s groom’s
-horse about a couple of hundred yards from me, and,
-struck with its beauty, I turned up the hill, resolving
-to pass them, and get a look at it. I accordingly
-quickened my pace, and, in going by, gave a good look
-at the horse, then at the groom, then at the master,
-who was on a sorry nag. The colonel eyed me as I
-passed; and I, taking advantage of a low part in the
-hedge, put my horse to it, leaped over, and disappeared
-in an instant. The colonel found out who I
-was, and afterwards made such a fuss at the mess about
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span>
-my equestrian powers, that nothing could be like it.
-I was the toast there every day.</p>
-
-<p>“Nobody ever saw much of me until Lord Romney’s
-review. I was obliged to play a trick on my
-father to get there. I pretended, the day before, that
-I wanted to pay a visit to the Miss Crumps” (or some
-such name), “and then went from their house to
-Lord Romney’s. Though all the gentry of Kent were
-there, my father never knew, or was supposed not to
-have known, that I had been there. The king took
-great notice of me. I dined with him—that is, what
-was called dining with him, but at an adjoining table.
-Lord and Lady Romney served the king and queen,
-and gentlemen waited on us: Upton changed my
-plate, and he did it very well. Doctor, dining with
-royalty, as Lord Melbourne does now, was not so
-common formerly; I never dined with the king but
-twice—once at Lord Romney’s at an adjoining table,
-and once afterwards at his own table: oh! what wry
-faces there were among some of the courtiers! Mr.
-Pitt was very much pleased at the reception I met
-with: the king took great notice of me, and, I believe,
-always after liked me personally. Whenever I
-was talking to the dukes, he was sure to come towards
-us. ‘Where is she?’ he would cry; ‘where is she?
-I hear them laugh, and where they are laughing I
-must go too:’ then, as he came nearer, he would
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span>
-observe, ‘if you have anything to finish, I won’t come
-yet—I’ll come in a quarter of an hour.’ When he
-was going away from Lord Romney’s, he wanted to
-put me bodkin between himself and the queen; and
-when the queen had got into the carriage, he said to
-her, ‘My dear, Lady Hester is going to ride bodkin
-with us; I am going to take her away from Democracy
-Hall:’ but the old queen observed, in rather a prim
-manner, that I ‘had not got my maid with me, and
-that it would be inconvenient for me to go at such a
-short notice:’ so I remained.</p>
-
-<p>“It was at that review that I was talking to some
-officers, and something led to my saying, ‘I can’t
-bear men who are governed by their wives, as Sir
-A. H*** is; a woman of sense, even if she did govern
-her husband, would not let it be seen: it is odious, in
-my opinion:’ and I went on in this strain, whilst
-poor Sir A. himself, whom I did not know, but had
-only heard spoken of, was standing by all the time. I
-saw a dreadful consternation in the bystanders, but I
-went on. At last some one—taking commiseration
-on him, I suppose—said, ‘Lady Hester, will you
-allow me to introduce Sir A. H*** to you, who is
-desirous of making your acquaintance.’ Sir A. very
-politely thanked me for the advice I had given him;
-and I answered something about the regard my
-brother had for him, and there the matter ended.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span>
-“When first I went to live with Mr. Pitt, one day
-he and I were taking a walk in the park, when we
-were met by Lord Guildford, having Lady —— and
-Lady ——, two old demireps, under his arm. Mr.
-Pitt and I passed them, and Mr. Pitt pulled off his
-hat: Lord G. turned his head away, without acknowledging
-his bow. The fact was, he thought Mr. Pitt
-was escorting some mistress he had got. ‘Well,’ said
-I, ‘there goes Falstaff with the merry wives of Windsor.’
-‘Yes,’ rejoined Mr. Pitt, ‘and I think, whatever
-he may take you to be, he need not be so prim,
-with those two painted and patched ladies under his
-arm.’</p>
-
-<p>“The same thing happened with Lord A.; and,
-when Mr. Pitt soon after came into office, Lord A.
-called on Mr. Pitt, who, being busy, sent him to me.
-Lord A. began with a vast variety of compliments
-about ancient attachments, and his recollection, when
-a boy, of having played with me: so I cut him short
-by telling him his memory then must have sadly failed
-him the other day, when he passed me and Mr. Pitt in
-his curricle with Lady ——. After many, ‘Really,
-I supposed,’ and ‘Upon my honours,—Sense of
-propriety on account of Lady ——, and not knowing
-who I was’—I laughed heartily at him, and he went
-away. When he was gone, Mr. Pitt came to me, and
-said, ‘I don’t often ask questions about your visitors,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span>
-but I should really like to know what excuse Lord A.
-could offer for his primosity<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> to us, when he was
-riding with such a Jezebel as Lady ——.’</p>
-
-<p>“Yet it might have been very natural for Mr. Pitt
-to do so.<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> How many people used to come and
-ask me impertinent questions, in order to get out
-his state secrets: but I very soon set them down.
-‘What, you are come to give me a lesson of impertinence,’
-I used to say, laughing in their faces.
-One day, one of them, of rather a first-rate class, began
-with—‘Now, my dear Lady Hester, you know our
-long friendship, and the esteem I have for you—now
-do just tell me, who is to go out ambassador to
-Russia?’ So I was resolved to try him; and, with a
-very serious air, I said, ‘Why, if I had to choose,
-there are only three persons whom I think fit for the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span>
-situation—Mr. Tom Grenville, Lord Malmesbury,’ and
-I forget who was the third: ‘but you know,’ I added,
-‘Lord Malmesbury’s health will not allow him to go to
-so cold a climate, and Mr., the other, is something
-and something, so that he is out of the question.’
-Next morning, doctor, there appeared in ‘The
-Oracle,’ a paper, observe, that Mr. Pitt never read—‘We
-understand that Lord M. and Mr. T. G.
-are selected as the two persons best qualified for
-the embassy to Russia: but, owing to his lordship’s
-ill health, the choice will most likely fall on
-Mr. T. G.’</p>
-
-<p>“I was highly amused the following days, to hear
-the congratulations that were paid to Mr. Grenville:
-but, when the real choice came to be known, which
-was neither one nor the other, oh! how black the inquisitive
-friend of mine looked; and what reproaches
-he made me for having, as he called it, deceived him!
-But I did not deceive him: I only told him what was
-true, that, if I had the choice, I should choose such and
-such persons.</p>
-
-<p>“There are, necessarily, hundreds of reasons for
-ministers’ actions, that people in general know nothing
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span>
-about. When the Marquis —— was sent to India
-it was on condition that he did not take —— ——
-with him: for Mr. Pitt said, ‘It is all very well if
-he chooses to go alone, but he shan’t take —— ——
-with him; for—who knows?—she may be, all the
-time, carrying on intrigues with the French government,
-and that would not suit my purpose.’</p>
-
-<p>“There might be some apparent levity in my
-manner, both as regarded affairs of the cabinet and
-my own; but I always knew what I was doing.
-When Mr. Pitt was reproached for allowing me such
-unreserved liberty of action in state matters and in
-affairs where his friends advised him to question me
-on the motives of my conduct, he always answered—‘I
-let her do as she pleases; for, if she were resolved
-to cheat the devil, she could do it.’ And so I could,
-doctor; and that is the reason why thick-headed
-people, who could never dive into the motives of what
-I did, have often misinterpreted my conduct, when it
-has proceeded from the purest intentions. And, in the
-same way, when some persons said to Lady Suffolk,
-‘Look at Lady Hester, talking and riding with
-Bouverie and the Prince’s friends; she must mind
-what she is about’—Lady Suffolk remarked, ‘There is
-nothing to fear in that quarter; she never will let any
-body do a bit more <a id="chg1"></a>than she intends: what she does
-is with <i lang="fr">connoissance de cause</i>.’ And she was right;
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span>
-nobody could ever accuse me of folly: even those
-actions which might seem folly to a common observer,
-were wisdom. Everything with me, through life,
-has been premeditatedly done.</p>
-
-<p>“Mr. Pitt paid me the greatest compliment I ever
-received from any living being. He was speaking of
-C******, and lamenting he was so false, and so little
-to be trusted; and I said, ‘But perhaps he is only
-so in appearance, and is sacrificing ostensibly his own
-opinions, in order to support your reputation?’—‘I
-have lived,’ replied Mr. Pitt, ‘twenty-five years in the
-midst of men of all sorts, and I never yet found but
-one human being capable of such a sacrifice.’—‘Who
-can that be?’ said I. ‘Is it the Duke of Richmond?
-is it such a one?’ and I named two others, when he
-interrupted me—‘No,—it is <em>you</em>.’</p>
-
-<p>“I was not insensible to praise from such a man;
-and when, before Horne Tooke and some other clever
-people, he told me I was fit to sit between Augustus
-and Mæcenas, I suppose I must believe it. And he
-did not think so lightly of my lectures as you do: for
-one day he said to me, ‘We are going to establish a
-new hospital, and you, Hester, are to have the management
-of it: it is to be an hospital for the diseases
-of the mind; for nobody knows so well as you how to
-cure them.’ I should never have done if I were to
-repeat the many attestations of his good opinion of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span>
-me: but it was no merit of mine if I deserved it:
-I was born so. There was a man one day at table
-with Mr. Pitt, an old friend of his—Canning told me
-the story—who, speaking of me, observed that he supposed
-I should soon marry, and, after some conversation
-on the subject, concluded by saying, ‘I suppose
-she waits till she can get a man as clever as herself.’
-‘Then,’ answered Mr. Pitt, ‘she will never marry
-at all.’</p>
-
-<p>“In like manner, in the troublesome times of his
-political career, Mr. Pitt would say, ‘I have plenty of
-good diplomatists, but they are none of them military
-men: and I have plenty of good officers, but not one
-of them is worth sixpence in the cabinet. If you
-were a man, Hester, I would send you on the Continent
-with 60,000 men, and give you <i lang="fr">carte blanche</i>;
-and I am sure that not one of my plans would fail,
-and not one soldier would go with his shoes unblacked;
-meaning, that my attention would embrace
-every duty that belongs to a general and a corporal—and
-so it would, doctor.”</p>
-
-<p>After musing a little while, Lady Hester Stanhope
-went on. “Did you ever read the life of General Moore
-that I have seen advertised, written by his brother?
-I wonder which brother it was. If it was the surgeon,
-he was hard-headed, with great knowledge of men, but
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span>
-dry, and with nothing pleasing about him. His wife
-was a charming woman, brought up by some great
-person, and with very good manners.</p>
-
-<p>“As for tutors, and doctors, and such people, if,
-now-a-days, mylords and myladies walk arm-in-arm
-with them, they did not do so in my time. I recollect
-an old dowager, to whom I used sometimes to be
-taken to spend the morning. She was left with a
-large jointure, and a fine house for the time being,
-and used to invite the boys and the girls of my age, I
-mean the age I was then, with their tutors and governesses,
-to come and see her. ‘How do you do, Dr.
-Mackenzie? Lord John, I see, is all the better for
-his medicine: the duchess is happy in having found
-a man of such excellent talents, which are almost too
-great to be confined to the sphere of one family.’—‘Such
-is the nature of our compact, my Lady, nor
-could I on any account violate the regulations which
-so good a family has imposed upon me.’—‘It’s very
-cold, Dr. Mackenzie: I think I increased my
-rheumatic pains at the Opera on Saturday night.’—‘Did
-you ever try Dover’s Powders, my lady?’
-He does not, you see, tell her to use Dover’s
-Powders; he only says, did you ever try them?
-‘Lord John—Lord John, you must take care, and
-not eat too much of that strawberry preserve.’</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span>
-“‘How do you do, Mr. K.?—how do you do, Lord
-Henry? I hope the marchioness is well? She looked
-divinely last night. Did you see her when she was
-dressed, Mr. K.?’—‘You will pardon me, my lady,’
-answers the tutor, ‘I did indeed see her; but it would
-be presumptuous in me to speak of such matters. I
-happened to take her a map,’ (mind, doctor, he does
-not say a map of what) ‘and, certainly, I did cast my
-eyes on her dress, which was, no doubt, in the best
-taste, as everything the Marchioness does is.’ Observe,
-here is no mention of her looks or person.
-Doctors and tutors never presumed formerly to talk
-about the complexion, and skin, and beauty, of those
-in whose families they lived or found practice. Why,
-haven’t I told you, over and over again, how Dr. W——
-lost his practice from having said that a patient of his,
-who died, was one of the most beautiful corpses he had
-ever seen, and that he had stood contemplating her for
-a quarter of an hour: she was a person of rank, and it
-ruined him. Even his son, who was a doctor too,
-and had nothing to do with it, never could get on
-afterwards.</p>
-
-<p>“Then would come in some young lady with her
-governess, and then another; and the old dowager
-would take us all off to some show, and make the
-person who exhibited it stare again with the number
-of young nobility she brought with her. From the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span>
-exhibition, which was some monster, or some giant, or
-some something, she would take us to eat ices, and
-then we were all sent home, with the tutors and
-governesses in a stew, lest we should be too late for a
-master, or for a God knows what.</p>
-
-<p>“I have known many apothecaries cleverer than
-doctors themselves. There was Chilvers, and Hewson,
-and half-a-dozen names that I forget: and there was
-an apothecary at Bath that Mr. Pitt thought more of
-than of his physician. Why, I have seen Sir H——
-obliged to give way to an apothecary in a very high
-family. ‘We will just call him in, and see what he
-says:’ and the moment he had written his prescription
-and was gone out of the house, the family would
-consult the apothecary, who perhaps knew twice as
-much of the constitution of the patient. ‘You know,
-my lord, it is not the liver that is affected, whatever
-Sir H—— pretends to think: it is the spleen; for,
-did not we try the very same medicine that he has
-prescribed for above a week? and it did your lordship
-no good. You may just as well, and better, throw
-his draught away:’ and sure enough it was done.
-Sir Richard Jebb the same.</p>
-
-<p>“Do you think,” continued she, “that the first
-physician in London is on terms of intimacy with the
-mylords he prescribes for? he prescribes, takes his
-guinea, and is off: or, if he is asked to sit down a
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span>
-little, it is only to pick his brains about whether somebody
-is likely to live or not: but I am not, and never
-was, so mean: I always liked people should know
-their relative situations. Ah! Dr. Turton, or some
-such man as that, would be perhaps asked now and
-then to dinner, or to take a walk round the grounds.
-A doctor’s business is to examine the <i lang="fr">grandes affaires</i>,
-talk to the nurse, and see that his blister has been
-well dressed, and not to talk politics, say such a
-woman is handsome, and chatter about what does not
-concern him.”</p>
-
-<p>Whilst Lady Hester was going on with her strictures
-on the poor doctors, a favourite theme with her,
-I produced from the back of a cupboard a miniature
-print of General Moore, which had been lying at Abra,
-neglected for some years. She took it from my hand,
-and, looking at it a little time, she observed that it was
-an excellent likeness of what he was when he became
-a weather-beaten soldier: “Before that,” said she,
-“those cheeks were filled out and ruddy, like Mr.
-Close’s at Malta.”</p>
-
-<p>After a pause, Lady Hester Stanhope continued:
-“Poor Charles! My brother Charles one day was
-disputing with James about his handsome Colonel,
-and James, on his side, was talking of somebody’s leg
-being handsome, saying he was right, for it had been
-modelled, and nobody’s could be equal to it; when
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span>
-Charles turned to me, and asked with great earnestness
-if I did not think General Moore was the better
-made man of the two, I answered, ‘He is certainly
-very handsome.’—‘Oh! but,’ said Charles, ‘Hester,
-if you were only to see him when he is bathing, his
-body is as perfect as his face.’ I never even smiled,
-although inwardly I could not help smiling at his
-naïveté.</p>
-
-<p>“I consider it a mark of vulgarity and of the association
-of bad ideas in people’s minds when they make
-a handle of such equivoques in an ill-natured way, as
-you recollect Mr. T. did when he was at Alexandria.
-People of good breeding do not even smile, when, perhaps,
-low persons would suppose they might show a
-great deal of affected primosity. Only imagine the
-Duc de Blacas to be announced;—what would my old
-servant, poor William Wiggins, have done? He would
-never have got out the word.” Here Lady Hester set
-up laughing most heartily, and then she laughed, and
-laughed again. I think I never saw anything make her
-relax from her composure so much.</p>
-
-<p>“As for what people in England say or have said
-about me, I don’t care that for them,” (snapping her
-fingers); “and whatever vulgar-minded people say or
-think of me has no more effect than if they were to spit
-at the sun. It only falls on their own nose, and all
-the harm they do is to themselves. They may spit
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span>
-at a marble wall as they may at me, but it will not
-hang. They are like the flies upon an artillery-horse’s
-tail—there they ride, and ride, and buz about, and
-then there comes a great explosion; bom! and off
-they fly. I hate affectation of all kinds. I never could
-bear those ridiculous women who cannot step over a
-straw without expecting the man who is walking with
-them to offer his hand. I always said to the men,
-when they offered me their hand, ‘No, no; I have
-got legs of my own, don’t trouble yourselves.’ Nobody
-pays so little attention to what are called punctilios as
-I do; but if any one piques me on my rank, and what
-is due to me, that’s another thing: I can then show
-them who I am.”</p>
-
-<p>October 16.—These conversations filled up the
-mornings and evenings until the 16th of October, when
-I went to Mar Elias for a day. Whilst there, a
-peasant arrived with an ass-load of musk grapes and
-<i>mukseysy</i> grapes that Lady Hester had sent. An ass-load
-in those happy countries is but a proof of the
-abundance that reigns there. A bushel-basket of
-oranges or lemons, a bunch of fifty or sixty bananas,
-ten or twelve melons at a time, were presents of frequent
-occurrence.</p>
-
-<p>October 18.—I returned to Jôon, and employed
-myself busily in fitting up the cottage intended for our
-dwelling. The nearer the time approached for bringing
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span>
-my family close to her premises, the more Lady Hester
-seemed to regret having consented to the arrangement.
-Petty jealousies, inconsistent with a great mind, were
-always tormenting her. Of this a remarkable and
-somewhat ludicrous instance occurred during the latter
-part of the month of September. Most persons are
-probably aware that Mahometans have a religious
-horror of bells, and, in countries under their domination,
-have never allowed of their introduction even
-into Christian churches. It is not uncommon, by way
-of contempt, to designate Europe as the land of bells.
-This pious abhorrence penetrates the arcana of private
-life; and, in a Turkish house, no such thing as a bell
-for calling the servants is ever to be seen. A clap of
-the hands, repeated three times, is the usual summons;
-and, as the doors are seldom shut, the sound
-can be easily heard throughout every part of the
-dwelling.</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester, however, retained her European
-habits in this one particular; and perhaps there never
-existed a more vehement or constant bell-ringer. The
-bells hung for her use were of great size; so that the
-words <i>Gerass el Syt</i>, or my lady’s bell, echoing from
-one mouth to another when she rang, made the most
-indolent start on their legs; until, at last, as nobody
-but herself in the whole territory possessed house-bells,
-the peasantry and menials imagined that the use of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span>
-them was some special privilege granted to her by the
-Sublime Porte on account of her exalted rank, and
-she probably found it to her advantage not to disturb
-this very convenient supposition.</p>
-
-<p>On taking up our residence at Mar Elias, there
-were two bells put by in a closet, which were replaced
-for the use of my family, with bell-ropes to the saloon
-and dining-room, none of us ever suspecting that they
-could, by any human ingenuity, be considered otherwise
-than as most necessary appendages to a room:
-but we calculated without our host. This assumption
-of the dignity of bells was held to be an act of <i lang="la">læsa
-majestas</i>; and the report of our proceedings was carried
-from one person to another, until, at last, it
-reached Lady Hester’s ears, endorsed with much
-wonder on the part of her maids how a doctor’s wife
-could presume to set herself on an equality with a
-<i>meleky</i> (queen). Lady Hester, however, saw the
-absurdity of affecting any claim to distinction in such
-a matter, and, therefore, vexed and mortified although
-it appears she was, she never said a word to me on
-the subject. But, one morning in September, when
-we were all assembled at breakfast, on pulling the
-bell-rope no sound responded, and, examining into the
-cause, we discovered that the strings had been cut by
-a knife, and the bells forcibly wrenched from their
-places. Much conjecture was formed as to who could
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span>
-have done all this mischief. The maids were questioned;
-the porter, the milkman, the errand-boy, the
-man-servant, every body, in short, in and about the
-place, but nobody knew anything of the matter. Understanding
-Arabic, I soon found there was some mystery
-in the business; and answers, more and more
-evasive, from the porter, the harder he was pressed,
-led to a presumption, amounting almost to a certainty,
-that her ladyship’s grand emissary, Osman Chaôosh,
-had arrived late at night, armed with pincers, hammer,
-etcetera, and, before daylight, had carried off the bells
-to Lady Hester’s residence. I concealed my conjecture
-from my family, wishing to cause no fresh
-source of irritation; and, having occasion to write
-that day to Lady Hester, I merely added, as a postscript,
-“The two bells have been stolen during the
-night, and I can find no certain clue to the thief. For,
-although I have discovered that Osman el Chaôosh
-has been here secretly, I cannot think it likely that
-any one of your servants would presume to do such a
-thing without your orders; nor can I believe that
-your ladyship would instruct any one to do that clandestinely
-which a message from yourself to me would
-have effected so easily.”</p>
-
-<p>When I saw Lady Hester a day or two afterwards,
-she never alluded to the bells, nor did I; and nothing
-was ever mentioned about them for two or three months,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span>
-until, one day, she, being in a good humour, said,
-“Doctor, it was I who ordered Osman to take away
-the bells. The people in this country must never
-suppose there is any one connected with my establishment
-who puts himself on an equality with
-me, no matter in what. The Turks know of only one
-Pasha in a district; the person next to him is a nobody
-in his presence, not daring even to sit down or
-to speak, unless told to do so. If I had let those
-bells hang much longer, the sound of my own would
-not have been attended to. As it is, half of my servants
-have become disobedient from seeing how my
-will is disputed by you and your family, who have
-always a hundred reasons for not doing what I wish
-to be done; and, as I said in my letter to Eugenia,
-I can’t submit to render an account of my actions;
-for, if I was not called upon to do so by Mr. Pitt, I
-am sure I shan’t by other people; so let us say no
-more about it.” Of course, I complied with her
-whims; or rather, I should say, admitted the good
-sense of her observations: for I knew very well that
-she never did anything without a kind or substantial
-motive. So, after that, the exclamation of <i>Gerass el
-Syt</i> recovered its magical effect.</p>
-
-<p>October 23.—I escorted my family to their new
-residence, which was called the Tamarisk Pavilion,
-from a tamarisk-tree that grew from the terrace.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span>
-They were all delighted with it, and happiness seemed
-restored to its inmates.</p>
-
-<p>October 25.—The very day on which my family
-came up, Lady Hester took to her bed from illness,
-and never quitted it until March in the following
-year. She had now laboured under pulmonary catarrh
-for six or seven years, which, subsiding in the summer
-months, returned every winter, with increased violence,
-and at this time presented some very formidable
-symptoms.</p>
-
-<p>November 9.—About six o’clock, just as I had
-dined, a servant came to say that her ladyship wished
-to see me. On going into her bed-room, which, as
-usual, was but faintly lighted, I ran my head against
-a long packthread, which crossed from the wall,
-where it was tied, to her bed, and was held in her
-hand. “Take care, doctor,” said she; “these stupid
-beasts can’t understand what I want: but you must
-help me. I want to pull out a tooth. I have tied a
-string to it and to the wall: and you, with a stick or
-something, must give it a good blow, so as to jerk my
-tooth out.”</p>
-
-<p>Knowing her disposition, I said, “Very well, and
-that I would do as she wished. But, if you like,”
-added I, “to have it extracted <i lang="la">secundem artem</i>, I
-fancy I can do it for you.”—“Oh! doctor, have you
-nerve enough? and, besides, I don’t like those crooked
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span>
-instruments: but, however, go and get them.” I had
-seen in the medicine-chest a dentist’s instrument, and,
-returning with it, I performed the operation; with
-the result of which she was so much pleased, that she
-insisted upon having another tooth out. The relief
-was so instantaneous, that the second tooth was no
-sooner gone than she commenced talking as usual.</p>
-
-<p>The cough with which Lady Hester had been so
-long indisposed occasionally assumed symptoms of
-water in the chest. Sudden starts from a lying
-posture, with a sense of suffocation, which, for a
-moment, as she described it, was like the gripe of
-a hand across her throat, made me very uneasy about
-her. Her strong propensity to bleeding, to which she
-had resorted four or five times a year for the last
-twenty years, had brought on a state of complete
-emaciation, and what little blood was left in her
-body seemed to have no circulation in the extremities,
-where her veins, on a deadly white skin, showed themselves
-tumefied and knotty.</p>
-
-<p>It was difficult to reason with her on medical subjects,
-especially in her own case. She had peculiar
-systems, drawn from the doctrine of people’s stars.
-She designated her own cough as an asthma, and had,
-for some time, doctored herself much in her own way.
-Such is the balmy state of the air in Syria, that, had
-she trusted to its efficacy alone, and lived with habits of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span>
-life like other people, nothing serious was to be
-dreaded from her illness. But she never breathed
-the external air, except what she got by opening
-the windows, and took no exercise but for about
-ten minutes or a quarter of an hour daily, when,
-on quitting her bed-room to go to the saloon, she made
-two or three turns in the garden to see her flowers
-and shrubs, which seemed to be the greatest enjoyment
-she had.</p>
-
-<p>She prescribed almost entirely for herself, and only
-left me the duties of an apothecary; or, if she adopted
-any of my suggestions, it was never at the moment,
-but always some days afterwards, when it seemed to
-her that she was acting, not on my advice, but on the
-suggestions of her own judgment. She was accustomed
-to say, if any doubts were expressed of the
-propriety of what she was going to do, “I suppose I
-am grown a fool in my old age. When princes and
-statesmen have relied on my judgment, I am not going
-to give it up at this time of life.”</p>
-
-<p>But it was not for herself alone that she thus obstinately
-prescribed; she insisted also upon doing the
-same for everybody else, morally as well as medically.
-One of the prominent features in her character was the
-inclination she had to give advice to all persons indiscriminately
-about their conduct, their interests, and
-their complaints: and, in this latter respect, she prescribed
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span>
-for everybody. I was not exempt, and I
-dreaded her knowing anything about the most trifling
-indisposition that affected me. Greatly addicted to
-empiricism, she would propose the most strange remedies;
-and, fond of the use of medicine herself, she
-would be out of humour if others showed an aversion
-to it. There was no surer way of securing her good
-graces than to put one’s self under her management
-for some feigned complaint, and then to attribute the
-cure to her skill. Hundreds of knaves have got presents
-out of her in this way. For they had but to
-say that, during their illness, they had lost an employment,
-or spent their ready money, no matter
-what—they were sure to be remunerated tenfold above
-their pretended losses. Let it however be said to her
-honour, that, among the number she succoured in real
-sickness, many owned with gratitude the good she had
-done: and no surer proof of this can be given than
-the universal sorrow that pervaded half the population
-of Sayda, when, in the course of this her illness, she
-was reported to be past recovery.</p>
-
-<p>It was in compliance with this foible of hers that,
-when I returned to Dar Jôon, after being laid up with
-a bad leg, she would insist on my wearing a laced
-cloth boot, which she ordered to be made, unknown to
-me; on my washing the œdematous leg in wine with
-laurel leaves steeped in it; and on sitting always,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span>
-when with her, with my leg resting on a cushion
-placed on a stool. Her tyranny in such matters was
-very irksome; for it was clothed in terms of so much
-feeling and regard, and of such commiseration for
-one’s overrated sufferings, that, to escape the accusation
-of ingratitude and bad breeding, it was impossible
-to avoid entire acquiescence in every one of her
-kind commands.</p>
-
-<p>She was ever complaining that she could get nothing
-to eat, nothing to support a great frame like
-hers: yet she seldom remained one half hour, from
-sunrise to sunset, or from sunset to sunrise (except
-during sleep), without taking nourishment of some
-kind. I never knew any human being who took food
-so frequently: but, from that very frequency, it might
-be doubted whether she had a relish for anything.
-And may not this, in some measure, account for her
-frequent ill-humour? for nothing sours people’s temper
-more than an overloaded stomach, and nothing promotes
-cheerfulness more than a light one.</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a>
-In accordance with his republican principles, Lord Stanhope caused
-his armorial bearings to be defaced from his plate, carriages, &amp;c.
-Nothing was spared but the iron gate before the entrance to the house.
-Even the tapestry given to the great Lord Stanhope by the king of
-Spain, with which one of the rooms in Chevening was ornamented, he
-caused to be taken down and put into a corner, calling it all damned
-aristocratical. He likewise sold all the Spanish plate, which Lady
-Hester said weighed (if I recollect rightly) six hundred weight.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a>
-A friend has suggested that <i>primosity</i> is not in Johnson’s
-Dictionary; it was however a word of frequent recurrence in Lady
-Hester’s vocabulary; and it scarcely, I think, need be said, that it
-means prudery:</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry small">
-  <div class="verse indent0">“What is prudery? ’Tis a beldam,</div>
-  <div class="verse indent0">Seen with wit and beauty seldom.”</div>
-  <div class="author"><span class="smcap">Pope.</span></div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a>
- “In 1800, Mr. Pitt, for the third time, contemplated renewing his
-attempts to make peace with France, and he offered the mission again
-to Lord Malmesbury. Lord Grenville wished to appoint his brother, Mr.
-Thomas Grenville; and Lord Malmesbury, whose deafness and infirmity had
-much increased, readily consented.”—<cite>Diaries and Correspondence of
-the Earl of Malmesbury.</cite></p>
-
-</div><!--end footnotes-->
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span>
-
-<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span> <abbr title="Two"><span class="allsmcap">II.</span></abbr></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="small short">Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s Memoirs—The three duchesses—Anecdote
-of Mr. Rice—How Prime Ministers are employed on
-first taking office—The Grenville make—P—— of W——
-at Stowe—Mr. Pitt and Mr. Sheridan—Duke of H——
-—Mr. Pitt’s disinterestedness exemplified—His life wasted in
-the service of his country—Mr. Rose—Mr. Long—Mr.——
-—Grounds at Walmer laid out by Lady Hester—Mr. Pitt’s
-deportment in retirement—His physiognomy—How he got
-into debt—Lord Carrington; why made a peer—Extent of
-Mr. Dundas’s influence over Mr. Pitt—Mr. Pitt averse to
-ceremony—Mr. Pitt and his sister Harriet—His dislike to
-the Bourbons—Lady Hester’s activity at Walmer—Lord
-Chatham’s indolence—Mr. Pitt’s opinion of Sir Arthur
-Wellesley.</p>
-
-
-<p class="p2">On leaving Marseilles, in 1837, I ordered Sir
-Nathaniel Wraxall’s Memoirs to be sent after me
-to Syria, thinking that, as relating to Mr. Pitt’s
-times, and to people and politics with whom and in
-which both he and she had mixed so largely, these
-memoirs could not fail to amuse her. I received them
-soon after my arrival at Jôon, and many rainy days
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span>
-were passed in reading them. They served to beguile
-the melancholy hours of her sickness, and recalled the
-agreeable recollections of her more splendid, if not
-more happy, hours. She would say on such occasions,
-“Doctor, read a little of your book to me.” This was
-always her expression, when I had brought any publication
-to her: and, ordering a pipe, lying at her
-length in bed, and smoking whilst I read, she would
-make her comments as I went on.</p>
-
-<p>“Let me hear about the duchesses,” she would say.
-After a page or two she interrupted me. “See what
-the Duchess of Rutland and the Duchess of Gordon
-were: look at the difference. I acknowledge it proceeds
-all from temperament, just as your dull disposition
-does, which to me is as bad as a heavy weight
-or a nightmare. I never knew, among the whole of
-my acquaintance in England, any one like you but
-Mr. Polhill of Crofton” (or some such place): “he
-was always mopish, just as you are. I remember too
-what a heavy, dull business the Duchess of R.’s parties
-were—the room so stuffed with people that one could
-not move, and all so heavy—a great deal of high
-breeding and <i lang="fr">bon ton</i>; but there was, somehow, nothing
-to enliven you. Now and then some incident
-would turn up to break the spell. One evening, I
-recollect very well, everybody was suffering with the
-heat: there we were, with nothing but heads to be
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span>
-seen like bottles in a basket. I got out of the room,
-upon the landing-place. There I found Lady Sefton,
-Lady Heathcote, and some of your high-flyers, and
-somebody was saying to me, ‘Lady Hester something,’
-when, half way up the staircase, the Duke of Cumberland
-was trying to make his way. He cried out,
-‘Where’s Lady Hester? where’s my aide-de-camp?
-Come and help me; for I am so blind I can’t get on
-alone. Why, this is h—l and d——n!’—‘Here I
-am, sir.’—‘Give me your hand, there’s a good little
-soul. Do help me into this h—l; for it’s quite as
-hot.’ Then came Bradford; and, whilst he was
-speaking to me, and complaining of the intolerable
-heat and crush, out roared the Duke of Cumberland,
-‘Where is she gone to?’—and up went his glass, peeping
-about to the right and left—‘where is she gone to?’
-There was some life in him, doctor.</p>
-
-<p>“Now, at the Duchess of Gordon’s, there were
-people of the same fashion, and the crowd was just as
-great; but then she was so lively, and everybody was
-so animated, and seemed to know so well what they
-were about—quite another thing.</p>
-
-<p>“As for the Duchess of D.’s, there they were—all
-that set—all yawning, and wanting the evening to be
-spent, that they might be getting to the business they
-were after.”</p>
-
-<p>It may be mentioned that Lady Hester was always
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span>
-very severe on the Duchess of D. and her friends,
-whenever her name or theirs was mentioned. She
-said she was full of affected sensibility, but that there
-was always a great deal of wickedness about her
-eyes.</p>
-
-<p>The mention of the Duchess of Rutland’s name
-also led to an amusing anecdote. Lady Hester was
-speaking of the grand <i lang="fr">fête</i> given by the duchess when
-her son came of age. The arrangements were entrusted
-to a person named Rice, and to some great confectioner.
-Mr. Rice had been <i lang="fr">maître d’hôtel</i>, or in
-some such capacity, in Mr. Pitt’s family.</p>
-
-<p>“Rice told me,” said Lady Hester, “that when he
-and the other man were preparing for the <i lang="fr">fête</i>, he never
-lay down for ten nights, but got what sleep he could
-in an arm-chair. The duchess gave him three hundred
-guineas. One day she looked at him over her
-shoulder; and when one of the beaux about her said,
-‘What are you looking after, duchess? You have
-forgotten something in the drawing-room?’—‘No, no,’
-said she, pointing to Rice, ‘I was only thinking that
-those eyes are too good for a kitchen.’ And then one
-talked of the eyes, and the eyes, and another of the
-eyes and the eyes, until poor Rice quite blushed. He
-had very pretty eyes, doctor.”</p>
-
-<p>But the anecdote I was going to relate was this.
-Most simple persons, like myself, imagine that prime
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span>
-ministers of such a country as England, when promoted
-to so elevated a station, are only moved by the
-noble ambition of their country’s good, and, from the
-first moment to the last, are ever pondering on the
-important measures that may best promote it. No
-such thing. Let us hear what Lady Hester Stanhope
-herself had to say on this subject.</p>
-
-<p>“The very first thing Mr. Pitt did,” said she,
-“after coming into office the second time, was to provide
-for Mr. Rice. We were just got to Downing
-Street, and everything was in disorder. I was in the
-drawing-room: Mr. Pitt, I believe, had dined out.
-When he came home, ‘Hester,’ said he, ‘we must
-think of our dear, good friend Rice. I have desired
-the list to be brought to me to-morrow morning, and
-we will see what suits him.’—‘I think we had better
-see now,’ I replied. ‘Oh, no! it is too late now.’—‘Not
-at all,’ I rejoined; and I rang the bell, and desired
-the servant to go to the Treasury, and bring me
-the list.</p>
-
-<p>“On examining it, I found three places for which
-he was eligible. I then sent for Rice. ‘Rice,’ said
-I, ‘here are three places to be filled up. One is a
-place in the Treasury, where you may fag on, and, by
-the time you are forty-five or fifty, you may be
-master of twenty or twenty-five thousand pounds.
-There is another will bring you into contact with poor
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span>
-younger sons of nobility: you will be invited out,
-get tickets for the Opera, and may make yourself a
-fine gentleman. The third is in the Customs: there
-you must fag a great deal, but you will make a great
-deal of money: it is a searcher’s place.’</p>
-
-<p>“Rice, after considering awhile, said—‘As for the
-Treasury, that will not suit me, my lady; for I must
-go on plodding to the end of my life. The second
-place your ladyship mentioned will throw me out of
-my sphere: I am not fit for fine folks; and, if you
-please, I had rather take the third.’ So, the very
-next morning, I got all his papers signed by everybody
-except Mr. Long, and they made some excuses
-that he was not come, or was gone, or something; but
-I would hear of no delay, and desired them to find him.</p>
-
-<p>“Rice went on swimmingly, doctor, for a long time,
-and made one morning a seizure that brought for his
-share £500. But I had given him some very long
-instructions, and he was not like you, for he listened
-to my advice. Sometimes, when I was teaching him
-how he was to act, he would say, ‘My lady, I believe
-that is enough for this time: I don’t think my poor
-head will contain more; but I’ll come again.’ I told
-him he was to learn the specific gravity of bodies, that
-when they told him (for example) it was pepper, he
-might know by the volume that it was not gunpowder
-or cochineal.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span>
-“When the Grenville administration wanted to
-introduce new regulations into the Customs, and
-diminish their profits, I wrote such a petition for
-them, that Lord Grenville read it over and over, and
-cried out—‘There is only one person could write this,
-and we must give up the point.’ He sent the Duke
-of Buckingham to me to find out if it was I, and the
-duke said, to smooth the matter—‘Lady Hester, you
-know, if you want any favour, you have only to ask
-for it.’—‘Indeed,’ said I, ‘I shall ask no favour of
-your <em>broad-bottomed</em> gentry; what I want I shall take
-by force.’—‘Now, Hester,’ cried the duke, ‘you are
-too bad; you are almost indelicate.’</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, I made a man laugh so once when speaking of
-an officer, who, I said, would not do for an hussar,
-as he wanted a little more of the Grenville make
-about him.”</p>
-
-<p>After a pause, as if reflecting, Lady Hester resumed—“Is
-there nothing in the book about the
-G********’s getting the Prince down to Stowe?
-They received him with extraordinary magnificence,
-and the most noble treatment possible: they fancied
-they were going to do wonders. But I said to
-them—‘Do you think all this makes the impression
-you wish in the Prince’s breast? You suppose, no
-doubt, that you gratify him highly with such a splendid
-reception: you are much mistaken. From this
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span>
-time forward he will be jealous of you, and will hate
-you as long as he thinks you can rival him.’ The
-event proved how justly I knew his character.</p>
-
-<p>“There they were, shut up: and when they told me
-they had got their conditions in black and white, I
-told them how it would be. I said he would take
-them in; for what was a paper to a man like him?
-I wrote them such a letter, doctor, that they all
-thought it was Mr. Pitt’s—Mr. Pitt’s best style, too—until
-I swore he never knew a word about it. They
-fancied they had got all the loaves and fishes. One
-was to be Prime Minister, one First Lord of the Admiralty,
-and so on: but their ambition destroyed
-them. What have they been since Mr. Pitt’s death?
-Nothing at all. Who ever hears now of the Duke of
-B*********?”<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
-
-<p>I turned over the pages, and next read Wraxall’s
-account of Mr. Sheridan, which Lady Hester said was
-very much to the purpose. “Mr. Pitt,” she added,
-“always thought well of him, and never disliked my
-talking with him. Oh! how Sheridan used to make
-me laugh, when he pretended to marry Mr. Pitt to
-different women!”</p>
-
-<p>I came to the passage where Sir Nathaniel finds
-fault with Mr. Pitt’s having refused Sheridan’s generous
-offer of co-operating with him in suppressing the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span>
-mutiny at the Nore. “Why,” interrupted Lady
-Hester, “what could Mr. Pitt do? He was afraid,
-doctor; he did not know how sincere such people
-might be in their offers: they might be only coming
-over to his side to get the secrets of the cabinet, and
-then turn king’s evidence. It required a great deal
-of caution to know how to deal with such clever men.”</p>
-
-<p>Where Sir Nathaniel relates the history of the
-Burrell family, she spoke highly of all the daughters,
-but especially of Mrs. Bennett, and considered that
-the author was wrong in saying that all but Mrs. Bennett
-were not handsome.</p>
-
-<p>Of the D. of H. she observed, that he never lived
-with the duchess. He was in love with Lady ——,
-and used to disguise himself as a one-legged soldier—as
-a beggar—assuming a hundred masquerades, sleeping
-in outhouses, &amp;c. He would have married her,
-but he could not, for he had got one wife already.
-That was the woman F. M**** married. “Oh, doctor,
-there was a man!” (meaning the Duke of H——)
-“perfect from top to toe, with not a single flaw in his
-person.”</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester was so delighted with Sir Nathaniel’s
-Memoirs that she said, more than once, “How I wish
-I had known that man! I would have made him a
-duke. What an excellent judgment he has, and how
-well he knew everybody! But how was I to find out
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span>
-all those people, when the stupid and interested set
-that surrounded Mr. Pitt kept them all in the background.”</p>
-
-<p>November 11.—This evening I remained with Lady
-Hester about three hours. She was better, but complained
-of great pain in the left hypochondrium, and
-could not lie easy on either side, or on her back.
-Yet, notwithstanding her ailments, talking was necessary
-for her; and from the incidental mention of Mr.
-Pitt’s name, she went on about him for some time.</p>
-
-<p>“Nobody ever knew or estimated Mr. Pitt’s character
-rightly. His views were abused and confounded
-with the narrow projects of men who never could comprehend
-them; his fidelity to his master was never
-understood. Never was there such a disinterested
-man; he invariably refused every bribe, and declined
-every present that was offered to him. Those which
-came to him from abroad he left to rot in the Custom
-House; and some of his servants, after quitting his
-service, knowing he never inquired about them any
-more, went and claimed things of this sort: for Mr.
-Pitt would read the letter, and think no more about it.
-I could name those, who have pictures hanging in their
-rooms—pictures by Flemish masters, of great value—procured
-in this way.</p>
-
-<p>“Mr. Pitt used to say of Lord Carrington, when he
-saw him unable to eat his dinner in comfort, because he
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span>
-had a letter to write to his steward about some estate
-or another—‘<i lang="fr">voilà l’embarras de richesses</i>:’ but when
-he heard of some generous action done by a wealthy
-man—‘There’s the pleasure of being rich,’ he would
-cry. He did not pretend to despise wealth, but he
-was not a slave to it, as will be seen by the following
-anecdotes:—</p>
-
-<p>“At one time a person was empowered by his city
-friends to settle on him £10,000 a year, in order to
-render him independent of the favour of the king
-and of everybody, upon condition (as they expressed
-it) that he would stand forth to save his country.
-The offer was made through me, and I said I would
-deliver the message, but was afraid the answer would
-not be such as they wished. Mr. Pitt in fact refused
-it, saying he was much flattered by their approval of
-his conduct, but that he could accept nothing of the sort.</p>
-
-<p>“Yet these people,” added Lady Hester, “were
-not, as you might at first suppose, disinterested in
-their offer: I judged them to be otherwise. For if it
-had been to the man, and not to some hopes of gain
-they had by him, would they not, after his death,
-have searched out those he esteemed as angels, and
-have honoured his memory by enriching those he loved
-so much? (alluding to herself and brothers.) But no—they
-thought if Mr. Pitt retired from public affairs,
-the country and its commerce would go to ruin, and
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span>
-they, as great city men, would be the losers; whereas,
-by a few thousand pounds given away handsomely, if
-they got him to take an active part in the government,
-they would in turn put vast riches into their
-own purses, and make a handsome profit out of their
-patriotism.” She added, “There are no public philanthropists
-in the city.”</p>
-
-<p>“I recollect once a hackney-coach drawing up to
-the door, out of which got four men: doctor, they
-had a gold box with them as big as that” (and she held
-her hands nearly a foot apart to show the size of it),
-“containing £100,000 in bank-notes. They had
-found out the time when he was alone, and made him
-an offer of it. It was all interest that guided them,
-but they pretended it was patriotism:—rich merchants,
-who were to get a pretty penny by the job. He
-very politely thanked them, and returned the present.</p>
-
-<p>“I was once in the city at an Irish linen warehouse—very
-rich people, but such a nasty place—so
-dark! You know those narrow streets. They offered
-to buy Hollwood for him, pay his debts, and make him
-independent of the king, if he would contrive to take
-office; for he was out at the time. I mentioned it to
-him, as I thought it my duty to do so; but he would
-not listen to any such proposal.</p>
-
-<p>“When I think of the ingratitude of the English
-nation to Mr. Pitt, for all his personal sacrifices and
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span>
-disinterestedness, for his life wasted in the service of
-his country!”—Here Lady Hester’s emotions got the
-better of her, and she burst into tears: she sobbed as
-she spoke. “People little knew what he had to do.
-Up at eight in the morning, with people enough to see
-for a week, obliged to talk all the time he was at
-breakfast, and receiving first one, then another, until
-four o’clock; then eating a mutton-chop, hurrying off
-to the House, and there badgered and compelled to
-speak and waste his lungs until two or three in the
-morning!—who could stand it? After this, heated
-as he was, and having eaten nothing, in a manner of
-speaking, all day, he would sup with Dundas, Huskisson,
-Rose, Mr. Long, and such persons, and then
-go to bed to get three or four hours’ sleep, and to
-renew the same thing the next day, and the next, and
-the next.</p>
-
-<p>“Poor old Rose! he had a good heart. I am
-afraid he took it ill that I did not write to him. Mr.
-Long used to slide in and slide out, and slide here and
-slide there—nobody knew when he went or when he
-came—so quiet.”</p>
-
-<p>I here interrupted Lady Hester: “It was a lamentable
-end, that of Mr. ——,” said I.<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> “So much the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span>
-better,” answered Lady Hester. I thought she had
-not heard me well. “It was a lamentable end, that
-of Mr. ——,” I repeated with a louder tone. “So
-much the better,” said she again; “it could not be too
-bad for him. He died in bodily torment, and C——
-had the torment of a bad conscience for his falsehoods,
-and W—— lived in mental torment. They all three
-deserved it.”</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester resumed. “When Mr. Pitt was at
-Walmer, he recovered his health prodigiously. He
-used to go to a farm near Walmer, where hay and corn
-were kept for the horses. He had a room fitted up
-there with a table and two or three chairs, where he
-used to write sometimes, and a tidy woman to dress
-him something to eat. Oh! what slices of bread and
-butter I have seen him eat there, and hunches of
-bread and cheese big enough for a ploughman! He
-used to say that, whenever he could retire from public
-life, he would have a good English woman cook.
-Sometimes, after a grand dinner, he would say, ‘I
-want something—I am hungry:’ and when I remarked,
-‘Well, but you are just got up from dinner,’
-he would add, ‘Yes; but I looked round the table,
-and there was nothing I could eat—all the dishes were
-so made up, and so unnatural.’ Ah, doctor! in town,
-during the sitting of parliament, what a life was his!
-Roused from his sleep (for he was a good sleeper) with
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span>
-a despatch from Lord Melville;—then down to Windsor;
-then, if he had half an hour to spare, trying
-to swallow something:—Mr. Adams with a paper,
-Mr. Long with another; then Mr. Rose: then, with
-a little bottle of cordial confection in his pocket, off to
-the House until three or four in the morning; then
-home to a hot supper for two or three hours more, to
-talk over what was to be done next day:—and wine,
-and wine!—Scarcely up next morning, when tat-tat-tat—twenty
-or thirty people, one after another, and the
-horses walking before the door from two till sunset,
-waiting for him. It was enough to kill a man—it was
-murder!”</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester reverted to Walmer, and went on,
-after musing a little thus—“I remember once what an
-improvement I made at Walmer, which arose from a
-conversation with some friends, in which Mr. Pitt
-agreed with them that Walmer was not certainly a
-beautiful residence, but that it only wanted trees to
-make it so. I was present, but did not seem to hear
-what was passing.</p>
-
-<p>“Mr. Pitt soon after went to town. Mindful of
-what he had let drop, I immediately resolved to set
-about executing the improvements which he seemed
-to imply as wanting. I got (I know not how) all the
-regiments that were in quarters at Dover, and employed
-them in levelling, fetching turf, transplanting
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span>
-shrubs, flowers, &amp;c. As I possess, in some degree,
-the art of ingratiating myself where I want to do it, I
-would go out of an evening among the workmen, and
-say to one, ‘You are a Warwickshire man, I know
-by your face’ (although I had known it by his brogue).
-‘How much I esteem Lord Warwick; he is my best
-friend.’—‘Were you in Holland, my good fellow?’ to
-another. ‘Yes, my lady, in the Blues.’—‘A fine
-regiment; there is not a better soldier in the army
-than colonel so-and-so.’—‘He was my colonel, my
-lady.’ Thus a few civil words, and occasionally a
-present, made the work go on rapidly, and it was
-finished before Mr. Pitt’s return.</p>
-
-<p>“When Mr. Pitt came down, he dismounted from
-his horse, and, ascending the staircase, saw through a
-window, which commanded a view of the grounds, the
-improvements that had been made. ‘Dear me, Hester,
-why, this is a miracle! I know ’tis you, so do not deny
-it: well, I declare, it is quite admirable; I could
-not have done it half so well myself.’ And, though it
-was just dinner-time, he would go out, and examine
-it all over, and then was so profuse in his praises!—which
-were the more delightful, because they applauded
-the correctness of my taste. Above all, he was charmed
-that I had not fallen into an error (which most persons
-would have done) of making what is called an English
-garden, but rather had kept to the old manner of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span>
-avenues, alleys, and the like, as being more adapted to
-an ancient castle. Such was the amiable politeness of
-Mr. Pitt.</p>
-
-<p>“When Mr. Pitt retired from office, and sold
-Hollwood, his favourite child, he laid down his carriages
-and horses, diminished his equipage, and paid
-off as many debts as he could. Yet, notwithstanding
-this complete revolution, his noble manners, his agreeable,
-condescending air, never forsook him for a
-moment. To see him at table with vulgar sea captains,
-and ignorant militia colonels, with two or three
-servants in attendance—he, who had been accustomed
-to a servant behind each chair, to all that was great
-and distinguished in Europe—one might have supposed
-disgust would have worked some change in him.
-But in either case it was the same—always the admiration
-of all around him. He was ever careful to cheer
-the modest and diffident; but if some forward young
-fellow exhibited any pertness, by a short speech, or
-by asking some puzzling question, he would give him
-such a set down that he could not get over it all the
-evening.”</p>
-
-<p>In answer to a question I put, “By whom and how
-ministers effected their purposes in the city,” she told
-me that they got hold of one of the great squads, as
-Lloyd’s, the Angersteins, the Merchant Tailors, and
-so on; and by means of one body set the rest to work.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span>
-Lady Hester was saying of herself that she was
-very fit for a diplomatic character. “Nobody can ever
-observe in me any changes in my countenance; and
-when I am sitting still under a tree, nobody that
-passes and sees me, I will venture to say, would ever
-suppose what was in me, or say that’s a person of
-talent. Mr. Pitt’s face was somewhat the same. In
-regarding him, I should have said that he had a sort
-of slovenly or negligent look: and the same when he
-was in a passion. His passion did not show itself by
-knitting his brows or pouting his mouth, nor were his
-words very sharp: but his eyes lighted up in a manner
-quite surprising. It was something that seemed to
-dart from within his head, and you might see sparks
-coming from them. At another time, his eyes had no
-colour at all.</p>
-
-<p>“That Mr. Pitt got into debt is no wonder. How
-could a man, so circumstanced, find time to look into
-his affairs? And of course there were many things I
-could not attend to, whatever disposition I might have
-had to do so. The bills that were given in by the
-cook, by the valet, and such people, I looked over.
-Merely the post-chaises and four were enough to run
-away with a moderate income. Every now and then
-I fixed on some glaring overcharge, and made some
-inquiry about it, just to put a check upon them; and
-on such occasions I would say, ‘Take care that does
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span>
-not happen again:’ but, what with great dinners, and
-one thing and another, it was impossible to do any
-good. As for your talking about English servants
-being more honest than those of other countries, I
-don’t know what to say about it.</p>
-
-<p>“Where Wraxall, in his book, insinuates that
-Mr. Pitt gave Mr. Smith a title, and made him Lord
-Carrington, merely to discharge a debt for money
-supplied in his emergencies, he is wrong, doctor. Mr.
-Pitt once borrowed a sum of money of six persons,
-but Lord Carrington was not of the number, and the
-title bestowed on him was for quite another reason:
-it was to recompense the zeal he had shown in raising
-a volunteer corps at his own expense at Nottingham,
-and in furnishing government with a sufficient sum to
-raise another. Mr. Pitt had also found Mr. Smith a
-useful man in affording him information about bankers’
-business, which he often stood in need of, and in
-making dinner parties, to enable Mr. Pitt to get rid
-of troublesome people, whom he otherwise would have
-been obliged to entertain at his own table. But Mr.
-Pitt never knew what I heard after his death, by mere
-accident, that the principal part of the loan, which
-Mr. S. presented to government in his own name, was
-in reality the gift of an old miser at Nottingham;
-who, being unable or unwilling to go to town to see
-the Chancellor of the Exchequer in person, and to be
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span>
-put to the trouble of addressing the crown, got Mr. S.,
-who was an active man, to do it for him. It suited
-Mr. Pitt very well, in making Lord Carrington governor
-of Deal castle, to have somebody near at hand
-who could take off the bore, and the expense too, of
-entertaining people from London.”</p>
-
-<p>“Sir Nathaniel Wraxall speaks of Mr. Pitt’s supposed
-inclination for one of the Duke of Richmond’s
-daughters, and goes on to say that he showed one of
-them great attention.” Lady Hester Stanhope interrupted
-me at that passage, and said, “So he did
-to all.”</p>
-
-<p>She denied that Mr. Dundas had any direct influence
-over Mr. Pitt, as Wraxall avers. Her words
-were, “Because Mr. Dundas was a man of sense, and
-Mr. Pitt approved of his ideas on many subjects,
-it does not follow, therefore, that he was influenced
-by him.” With the exception of Mr. Dundas,
-Lord —— and another that she named, “all the
-rest,” said Lady Hester, “were a rabble—a rabble.
-It was necessary to have some one at their head to
-lead them, or else they were always going out of
-the right road, just as, you know, a mule with a good
-star must go before a caravan of mules, to show them
-the way. Look at a flight of geese in the air: there
-must always be one to lead them, or else they would
-not know in what direction to fly.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span>
-“Mr. Pitt’s consideration for age was very marked.
-He had, exclusive of Walmer, a house in the village,
-for the reception of those whom the castle could not
-hold. If a respectable commoner, advanced in years,
-and a young duke arrived at the same time, and there
-happened to be but one room vacant in the Castle, he
-would be sure to assign it to the senior; for it is
-better (he would say) that these young lords should
-walk home on a rainy night, than old men: they can
-bear it more easily.</p>
-
-<p>“Mr. Pitt was accustomed to say that he always
-conceived more favourably of that man’s understanding
-who talked agreeable nonsense, than of his who
-talked sensibly only; for the latter might come from
-books and study, while the former could only be the
-natural fruit of imagination.</p>
-
-<p>“Mr. Pitt was never inattentive to what was passing
-around him, though he often thought proper to
-appear so. On one occasion, Sir Ed. K. took him to
-the Ashford ball to show him off to the yeomen
-and their wives. Though sitting in the room in all
-his senatorial seriousness, he contrived to observe
-everything; and nobody” (Lady Hester said) “could
-give a more lively account of a ball than he. He
-told who was rather fond of a certain captain; how
-Mrs. K. was dressed; how Miss Jones, Miss Johnson,
-or Miss Anybody, danced; and had all the minutiæ
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span>
-of the night as if he had been no more than an
-idle looker-on.</p>
-
-<p>“He was not fond of the applause of a mob. One
-day, in going down to Weymouth, he was recognized
-in some town, and, whilst the carriage stopped to
-change horses, a vast number of people gathered
-round us: they insisted on dragging the carriage,
-and would do so for some time, all he could say.
-Oh, doctor! what a fright I was in!</p>
-
-<p>“Mr. Pitt bore with ceremony as a thing necessary.
-On some occasions, I was obliged to pinch
-his arm to make him not appear uncivil to people:
-‘There’s a baronet,’ I would say; or, ‘that’s Mr.
-So-and-so.’</p>
-
-<p>“I never saw Mr. Pitt shed tears but twice. I
-never heard him speak of his sister Har-yet” (so Lady
-Hester pronounced it) “but once. One day his niece,
-Harriet Elliott, dined with us, and, after she was
-gone, Mr. Pitt said, ‘Well, I am glad Harriet fell
-to my brother’s lot, and you to mine, for I never
-should have agreed with her.’—‘But,’ observed I,
-‘she is a good girl, and handsome.’—‘She ought to
-be so,’ said Mr. Pitt, ‘for her mother was so.’”</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester said, that those who asserted that Mr.
-Pitt wanted to put the Bourbons on the throne, and
-that they followed his principles, lied; and, if she
-had been in parliament, she would have told them so.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span>
-“I once heard a great person,” added she, “in conversation
-with him on the subject, and Mr. Pitt’s
-reply was, ‘Whenever I can make peace,<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> whether
-with a consul, or with whosoever it is at the head of
-the French government, provided I can have any dependance
-on him, I will do it.’ Mr. Pitt had a
-sovereign contempt for the Bourbons, and the only
-merit that he allowed to any one of them was to him
-who was afterwards Charles X., whose gentlemanly
-manners and mild demeanour he could not be otherwise
-than pleased with. Mr. Pitt never would consent
-to their going to court, because it would have been
-a recognition of Louis XVIII.</p>
-
-<p>“Latterly, Mr. Pitt used to suffer a great deal
-from the cold in the House of Commons; for he complained
-that the wind cut through his silk stockings.
-I remember, one day, I had on a large tippet and
-muff of very fine fur: the tippet covered my shoulders,
-and came down in a point behind. ‘What is
-this, Hester?’ said Mr. Pitt; ‘something Siberian?
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span>
-Can’t you command some of your slaves—for you
-must recollect, Griselda, Hester has slaves without
-number, who implicitly obey her orders’ (this was
-addressed to Griselda and Mr. Tickell, who were present)—‘can’t
-you command some of your slaves to
-introduce the fashion of wearing muffs and tippets
-into the House of Commons? I could then put my
-feet on the muff, and throw the tippet over my knees
-and round my legs.’</p>
-
-<p>“When we were at Walmer, it is incredible what
-a deal I got through in the day. Mr. Pitt was
-pleased to have somebody who would take trouble
-off his hands. Every week he had to review the
-volunteers, and would ride home in such showers of
-rain—I have been so drenched, that, as I stood,
-my boots made two spouting fountains above my
-knees. Then there was dinner; and, if I happened
-to be alone, when I went to the drawing-room, I had
-to give the secret word for spies, to see the sergeant
-of the guard, and then the gentlemen would come in
-from the dining-room. But, if they were late, oh,
-how sleepy I got, and would have given the world to
-go to bed!</p>
-
-<p>“One day, Lord Chatham had to review the artillery,
-and he kept them under arms from daylight
-until three o’clock. Bradford went to him several
-times to know if he was ready. ‘I shall come in
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span>
-about half an hour,’ was the constant reply; until,
-at last, seeing no chance of his appearance, I agreed
-with the aide-de-camps to go off together and settle
-matters as well as we could: so, getting Lord Chatham’s
-leave, off we went. Colonel Ford, the commanding-officer,
-was a cross man; and that day he
-had enough to make him so. But I managed it all
-very well: I told him that pressing business detained
-Lord C.; that he had commissioned us to apologize;
-and that I should have pleasure in saying the men
-looked admirably: then I added that Mr. Pitt
-hoped to see him in the course of a few days at the
-Castle, and so on. The colonel looked dreadfully out
-of temper, however, and Bradford and I rode back
-at a furious rate. It was one of those dark, wet days
-that are so peculiar to England. A day or two after,
-the colonel and some of the officers were invited to
-Walmer, and I behaved very civilly to them; so that
-Lord Chatham’s laziness was forgotten.</p>
-
-<p>“Lord Chatham never travelled without a mistress.
-He was a man of no merit, but of great <i>sâad</i> (luck):
-he used to keep people waiting and waiting whilst he
-was talking and breakfasting with her. He would
-keep his aide-de-camps till two or three in the morning.
-How often would the servant come in, and
-say supper was ready, and he would answer, ‘Ah!
-well, in half an hour.’ Then the servant would
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span>
-say, ‘Supper is on the table;’ and then it would
-be, ‘Ah? well, in a quarter of an hour.’ An aide-de-camp
-would come in with a paper to sign, and
-perhaps Lord Chatham would say—‘Oh, dear! that’s
-too long: I can’t possibly look at it now: you must
-bring it to-morrow.’ The aide-de-camp would present
-it next day, and he would cry, ‘Good God! how can
-you think of bringing it now? don’t you know there’s
-a review to-day?’ Then, the day after, he was going
-to Woolwich. ‘Well, never mind,’ he would say;
-‘have you got a short one?—well, bring that.’</p>
-
-<p>“Doctor, I once changed the dress of a whole regiment—the
-Berkshire militia. Somebody asked me,
-before a great many officers, what I thought of them,
-and I said they looked like so many tinned harlequins.
-One day, soon after, I was riding through Walmer
-village, when who should pop out upon me but the
-colonel, dressed in entirely new regimentals, with
-different facings, and more like a regiment of the line.
-‘Pray, pardon me, Lady Hester’—so I stopped, as
-he addressed me—‘pray, pardon me,’ said the colonel,
-‘but I wish to know if you approve of our new uniform.’
-Of course I made him turn about, till I inspected
-him round and round—pointed with my whip,
-as I sat on horseback, first here and then there—told
-him the waist was too short, and wanted half a button
-more—the collar was a little too high—and so on;
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span>
-and, in a short time, the whole regiment turned out
-with new clothes. The Duke of York was very generous,
-and not at all stingy in useful things.</p>
-
-<p>“I recollect once at Ramsgate, five of the Blues,
-half drunk, not knowing who I was, walked after me,
-and pursued me to my door. They had the impertinence
-to follow me up-stairs, and one of them took
-hold of my gown. The maid came out, frightened
-out of her senses; but, just at the moment, with my
-arm I gave the foremost of them such a push, that I
-sent him rolling over the others down stairs, with
-their swords rattling against the balusters. Next
-day, he appeared with a black patch as big as a
-saucer over his face; and, when I went out, there
-were the glasses looking at me, and the footmen
-pointing me out—quite a sensation!”</p>
-
-<p>During these conversations respecting Mr. Pitt’s
-times, Sir Nathaniel’s Memoirs were generally in my
-hand, and when there was a pause I resumed my
-reading. In giving Sir Walter Farquhar’s private
-conversation respecting Mr. Pitt’s death, the author
-says—“Mr. Pitt mounted the staircase with alacrity.”
-Here Lady Hester stopped me, with the exclamation
-of—“What a falsehood, doctor! Just hear how it
-was. You know, when the carriage came to the door,
-he was announced, and I went up to the top of the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span>
-stairs to receive him. The first thing I heard was a
-voice so changed, that I said to myself, ‘It is all over
-with him.’ He was supported by the arms of two
-people, and had a stick, or two sticks, in his hands,
-and as he came up, panting for breath—ugh! ugh!
-I retreated little by little, not to put him to the pain
-of making a bow to me, or of speaking:—so much for
-his alacrity!</p>
-
-<p>“After Mr. Pitt’s death, I could not cry for a
-whole month and more. I never shed a tear, until
-one day Lord Melville came to see me; and the sight
-of his eyebrows turned grey, and his changed face,
-made me burst into tears. I felt much better for it
-after it was over.</p>
-
-<p>“Mr. Pitt’s bust was taken after his death by an
-Italian, named, I think, Tomino—an obscure artist,
-whom I had rummaged out. This man had offered
-me at one time a bust worth a hundred guineas, and
-prayed me to accept it, in order, as he said, to make
-his name known: I refused it, but recollected him
-afterwards. The bust turned out a very indifferent
-resemblance: so, with my own hand, I corrected the
-defects, and it eventually proved a strong likeness.
-The D. of C. happening to call when the artist was at
-work in my room, was so pleased, that he ordered one
-of a hundred guineas for himself, and another to be
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span>
-sent to Windsor. There was one by this Tomino
-put into the Exhibition.</p>
-
-<p>“A fine picture in Mr. Pitt’s possession represented
-Diogenes with a lantern searching by day for an honest
-man. A person cut out a part of the blank canvas,
-and put in Mr. Pitt’s portrait.</p>
-
-<p>“When Mr. Pitt was going to Bath, previous to his
-last illness, I told him I insisted on his taking my
-eider-down quilt with him. ‘You will go about,’
-said I, ‘much more comfortably; and, instead of
-being too hot one day under a thick counterpane, and
-the next day shivering under a thin one, you will
-have an equable warmth, always leaving one blanket
-with this quilt. Charles and James were present,
-and could not help ridiculing the idea of a man’s carrying
-about with him such a bundling, effeminate
-thing. ‘Why,’ interrupted I, ‘it is much more convenient
-than you all imagine: big as it looks, you may
-put it into a pocket-handkerchief.’—‘I can’t believe
-that,’ cried Charles and James. ‘Do you doubt my
-word?’ said I, in a passion: ‘nobody shall doubt it
-with impunity:’ and my face assumed that picture
-of anger, which you can’t deny, doctor, is in me pretty
-formidable; so I desired the quilt to be brought.
-‘Why, my dear Lady Hester,’ said Mr. Pitt, ‘I am
-sure the boys do not mean to say you tell falsehoods:
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span>
-they suppose you said it would go into a handkerchief
-merely as a <i lang="fr">façon de parler</i>.’”</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester, when she told me this story, here
-interrupted herself—“And upon my word, doctor, if
-you had seen the footman bringing it over his shoulder,
-he himself almost covered up by it, you would have
-thought indeed it was only a <i lang="fr">façon de parler</i>.”</p>
-
-<p>She continued. “I turned myself to James. ‘Now,
-sir, take and tie it up directly in this pocket-handkerchief.
-There! does it, or does it not go into it!’</p>
-
-<p>“This,” concluded Lady Hester, “was the only
-quarrel I ever had with Charles and James. James
-often used to look very black, but he never said anything.</p>
-
-<p>“When Mr. Pitt was going to Bath, in his last illness,
-he told me he had just seen Arthur Wellesley.
-He spoke of him with the greatest commendation, and
-said the more he saw of him, the more he admired
-him. ‘Yes,’ he added, ‘the more I hear of his exploits
-in India, the more I admire the modesty with
-which he receives the praises he merits from them.
-He is the only man I ever saw that was not vain of
-what he had done, and had so much reason to be so.’</p>
-
-<p>“This eulogium,” Lady Hester said, “Mr. Pitt
-pronounced in his fine mellow tone of voice, and this
-was the last speech I heard him make in that voice;
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span>
-for, on his return from Bath, it was cracked for
-ever.” Then she observed, “My own opinion of the
-duke is, that he is a blunt soldier, who pleases women
-because he is gallant and has some remains of beauty:
-but,” she added, “he has none of the dignity of courts
-about him.”</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a>
-This of course refers to the late Duke.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a>
-“I dislike ——, both as to his principles and the turn of his
-understanding: he wants to make money by this peace.”—<cite>Diaries and
-Correspondence</cite>, &amp;c.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a>
-“Mr. Pitt has always been held up to the present generation as
-fond of war; but the Harris papers could furnish the most continued
-and certain evidence of the contrary, and that he often suffered all
-the agony of a pious man who is forced to fight a duel. The cold and
-haughty temper of Lord Grenville was less sensitive. Our overtures to
-France were synonymous with degradation, and he could not brook the
-delays of the directory.”—<cite>Diaries and Correspondence</cite>, <abbr title="volume three page">v. iii.,
-p.</abbr> 516.</p>
-
-</div><!--end footnotes-->
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span>
-
-<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER </span> <abbr title="Three"><span class="allsmcap">III.</span></abbr></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="small short">Duchess of Gontaut—Duc de Berry—Anecdotes of Lord H.—Sir
-Gore Ouseley—Prince of Wales—The other princes—The
-Queen’s severity—Men and women of George the Third’s
-time—The Herveys—Lady Liverpool’s high breeding—Lady
-Hester’s declining health.</p>
-
-
-<p class="p2">“One of Mr. Pitt’s last conversations, whilst on his
-death-bed, was about Charles and James. Mr. Pitt
-had called me in, and told me, in a low, feeble voice—‘You
-must not talk to me to-day on any business:
-when I get down to Lord Camden’s, and am better, it
-will be time enough then.’ He seemed to know he
-was dying, but only said this to console me. ‘But
-now, my dear Hester,’ he continued, ‘I wish to say
-a few words about James and Charles. As for Charles,
-he is such an excellent young man that one cannot
-wish him to be otherwise than he is; and Moore is
-such a perfect officer, that he will give him every information
-in his profession that he can possibly require.
-The only apprehension I have is on the score
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span>
-of women, who will perhaps think differently of him
-from what he thinks of himself: but with James the
-case is otherwise. He is a young man you must keep
-under; else you will always see him trying to be a
-<i lang="fr">joli garçon</i>. For Charles’s steadiness, I do not fear;
-but the little one will one day or other fall into the
-hands of men who will gain him over and unsettle his
-political principles. You can guide him, and, so long
-as he is under your care, he is safe:’ and,” added
-Lady Hester, “Mr. Pitt was right, doctor; for the
-moment I quitted England he fell into the snares of
-Lord B. and his party, and instead of being in
-Mr. Canning’s place, which he might have been, he
-became nothing.”</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester went on: “When Charles and James
-left Chevening,<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Mr. Pitt said to Mahon (the present
-Earl Stanhope), ‘You know that, when your father
-dies, you will be heir to a large property—whether
-£15,000 a-year or £25,000 it does not much signify.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span>
-Now, as far as a house goes and having a table where
-your brothers may dine, I have got that to offer. But
-young men in the army have a number of wants, for
-their equipment, regimentals, &amp;c., and for all this I
-have not the means. You, therefore, Mahon, must
-do that for them; and, if you have not money, you
-can always let their bills be charged to you with
-interest, as is very common among noblemen until
-they come to their fortune. You ought to raise a
-sum of money for them, and see to their wants a little:
-your two brothers should not be left to starve.’</p>
-
-<p>“Mahon said he would. Charles one day told me
-that, as a poor captain of the army, the baggage warehouse
-and his tailor were rather shy of trusting him;
-and if Mahon would only go and say to them—‘Do
-you let my brothers have what they want, and I will
-be answerable for them;’ then I could get on. Mahon
-did that too; and, in reliance on this arrangement,
-they had clothes and other things, considering him as
-responsible for them. After Mr. Pitt’s death, several
-tradesmen applied for their bills.”</p>
-
-<hr class="tb">
-
-<p>So, recollecting an old peer, who had been one of
-Mr. Pitt’s particular friends, I sent off James to him
-to his country-seat with a letter, relating the whole
-business: this person immediately gave James a draft
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span>
-for £2,000, with which he returned, and paid his own
-and Charles’s debts.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, it was agreed between Charles, James, and
-me, that whoever had the first windfall should pay the
-£2,000. Charles died: James was not rich enough
-at any time to do it; and it fell to my lot to pay it
-since I have been in this country. And that was the
-reason of my selling the Burton Pynsent reversion,
-which, you know, I did in 1820 or thereabouts; and
-when Mr. Murray found fault with me for my
-extravagance, and said he would have no hand in the
-business, neither he nor anybody else knew then why
-I sold it.</p>
-
-<p>“When Coutts wrote me word that my brother
-James had been very good to me in having given me
-£1,000, he did not know that the civility was not so
-disinterested as he imagined. James might think he
-did a great deal for me: but, let me ask you—did I
-not make a pretty great sacrifice for Lord Mahon and
-him? I sold a pretty round sum out of the American
-funds, and James took possession of about five hundred
-pounds’ worth of plate of mine, and of my
-jewels, and of Tippoo Saib’s gold powder-flask, worth
-£200, and of the cardinal of York’s present, which,
-to some persons who wanted a relic of the Stuarts,
-was invaluable. Then there was a portfolio, full of
-fine engravings of Morghen and others, that the Duke
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span>
-of Buckingham bought of him: so there was at least
-as much as he sent me.</p>
-
-<p>“If I had not been thwarted and opposed by them
-all, as I have been, and obliged to raise money from
-time to time to get on, I should have been a very rich
-woman. There was the money I sold out of the
-American funds; then there was the Burton Pynsent
-money, £7,000; my father’s legacy, £10,000; the
-(I did not distinctly hear what) legacy, £1,000:” and
-thus her ladyship reckoned up on her fingers an amount
-of £40,000.</p>
-
-<p>“Is it not very odd that General G. and Lord G.
-could not leave me a few thousand pounds out of their
-vast fortunes when they died? They knew that I was
-in debt, and that a few thousands would have set me
-up; and yet in their wills, not to speak of their lifetime,
-they never gave me a single sixpence, but left
-their money to people already in the enjoyment of
-incomes far exceeding their wants, and very little
-more nearly related to them than I am. Well, all
-their injustice does not put me out of spirits. The
-time will soon come when I shall want none of their
-assistance, if I get the other property that ought to
-come to me. Oh! how vexed Lady Chatham always
-was, when Lady Louisa V. used to point at me, and
-say—‘There she is—that’s my heir.’ Lady L. was
-deformed, and never thought of marrying; but
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span>
-Lord G. did marry her nevertheless, and she had a
-child that died.</p>
-
-<p>“Then there is the reversion of my grandfather’s
-pension of £4,000 a-year, secured for four lives by
-the patent: the first Lord Chatham one, the late
-Lord Chatham the next, and I, of course, the
-third.”<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>
-
-<p>Nov. 14.—I saw that Lady Hester grew weaker
-every day, and I felt alarmed about her. Still, whenever
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span>
-I had to write to the person she, about this time,
-most honoured with her confidence, Mons. Guys, the
-French consul at Beyrout, she would not allow me to
-make any further allusion to her illness than to state
-simply that she was confined to her bed-room with a
-cold. “I see you are afraid about me,” she said, “but
-I have recovered from worse illnesses than this by
-God’s help and the strength of my constitution.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span>
-My wife sent to her to say that she or my daughter
-would, with pleasure, come and keep her company, or
-sit up with her: this she refused. I then offered
-Miss Longchamp’s services: but Lady Hester’s pride
-would not allow her to expose to a stranger the
-meagreness of her chamber, so utterly unlike a
-European apartment. It was indeed an afflicting
-sight to behold her wrapped up in old blankets, her
-room lighted by yellow beeswax candles in brass
-candlesticks, drinking her tea out of a broken-spouted
-blue teapot and a cracked white cup and saucer,
-taking her draughts out of an old cup, with a short
-wooden deal bench by her bedside for a table, and in a
-room not so well furnished as a servant’s bed-room in
-England.</p>
-
-<p>The general state of wretchedness in which she lived
-had even struck Mr. Dundas, a gentleman, who, on
-returning overland from India, staid some days with
-her: and, as Lady Hester observed, when she told
-me the story, “He did not know all, as you do.
-I believe he almost shed tears. ‘When I see you,
-Lady Hester,’ said he, ‘with a set of fellows for
-servants who do nothing, and when I look at the
-room in which you pass your hours, I can hardly
-believe it is you. I was much affected at first, but
-now I am more reconciled. You are a being fluctuating
-between heaven and earth, and belonging to
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span>
-neither; and perhaps it is better things should be as
-they are’” Lady Hester added, “He has visited me
-two or three times: he is a sensible Scotchman, and
-I like him as well as anybody I have seen for some
-years.”</p>
-
-<p>November 15.—It was night, when a messenger
-arrived from Beyrout, and brought a small parcel
-containing a superbly bound book presented to her
-ladyship by the Oriental Translation Fund Society.
-It was accompanied by a complimentary letter from
-the president, Sir Gore Ouseley. The book was
-“<cite>The History of the Temple of Jerusalem, translated
-by the <abbr title="Reverend">Rev.</abbr> J. Reynolds</cite>.” After admiring it, and
-turning over the leaves, she said to me, “Look it over,
-and see what it is about,” and then began to talk of
-Sir Gore. “I recollect, doctor,” said she, “so well
-the night he was introduced to me: it was at Mr.
-Matook’s (?) supper.</p>
-
-<p>“You may imagine the numbers and numbers of
-people I met in society, whilst I lived with Mr. Pitt,
-almost all of whom were dying to make my acquaintance,
-and of whom I necessarily could know little or
-nothing. Indeed, to the greater part of those who
-were introduced to me, if they saw me afterwards,
-when they bowed I might return the salutation, smile
-a little, and pass on, for I had not time to do more:—a
-person’s life would not be long enough. Well, I
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span>
-recollect it was at a party where Charles X. was present—I
-think it was at Lord Harrington’s—that somebody
-said to me, ‘Mr. —— wants to know you so
-much! Why won’t you let him be introduced to you?’—‘Because
-I don’t like people whose face is all oily,
-like a soap-ball,’ answered I. Now, doctor, upon my
-word, I no more knew he had made his fortune by oil,
-than I do what was the colour of the paper in your
-saloon at Nice; and when his friend said, ‘You are
-too bad, Lady Hester,’ I did not understand what he
-meant. However, they told me there would be all the
-royalties there, and so I consented.</p>
-
-<p>“I have had an instinct all my life that never deceived
-me, about people who were thorough-bred or
-not; I knew them at once. Why was it, when Mr.
-H*******n came into a room, and took a long sweep
-with his hat, and made a stoop, and I said: ‘One
-would think he was looking under the bed for the <em>great
-business</em>;’ and all the people laughed, and when at last
-Mr. Pitt said, ‘Hester, you are too bad, you should
-not be personal,’ I declared ‘I did not know what he
-meant?’ Then he explained to me that the man was a
-broken-down doctor, a fact which, I honestly assured
-him, I never heard of before. But my quickness in detecting
-people’s old habits is so great, that I hit upon
-a thing without having the least previous intimation.</p>
-
-<p>“As I passed the card-table that evening where the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span>
-Comte d’Artois was playing, he put down his cards to
-talk to me a little, so polite, so well-bred—poor man!
-And there were the other three old dowagers, who were
-playing with him, abusing him in English, which he
-understood very well, because he had stopped the game.
-After he had resumed his cards, I was leaning over
-the back of a chair facing him, reflecting in one of my
-thoughtful moments on the uncertainty of human greatness
-in the picture I had then before me, when I gave
-one of those deep sighs, which you have heard me do
-sometimes, something between a sigh and a grunt, and
-so startled the French King, that he literally threw
-down his cards to stare at me. I remained perfectly
-motionless, pretending not to observe his action; and,
-as he still continued to gaze at me, some of the lookers-on
-construed it into a sort of admiration on his part.
-This enraged Lady P., and her rage was increased
-when, at every knock at the door, I turned my head
-to see who was coming, and he turned his head too;
-for I was expecting the royalties, and so was he: but
-she did not know this, and she took it into her head
-that the Prince and I had some understanding between
-us.</p>
-
-<p>“I never thought any more of the matter; but, in
-the course of the evening, somebody brought Lady P.
-to me, and introduced her. ‘I have longed,’ said
-Lady P. ‘for some time to make your acquaintance:
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span>
-I don’t know how it is that we have never met; it
-would give me great pleasure if I sometimes saw you
-at my parties,’ and so on. The next day I had a visit
-from Lady P., and the day after that came her card,
-and then an invitation; and, day after day, there was
-nothing but Lady P. So, at last, not knowing what
-it meant, I said to an acquaintance, ‘What is the
-reason that Lady P. is always coming after me?’—‘What!
-don’t you know?’ she replied: ‘why, the
-King of France is in love with you?’ And this is the
-art, doctor, of all those mistresses: they watch and observe
-if their lovers are pleased with any young person,
-and then invite her home, as a lure to keep alive the
-old attraction.”</p>
-
-<p>Here Lady Hester paused, and, after a moment,
-added: “How many of those French people did I see
-at that time, especially at Lord H.’s! There was the
-Duchess of Gontaut, who was obliged to turn washerwoman;
-and even to the last, when she was best off,
-was obliged to go out to parties in a hackney-coach.
-Why, the Duc de Berry himself lodged over a greengrocer’s
-in a little street leading out of Montague
-Square, and all the view he had was to lean out of his
-window, and look at the greengrocer’s stall. I have
-seen him many a time there, when he used to kiss his
-hand to me as I passed. The Duchess of Gontaut
-afterwards brought up the Duke of Bordeaux. That
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span>
-was a woman quite admirable; so full of resources, so
-cheerful, she kept up the spirits of all the emigrants:
-and then she was so well dressed! She did not mind
-going in a hackney-coach to dine with the Duke of
-Portland.</p>
-
-<p>“Lord H********** scraped up a reputation which
-he never deserved,” continued Lady Hester, as her
-reflections led her from one person to another. “Insincere,
-greedy of place, and always pretending to be
-careless about it, he and my lady lived in a hugger-mugger
-sort of a way, half poverty half splendour,
-having soldiers for house servants, and my lady dining
-at two with the children (saying my lord dined out),
-and being waited on by a sergeant’s daughter. How
-often have I seen a scraggy bit of mutton sent up for
-luncheon, with some potatoes in their skins, before
-royalty! The princes would say to me, ‘Very bad,
-Lady Hester, very bad; but there! he has a large
-family—he is right to be saving.’ And then Lady
-H**********, with her little eyes, and a sort of
-waddle in her gait (for she once had a paralytic
-stroke), with a wig all curls, and, at the top of it,
-a great bunch of peacock’s feathers—then her dress,
-all bugles, and badly put on—horrid, doctor, horrid!
-and why should they have lived in such a large
-house, half furnished, with the girls sleeping altogether
-in large attics, with a broken looking-glass,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span>
-and coming down into their mother’s room to dress
-themselves!</p>
-
-<p>“But to go back to Sir Gore Ouseley: it was at
-Mr. M.’s supper, when getting up from the card-table,
-and advancing towards me, he made a diplomatic bow,
-accompanied with some complimentary speech. That
-was the old school, very different from the fizgig
-people now-a days. Just before, the Prince had been
-standing in the middle of the room, talking to some
-one I did not know, first pulling up the flap of his
-coat to show his figure, then seizing the person he
-spoke to by the waistcoat, then laughing, then pretending
-to whisper; and this he continued for nearly
-an hour. ‘What can the Prince be talking about?’
-said some one next to me: ‘He does not know himself,’
-said I. Soon after, the person who had been
-talking to the Prince approached the sofa, when the
-mylord, who was sitting next to me, observed, ‘We
-have been looking at the Prince and you; what in
-the world was he talking about?’—‘He don’t know
-himself,’ answered his friend, ‘and I’m sure I don’t
-know.’—‘That’s just what Lady Hester said,’ rejoined
-the first speaker. ‘I have been wishing to make my
-bow to Lady Hester all the evening,’ said the friend,
-who then sat down by me.”</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester went on: “What a mean fellow the
-Prince was, doctor! I believe he never showed a
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span>
-spark of good feeling to any human being. How
-often has he put men of small incomes to great inconvenience,
-by his telling them he would dine with them
-and bring ten or a dozen of his friends with him to
-drink the poor devils’ champagne, who hardly knew
-how to raise the wind, or to get trust for it! I recollect
-one who told me the Prince served him in this
-way, just at the time when he was in want of money,
-and that he did not know how to provide the dinner
-for him, when luckily a Sir Harry Featherstone or a
-Sir Gilbert Heatchcote or some such rich man bought
-his curricle and horses, and put a little ready money
-into his pocket. ‘I entertained him as well as I could,’
-said he, ‘and a few days after, when I was at Carlton
-House, and the Prince was dressing between four
-great mirrors, looking at himself in one and then in
-another, putting on a patch of hair and arranging
-his cravat, he began saying that he was desirous of
-showing me his thanks for my civility to him. So he
-pulled down a bandbox from a shelf, and seemed as if
-he was going to draw something of value out of it. I
-thought to myself it might be some point-lace, perhaps,
-of which, after using a little for my court-dress, I
-might sell the remainder for five or six hundred
-guineas: or perhaps, thought I, as there is no ceremony
-between us, he is going to give me some banknotes.
-Conceive my astonishment, when he opened
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span>
-the bandbox, and pulled out a wig, which I even believe
-he had worn. ‘There,’ said he, ‘as you are
-getting bald, is a very superior wig, made by—I forget
-the man’s name, but it was not Sugden.’ The
-man could hardly contain himself, and was almost
-tempted to leave it in the hall as he went out. Did
-you ever hear of such meanness? Everybody who
-had to do with him was afraid of him. He was sure
-to get a horse, or a vis-à-vis, or a something, wherever
-he went, and never pay for them. He was a man
-without a heart,<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> who had not one good quality about
-him. Doctor,” cried Lady Hester, “I have been intimate
-with those who spent their time with him from
-morning to night, and they have told me that it was
-impossible for any person who knew him to think well
-of him.<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a>”</p>
-
-<p>“Look at his unfeeling conduct in deserting poor
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span>
-Sheridan! Why, they were going to take the bed
-from under him whilst he was dying; and there was
-Mrs. Sheridan pushing the bailiffs out of the room.
-That amiable woman, too, I believe, died of grief at
-the misery to which she was reduced. The Prince
-had not one good quality. How many fell victims to
-him! Not so much those who were most intimate
-with him—for they swallowed the poison and took
-the antidote—they knew him well: but those were
-the greatest sufferers who imitated his vices, who were
-poisoned by the contagion, without knowing what a
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span>
-detestable person he was. How many saw their prospects
-blasted by him for ever!”</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester continued: “Oh! when I think that
-I have heard a sultan” (meaning George IV.) “listen
-to a woman singing <cite>Hie diddle diddle, the cat and the
-fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon</cite>, and cry, ‘Brava!
-charming!’—Good God! doctor, what would the
-Turks say to such a thing, if they knew it?</p>
-
-<p>“There was Lord D., an old debauchee, who had
-lost the use of his lower extremities by a paralytic
-stroke—the way, by the by, in which all such men
-seem to finish; nay, I believe that men much addicted
-to sensuality even impair their intellects too—one
-day met me on the esplanade, and, in his usual
-way, began talking some very insipid stuff about his
-dining with the Prince, and the like; when James,
-who overheard the conversation, made an impromptu,
-which exactly described one of the Prince’s dinners;
-and, though I don’t recollect it word for word, it was
-something to this effect:—</p>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry">
-    <div class="verse indent0">‘With the Prince I dine to-day:</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">We shall have prodigious fun.</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">I a beastly thing shall say,</div>
-    <div class="verse indent2">And he’ll end it with a pun.’</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p>“I remember the Prince’s saying to Lord Petersham,
-‘What can be the reason that Lady Hester,
-who likes all my brothers, does not like me?’ Lord P.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span>
-told me this, and I replied—If he asks me, I will
-have an answer ready for him, and that is, ‘When
-he behaves like them I shall like him, and not before.’
-I loved all the princes but him. They were
-not philosophers, but they were so hearty in their
-talking, in their eating, in all they did! They would
-eat like ploughmen, and their handsome teeth would”
-(here she imitated the mastication of food, to show me
-how) “at a pretty rate.</p>
-
-<p>“The Prince is a despicable character. He was
-anxious enough to know me whilst Mr. Pitt was
-alive; but the very first day of my going to court,
-after Mr. Pitt’s death, he cut me, turning his back on
-me whilst I was talking to the Duke of Richmond.</p>
-
-<p>“As for the princesses, there was some excuse for
-their conduct: I do not mean as regards myself—for
-they were always polite to me—but as to what
-people found fault with them for. The old queen
-treated them with such severity, shutting them up in
-a sort of a prison—at least the Princess Sophia—that
-I rather pitied than blamed them.</p>
-
-<p>“But look at the princes: what a family was there!
-never getting more than four hours’ sleep, and always
-so healthy and well-looking. But men generally are
-not now-a-days as they were in my time. I do not
-mean a Jack M. and those of his description, handsome,
-but of no conversation: they are, however,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span>
-pleasant to look at. But where will you see men like
-Lord Rivers, like the Duke of Dorset? Where will
-you find such pure honour as was in the Duke of
-Richmond and Lord Winchelsea? The men of the
-present generation are good for nothing—they have
-no spunk in them.</p>
-
-<p>“And as for women, show me such women of
-fashion as Lady Salisbury, the Duchess of Rutland,
-Lady Stafford, and” (three or four more were named,
-but they have slipped my memory). “However, doctor,
-I never knew more than four fashionable women, who
-could do the honours of their house, assign to everybody
-what was due to his rank, enter a room and
-speak to everybody, and preserve their dignity and
-self-possession at all times: it is a very difficult thing
-to acquire. One was the old Duchess of Rutland, the
-others the Marchioness of Stafford, Lady Liverpool,
-and the Countess of Mansfield:<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>—all the rest of the
-<i lang="fr">bon ton</i> were <i>bosh</i>” (in Turkish, good for nothing).
-“The Countess of Liverpool was a Hervey; and men
-used to say, the world was divided into men, women,
-and Herveys—for that they were unlike every other
-human being. I have seen Lady Liverpool come into
-a room full of people; and she would bow to this one,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span>
-speak to that one, and, when you thought she must
-tread on the toes of a third, turn round like a
-teetotum, and utter a few words so amiable, that
-everybody was charmed with her. As for the Duchess
-of D*********, it was all a ‘fu, fu, fuh,’ and ‘What
-shall I do?—Oh, dear me! I am quite in a fright!’—and
-so much affectation, that it could not be called
-high breeding; although she knew very well how to
-lay her traps for some young man whom she wanted
-to inveigle into her parties, and all that. Then there
-were some, with highly polished manners, who would
-pass along like oil over water, smooth and swimming
-about: but good breeding is very charming, doctor,
-isn’t it?</p>
-
-<p>“The last time I saw Lady Liverpool was at Lord
-Mulgrave’s. The dinner was waiting: Mr. Pitt and
-I had got there; but Lord Liverpool, being long in
-dressing, was still behind. Everybody was looking at
-the door or the window. At last his carriage was
-seen, and dinner was ordered. If you had been present
-when Lady Liverpool entered the room, and had
-marked the grace with which, whilst we were standing,
-she slipped in and out among the guests, like an
-eel, when she turned her back, turning her head round,
-speaking to this person and to that, and all with such
-seasonable courtesies and compliments, it was really
-wonderful. But Lady Liverpool was a Hervey, and
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span>
-the Herveys, as I told you before, were a third part
-of the creation.</p>
-
-<p>“Oh, Lord! when I think of some people, who
-fancy that abruptness is the best way of approaching
-you—how horrid it is! I recollect one man, a sensible
-man too, who came into the room with—‘Lady
-Hester, I understand you are a very good judge of a
-leg; you shall look at mine: see, there are muscles!
-they say it is an Irish chairman’s; but isn’t it the
-true antique?’ Another would enter, and begin—‘What
-a horrid bonnet Lady So-and-so wears; I
-have just seen her, and I never shall get over it.’ A
-third would cry, on seeing you—‘Do you know Lord
-Such-a-one is given over? He has tumbled down from
-a terrible height, and is so hurt!’—‘Good God!
-what’s the matter?’—‘Why, don’t you know? He
-has tumbled from his government:’ and then they
-fancy that wit.</p>
-
-<p>“Such conversations as we hear in people’s houses
-are, in my mind, no conversations at all. A man
-who says, ‘Oh! it’s Sunday; you have been to
-church, I suppose?’—or, ‘You have not been to
-church, I see;’ or another, who says, ‘You are in
-mourning, are you not? what, is the poor Lord So-and-so
-dead at last?’—and is replied to by, ‘No, I
-am not in mourning; what makes you think so? is
-it that you don’t like black?’—all this is perfect nonsense,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span>
-in my mind. I recollect being once at a party
-with the Duchess of Rutland, and a man of some note
-in the world stopped me just as we entered the room.
-‘Lady Hester,’ said he, ‘I am anxious to assure you
-of my entire devotion to Mr. Pitt:’ so far he got on
-well. ‘I had always—hem—if you—hem—I do assure
-you, Lady Hester, I have the sincerest regard—hem—G—d
-d—n me, Lady Hester, there is not a
-man for whom—hem—I esteem him beyond measure,
-and, G—d d—n me—hem—if I were asked—hem—I
-do assure you, Lady Hester—hem and here the
-poor man, who could not put two ideas together,
-coming to a stand-still, the Duchess of Rutland, to
-relieve his embarrassment, helped him out by saying,
-‘Lady Hester is perfectly convinced of your sincere
-attachment to Mr. Pitt’s interests.’ He had a beautiful
-amber cane, doctor, worth a hundred guineas, that he
-had sent for from Russia.”</p>
-
-<p>November 16.—Lady Hester Stanhope’s features
-had a very pallid and almost a ghastly look. The fits
-of oppression on her lungs grew more frequent, when,
-from a lying posture, she would start suddenly up in
-bed and gasp for breath. As she had not been beyond
-the precincts of her house for some years, I suggested
-the increased necessity of her getting a little
-fresh air, by going into her garden at least every day.
-She said, ‘I will do as you desire, and if you will ride
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span>
-my ass a few times to break her in, and make her
-gentle, I will try and ride about in the garden: but,
-as for going outside my own gates, it is impossible;
-the people would beset me so—you have no idea.
-They conceal themselves behind hedges, in holes in the
-rocks, and, whichever way I turn, out comes some one
-with a complaint or a petition, begging, kissing my
-feet, and God knows what: I can’t do it. I can ride
-about my garden, and see to my plants and flowers:
-but you must break her in well for me; for, if she
-were to start at a bird or a serpent, I am so weak I
-should tumble off.’</p>
-
-<p>November 18.—I had taken some physic without
-consulting her, upon which she launched out into a
-tirade against English doctors. Impoverishment of
-the blood is a very favourite theme among people who
-are well off, and who shut their eyes to the robust health
-of many a labourer, whose whole sustenance amounts
-not to the offals of their table. So she began—“What
-folly you have been guilty of in impoverishing your
-blood! Look at a stupid Englishman, who takes a
-dose of salts, rides a trotting horse to get an appetite,
-eats his dinner, takes a cordial draught to make him
-agreeable, goes to his party, and then goes to bed:—for
-worlds, I would not be such a man’s wife! where
-is he to get a constitution? But the fault is not
-all their own—part is you doctors: you give the same
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span>
-remedies for everybody. If I look at the mouthpiece
-of my pipe” (Lady Hester was smoking at the time)
-“I know it is amber; and, when I know it is amber,
-I know how to clean it: but, if I did not know that,
-I might attempt to clean it in some way that would
-spoil it: so it is with you doctors. Not half of you
-can distinguish between people’s <i>nijems</i> [stars], and
-what you do often does more harm than good. The
-constitution you take in hand you do not well
-examine; and then how can you apply proper remedies
-for it?”</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a>
- Lady Hester, soon after she went to live with Mr. Pitt, was anxious
-that her three half-brothers should be removed from their father’s
-roof, to be under her own guidance: fearing that the line of politics
-which Earl Stanhope then followed might be injurious to their future
-welfare and prospects. To this end, Mr. Rice, a trusty person, of whom
-mention is incidentally made elsewhere, brought them furtively to
-town in a post-chaise, and they afterwards remained under Mr. Pitt’s
-protection until his death.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a>
-Whether Lady Hester Stanhope was justified in entertaining
-expectations of the G. property and title, I am unable to say; but
-having by me a copy of the grant to the first Lord Chatham, it is
-inserted here as conclusive against her ladyship, as far as regards
-the pension. The circumstances were these:—the day following his
-(then Mr. Pitt’s) resignation of office, a pension of £3,000 a-year
-was settled on <em>himself</em> and <em>two</em> other lives, and at the
-same time a title was conferred on his lady and her issue. He resigned
-office Oct. 9th, 1761, and the next published Gazette announced all
-these transactions. The notification ran thus:—That a warrant be
-prepared for granting to the Lady Hester Pitt, his wife, a Barony of
-Great Britain, by the name, style, and title of Baroness Chatham,
-to her heirs male, and also to confer upon the said William Pitt an
-annuity of £3,000 sterling during his own life, that of Lady Hester
-Pitt, and her son, John Pitt. Shortly after his death, May 11th,
-1778, His Majesty sent a message to the Commons thus:—George R.—His
-Majesty having considered the address of this house, that he will be
-graciously pleased to confer some signal and lasting mark of his royal
-favour on the family of the late William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, and
-being desirous to comply as speedily as possible with the request of
-his faithful Commons, has given directions for granting to the present
-Earl of Chatham, and to the heirs of the body of the late William Pitt,
-to whom the Earldom of Chatham may descend, an annuity of £4,000 per
-annum, payable out of the Civil List revenue; but his Majesty, not
-having it in his power to extend the effects of the said grant beyond
-the term of his own life, recommends it to the house to consider of
-a proper method of extending, securing, and annexing the same to the
-Earldom of Chatham in such a manner as shall be thought most effectual
-to the benefit of the family of the said William Pitt, Earl of Chatham.</p>
-<p class="p0 footnote right">Signed “G. R.”</p>
-
-<p class="footnote">On May 20th, in the House of Commons, Mr. Townsend moved in a committee
-on the king’s message—“That the sum of £4,000 be granted to his
-Majesty out of the Aggregate Fund, to commence from 5th July, 1778,
-and be settled in the most beneficial manner upon the present Earl of
-Chatham and the heirs of the body of the late William Pitt, to whom the
-Earldom of Chatham shall descend.” The resolution was agreed to without
-opposition, and a bill was ordered to be brought in thereon, which
-passed the Commons without debate.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a>
-“The second day of the king’s illness, and when he was at
-his worst, the P. of W. went in the evening to a concert at Lady
-Hamilton’s, and there told Calonne (the rascally French ex-minister)
-‘Savez vous, Monsieur de Calonne, que mon pere est aussi fou que
-jamais.’”—<cite>Diaries and Correspondence</cite>, <abbr title="volume four page">v. 4, p.</abbr> 20.
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a>
-<i lang="la">Audi alteram partem</i> is a maxim that holds good wherever
-accusations are levelled against individuals, illustrious or mean.
-Lady Hester may have maligned the Prince from personal pique or from
-some other cause; and, whilst she placed his foibles and failings
-in a conspicuous point of view, may have studiously concealed the
-good qualities which he possessed. Sir Walter Scott, who read men’s
-characters if any body could, has left upon record a very different
-opinion of him; and, unless we suppose that Sir Walter had motives of
-his own for eulogizing him, we must place his testimony in the balance
-against Lady Hester’s spite. In a letter, he describes George <abbr title="Four">IV.</abbr>
-as—“A sovereign, whose gentle and generous disposition, and singular
-manners, and captivating conversation, rendered him as much the
-darling of private society, as his heart felt interest in the general
-welfare of the country: and the constant and steady course of wise
-measures, by which he raised his reign to such a state of triumphal
-prosperity, made him justly delighted in by his subjects.”—<cite>Letter
-from Sir W. Scott</cite>, p. 65, vol. ii., <cite>Mem. of Sir Wm. Knighton,
-Bart.</cite>—Paris edit. Sir Walter could not have written worse prose
-if he had tried. It shows how difficult it is to string words together
-on a subject where perhaps the convictions of the heart were not
-altogether in unison with the sentiments expressed.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a>
-Louisa, in her own right Countess of Mansfield, is here meant.</p>
-
-</div><!--end footnotes-->
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER </span> <abbr title="Four"><span class="allsmcap">IV.</span></abbr></h2>
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span>
-
-<p class="small short">Conscription in Syria—Inviolability of consular houses—Panic
-and flight of the people of Sayda—Protection afforded
-by Lady Hester—Story of a boy—Mustafa the barber—Cruelty
-to mothers of Conscripts—Conscription in the villages—Lady
-Hester’s dream—Inhabitants of Sayda mulcted—Lady
-Hester’s opinion of negresses—Severity necessary in
-Turkey—Case of Monsieur Danna—Captain Y.—Mustafa
-Pasha’s cruelty.</p>
-
-
-<p class="p2">November 18, 1837.—The conscription for Ibrahim
-Pasha’s army, called the <i>nizàm</i> or regular troops, was
-going on at this time, and created much distress in
-the towns and villages. Forced levies were unknown
-previous to the conquests of that ambitious prince; as
-it was customary for the pashas to keep in their pay
-mercenary troops, composed chiefly of Albanians, a
-nation that for some centuries had sent its hordes into
-different parts of the Turkish empire, under the guidance
-of enterprising chieftains, to seek military service. There
-were also Bosnians, Kûrds, and some Mograbýns or
-Moors: these, with the Janissaries or standing militia,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span>
-had exempted the inhabitants in general from enlistment;
-and, although the martial and turbulent disposition
-of the Mohametans had frequently manifested
-itself in their provincial insurrections and in the petty
-contentions between neighbouring chieftains, yet a man
-always went to the camp from choice and from the
-hopes of booty, and quitted it when tired of the
-service. But Ibrahim Pasha, among the innovations
-which he found it necessary or politic to introduce for
-the furtherance of his father’s views, saw that his whole
-dependance must be on the adoption of a conscription,
-after the manner of France and other European states.
-He had already drained Egypt, in this manner, of all
-her able-bodied youths; and, to supply the constant
-waste of men carried off by war and disease, he had,
-since his first taking possession of Syria, made an
-annual levy after harvest time.</p>
-
-<p>At first, the idle, vagabond, thievish, and ardent part
-of the population supplied the numbers he required;
-and, as fast as they could be collected, they were shipped
-off to Egypt; where, marched to the Hedjàz and to
-distant wars, the major portion of them left their bones,
-whilst some gained rank and lucrative situations, and
-a few returned to tell the story of their exploits. For
-with Ibrahim there was no defined term of service;
-once a soldier, every man continued so until death or
-desertion broke the chain. In the same way the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span>
-Egyptian conscripts were sent into Syria: so that no
-sympathy, in either case, existed between the troops
-and the people amongst whom they were quartered,
-which acted as a direct check upon the spirit of
-insurrection.</p>
-
-<p>So far, everything had gone on peaceably, and the
-quiet portion of the inhabitants rejoiced in seeing their
-neighbourhood cleared of such troublesome rabble.
-But latterly the conscription had begun to fall on the
-families of shopkeepers, tradesmen, small farmers, and
-the like: and it will be seen that, of all the changes
-introduced by Ibrahim Pasha into the government of
-the country, the conscription became the most odious.</p>
-
-<p>The first intimation people had of the levies this
-year was one evening, when, as the inhabitants of
-Sayda were coming out of their mosques, gangs of
-soldiers suddenly appeared at the doors, and laid hands
-on all the young men. At the same moment, similar
-measures had been taken at the coffee-houses, and
-nothing was to be seen but young fellows dragged
-through the streets, or running off in all directions to
-secrete themselves in some friend’s house, stable, vault,
-or the like. The city gates were closed, and there
-was no outlet for the fugitives: but Sayda, although
-walled in, has many houses with windows looking on
-the fields; and from these, during the night, some let
-themselves down and escaped to the gardens, or villages,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span>
-or to Mount Lebanon. The next day the city
-wore the appearance of a deserted place: the shops
-were closed, and consternation reigned in every face.
-The panic became general.</p>
-
-<p>It is customary in Turkish towns to consider consular
-residences as inviolable; a point on which, from
-apprehension of tumults and for personal safety, the
-consuls have ever been very tenacious. France possesses,
-from a long date, a khan or factory-house in
-Sayda, wherein the subjects of that nation reside. It
-is a square building with one gateway, containing a
-spacious quadrangle, surrounded by vaulted warehouses,
-and, over these, commodious habitations with a handsome
-corridor in front. It may be compared to a
-quadrangle of a college at the Universities. To this
-khan many of the young men fled, being admitted out
-of compassion, and in some cases for a consideration of
-a more tangible nature.</p>
-
-<p>The number of conscripts for Sayda, as was made
-known afterwards, had been rated at one hundred and
-eighty. When the first press was over, the government
-found the quota had not yet been half supplied:
-but the secret of the deficiency was kept, and it was
-given out that no more would be wanted. A smiling
-face was assumed by the commandant and his staff,
-and every expression of sympathy was in their mouths,
-to demonstrate the cessation of all farther oppressive
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span>
-measures. By calming the people’s fears in this way,
-information was obtained as to those concealed in the
-French khan, and scouts were sent about the country
-to get tidings of the fugitives.</p>
-
-<p>In the mean time, the caverns and excavations,
-once the beautiful sepulchres of the ancient Sidonians,
-in which the environs of Sayda abound, were converted
-into hiding-places, all well known to the peasantry
-and gardeners: but no soul was found capable of betraying
-the fugitives. Some were concealed by the
-Christian peasants in cellars, although the punishment
-of detection was a terrible bastinadoing. At the end
-of about a fortnight, when everything seemed calm
-again, all of a sudden the fathers of those who were
-known to be in the French khan were seized in their
-dwellings and shops, and brought before the motsellem
-or mayor. They were told that their sons’ hiding-places
-were known, and that means would be resorted
-to for forcing them to come out, if they, the fathers,
-did not immediately use their paternal authority to
-compel them. Anxious to save their children, they
-strenuously denied any knowledge of their places of
-concealment. Then it was that the dreadful work of
-bastinadoing began. From the windows of the east
-side of the khan was visible the open court in the front of
-the motsellem’s gate, where, according to the Eastern
-custom, he often sat to administer justice or injustice,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span>
-as the case might be, and through those windows the
-sons might behold their aged fathers, writhing with
-agony under that cruel punishment, until pain and
-anguish extorted the appeal of, “Come forth, for
-mercy’s sake! and save a father’s life.” Some yielded
-to the call, and some thought only of their own
-safety.</p>
-
-<p>As happens always in all Turkish matters, much
-bribery arose from this state of tribulation. Nobody
-in these countries is inaccessible to a bribe.
-Many were the men in office who received gratifications
-of vast sums to favour the exemption or escape of
-individuals. Substitutes could hardly be got, even at
-the enormous premium of 10,000 piasters each, or
-£100 sterling; such a dread had the natives of being
-expatriated and subjected to military discipline! for
-in Ibrahim Pasha’s army the drill is indeed a terrible
-ordeal. There, inadvertency, slowness of apprehension,
-or obstinacy, is not punished by a reprimand,
-a day’s imprisonment, or double drill; but the poor
-recruit is, at the moment, thrown on the ground,
-and lacerated without mercy by the korbàsh.</p>
-
-<p>Among the fugitives, there were two young men, the
-sons of a respectable shopkeeper, who, during twenty
-years, had been employed, more or less, by Lady
-Hester: these two fled for refuge to Jôon. No
-notice was taken of the circumstance by the government;
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span>
-and, after remaining about six weeks under her
-protection, they returned to Sayda, where they remained
-unmolested. Her ladyship’s servants also enjoyed
-an exemption from the press; and, had she chosen to
-avail herself of the dilemma in which these unfortunate
-young men were placed, she might easily have
-ensured their servitude without pay, by the mere
-threat of turning them adrift: in which case they would
-have been compelled to remain upon any conditions
-she might have thought proper to propose.</p>
-
-<p>An old Turk presented himself, one day, at my
-gate with his son, a boy about fourteen years of age,
-and, with earnest entreaties, begged me to take the
-son as my servant, no matter in what capacity, and
-for nothing. I asked him how he could be apprehensive
-for a stripling, too young to carry a musket;
-but he told me that his age was no safeguard. “Alas!”
-said he, “these unprincipled Egyptians will lay hold
-of him; for there are other kinds of service besides
-carrying a gun: you do not know them as well as
-we do.” I was very unwillingly obliged to refuse the
-man’s request; for how could a stranger violate the
-laws of a country in which he resided, any more than
-he could harbour a deserter in France, for example,
-where he would be brought to justice for so doing?
-But some of the agents of European powers do not
-scruple, in these parts, to enrich themselves by affording
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span>
-protection to Turkish deserters, contrary to the
-edicts of a sovereign prince, and then set up, as an
-excuse, the want of civilization in Mahometan countries.</p>
-
-<p>A woman, the widow of Shaykh Omar ed dyn,
-came also on a donkey to beg Lady Hester’s intercession
-with the commandant for one of her sons, a
-lad, who had been pressed in the streets. Lady
-Hester sent out word to her that she could not mix
-herself up in the business, and desired me to give her
-500 piasters—I suppose to help her to buy him off.
-This son, Lady Hester told me, was a beautiful boy,
-and that she once had him in her house, but could
-not keep him—he was too handsome! * * * A sad
-picture this of the morals of the Syrian Turks, and
-yet a true one!</p>
-
-<p>November 20.—After a succession of sunny days,
-finer and warmer than an English summer, the wind
-got up at the change of the moon, and it blew a gale.
-The effect of gloomy weather in climates naturally so
-genial as that of Syria is perhaps more impressive
-than in one like that of England, where clouds and
-fogs are so common. I was therefore in a fit humour
-to listen to the melancholy stories of her ladyship’s
-secretary, Mr. Michael Abella, who had been absent
-a day or two to see his father and mother at Sayda.
-He told me that the press for recruits continued with
-unabated severity, and that the military commandant
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span>
-and motsellem were resorting to measures, which, I
-thank God, are unknown in England! From imprisoning
-and bastinadoing fathers, with a view to
-make them produce their children, a measure which
-had already induced several families to abandon their
-homes, they now proceeded to bastinado the neighbours
-and acquaintances of the fugitives, in order to
-wring from them the secret of their hiding-places.</p>
-
-<p>The reader is already in some degree familiar with
-the name of Mustafa, the barber, well-known in Sayda
-for his skill in shaving, phlebotomizing, and curing
-sores and wounds. He had four or five sons, and he
-had taken his donkey and ridden up to Jôon to beg
-of Lady Hester Stanhope to admit one or two of
-them into her household, in order to save them from
-the conscription. In the interim, two others had
-taken refuge in the French khan, and one had fled to
-Tyr; but the father said he expected hourly to be
-seized and put to the torture, if some means were not
-afforded him for protecting his children. “A letter
-from the Syt mylady to the commandant,” added
-Mustafa, “would be sufficient to save my two boys
-who are in the French khan, and it is so easy for her
-to write it.” Lady Hester, being ill, could not see
-Mustafa, and I went to her and stated his supplication.
-She considered the matter over, and, as
-Mustafa was rather a favourite, she said at first—“I
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span>
-think I will write to the commandant; for poor Mustafa
-will go crazy if his children are taken away from
-him. I have only to say that I wish the commandant
-to <i>bakshýsh</i>” (make a present of) “these boys to me,
-and I know he will do it:” then, reflecting a little
-while, she altered her mind. “No, doctor,” says she,
-“it will not do: I must not do anything in the face
-of the laws of the country; and, besides, I shall
-have all the fathers and mothers in Sayda up here.
-Go, tell him so.” I did, and Mustafa returned very
-much dispirited to Sayda.</p>
-
-<p>He had scarcely got back to his shop, when, as he
-had anticipated, he was summoned before the motsellem,
-and questioned about his children. With an
-assumed air of cheerfulness and submission, he answered
-that they were within call, and, if necessary,
-he would fetch them immediately. The motsellem,
-by way of precaution, was about to send a guard of a
-couple of soldiers, to see that no trick was played
-him; but Mustafa, laughing, exclaimed—“Oh! don’t
-be afraid of me: I shan’t run off. That man” (pointing
-to a small merchant of his acquaintance standing
-by)—“that man will be bail for my appearance.”
-The man nodded his head, and said—“There is no
-fear of Mâalem Mustafa: I will be responsible for him.”</p>
-
-<p>Mustafa went towards his house, and, as soon as he
-was out of sight, looking round to make sure that he
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span>
-was not followed, he hurried to one of the outlets of
-the town, entered a lane between the gardens, and,
-mounting again on his own donkey, which he had
-left with a friend in case of such an emergency, rode
-off. Not appearing within the expected time, search
-was made for him, and, when he was not to be found,
-the man, who so incautiously vouched for his reappearance,
-was seized, bastinadoed, and thrown into
-gaol. Mustafa, in the mean time, had taken the
-road to Jôon,—not to Lady Hester’s residence, but
-to Dayr el Mkhallas, the monastery, where he had
-a good friend in the abbot, and was immediately sheltered
-in a comfortable cell. Nor did he, when he heard
-what cruelties had been inflicted on his bail, move
-one inch from his retreat, but there remained for
-about six weeks, until, by negociations with the commandant
-and by the sacrifice of a good round sum,
-he was informed that his children were safe, and that
-he might return unmolested.</p>
-
-<p>The secretary told me that, in some cases, mothers
-were suspended by the hair of their head, and whipped,
-to make them confess where their children were concealed.
-Surely such horrors are enough to make men
-hold these sanguinary tyrants in abhorrence, who,
-whatever their pretended advances towards civilization
-may be, never suffer it to soften the barbarity of their
-natures. Of civilization, they have borrowed conscription,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span>
-custom-houses, quarantines, ardent spirit
-and wine-drinking, prostitution, shop licensing, high
-taxation, and some other of our doubtful marks of
-superiority; but whatever is really excellent in an advanced
-state of society they have forgotten to inquire
-about. The secretary added that, when down at
-Sayda, he had seen a lad, nursed in the lap of luxury,
-the only child of respectable parents, at drill on the
-parade outside of the town, with two soldiers who
-never quitted him. The drilling was enforced by cuts
-of the korbàsh. So long as the recruits remain in
-Sayda, their parents are allowed to supply them with
-a meal and other little comforts; but, when transported
-to Egypt, and perhaps to the Hedjàz, they are
-exposed to hardships unknown to European troops.
-Their pay is fifteen piasters (3<abbr title="shillings"><i>s.</i></abbr> 2<abbr title="pence"><i>d.</i></abbr> English) a month.</p>
-
-<p>After the expiration of two or three weeks, the
-shaykhs or head-men of the villages in Mount Lebanon,
-received orders to levy their contingent of
-recruits, and pretty much the same scenes were acted
-over again. From the village of Jôon eight conscripts
-were required; for, although the population
-might be five hundred persons, there were but few
-Mahometan families. No sooner had the estafette,
-who brought the order, alighted at the Shaykh’s
-door, than the mussulman peasants to a man seemed
-to guess what its contents were, and every one who
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span>
-thought himself liable to serve made off to the
-forests. Among the lads put down on the roll were
-two, the brothers of Fatôom and Sâada, Lady Hester’s
-maids. The girls fell on their knees, kissed her
-feet and the hem of her robe, and prayed her, for
-God’s sake, to save them. Lady Hester returned the
-same answer she had done to Mustafa, the barber,
-and to the other applicants, that she could not act
-contrary to the laws of the country, and that they
-must take their chance.</p>
-
-<p>Three or four days had elapsed, when, quitting my
-house in the morning to go to Lady Hester’s, I found
-that all her people were full of an extraordinary
-dream she had had. She had seen in her vision a
-man with a white beard, who had conducted her
-among the ravines of Mount Lebanon to a place,
-where, in a cavern, lay two youths apparently in a
-trance, and had told her to lead them away to her
-residence. She attempted to raise them, and at the
-same moment the earth opened, and she awoke. As
-soon as I saw Lady Hester, she recounted to me her
-dream to the same effect, but with many more particulars.
-Being in the habit of hearing strange things
-of this kind from her, I thought nothing of it, although
-I well knew there was something intended by
-it, as she never spoke without a motive.</p>
-
-<p>Next morning I saw, as I passed the porter’s lodge,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span>
-two peasant lads sitting in it, and, as soon as I got to
-Lady Hester’s room, she asked me if I had observed
-them.—“Isn’t it wonderful, doctor,” said Lady
-Hester, “that I should have had exactly the same
-dream two nights following, and the second time so
-strongly impressed on my mind, that I was sure some
-of it would turn out true: and so it has. For this
-very morning, long before daylight, I had Logmagi
-called, and, describing to him the way he was to go in
-the mountain until he should come to a wild spot
-which I painted to him, I sent him off; and, sure
-enough, he found those two lads you saw, concealed,
-not in a cavern, but in a tree, just where I had directed
-him to go.</p>
-
-<p>“They are two runaway conscripts, and, although
-I know nothing of them, yet I seem to feel that God
-directed me to bring them here. Poor lads! did you
-observe whether they looked pale? they must be in
-want of nourishment; for the search that is going on
-everywhere after deserters is very hot. Logmagi
-himself had no very pleasant duty to perform; for, if
-they had mistaken him for a man in search of them,
-one against two in the heart of the mountain ran some
-risk of his life. You know, one deserter the other
-day wounded three soldiers who attempted to take
-him, and another killed two out of five, and, although
-taken, was not punished by the Pasha, who exchanged
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span>
-willingly an athletic gladiator, who had proved his
-fighting propensities, for two cowards.”</p>
-
-<p>These lads, whom Lady Hester pretended not to
-know, were the two brothers of Fatôom and Sâada:
-they were put into a room in an inner enclosure,
-where they had comfortable quarters assigned them,
-and were kept for two months hid from observation;
-by which means they escaped the conscription of that
-year. At the end of their term, they were one day
-turned out, told they might go home in safety, and
-warned that, if ever they made their appearance near
-the house, they would be flogged. Such were Lady
-Hester’s eccentric ways; and just as they were
-wasting their breath in protestations of gratitude, they
-were frightened out of their senses. No doubt, the
-reason was that, as from their long stay in the premises,
-they were more or less acquainted with every
-locality, it might be that they had formed plans to
-carry off stolen goods, which Lady Hester thus had
-the foresight to frustrate. She never told me that
-her dream was an invention, but I believe that it
-was.</p>
-
-<p>In addition to the loss of a son, or a husband, or a
-brother, which the dozen families of Jôon (for there
-were no more) had to complain of, these same families
-were taxed at the rate of one, two, or three hundred
-piasters each, in order to furnish the equipment of the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span>
-soldiers draughted from among them. For, under
-the pretext of sending off each recruit with a good
-kit and with a little money in his pocket, a benevolence
-tax was invented, the greatest part of which, after
-the parings of the collectors, went to the Pasha’s
-treasury, and the half-naked recruit was left to take
-his chance. Oh! that a European soldier could see
-what these men are compelled to live on—how they
-sleep, how they are flogged—and how they are left to
-die!—and yet suicide is unknown among them.</p>
-
-<p>The bastinado in Sayda was succeeded by mulcts.
-An order was published by the Pasha, that those
-whose sons had concealed themselves, or did not
-appear by a certain day, should be taxed collectively
-1,300 purses, a sum more than enough to pay for
-substitutes. An appeal was made to Ibrahim Pasha
-to lessen the fine, but the result never came to my
-knowledge.</p>
-
-<p>November 19.—I had taken to my house to read
-the book that Sir Gore Ouseley had sent Lady Hester
-Stanhope, and I related to her the anecdote of the old
-woman and the copper dish.<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> This threw a gleam of
-satisfaction over her countenance. “Ah!” said she,
-and she made a sigh of pleasurable feeling, “these are
-the people I like; that’s my sort: but the people
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span>
-now-a-days, who call themselves gentlemen, and don’t
-know how to blow their nose!—when the first peer
-of the realm will go about bragging what a trick he
-has played some poor woman whom he has seduced!
-Cursed be the hour that ever the name of gentleman
-came into the language! I have seen hedgers and
-ditchers at my father’s, who talked twice as good
-sense as half the fine gentlemen now-a-days—a pack
-of fellows, that do little else than eat, drink, and
-sleep. Can one exist with such persons as these?
-or is it to be supposed that God can tolerate such
-brutalities?”</p>
-
-<p>I sat by, as I was accustomed to do, on such occasions,
-mute; knowing that a word uttered at that
-moment would only increase her irritation, instead of
-appeasing it. She went on: “And whilst you show
-no more sensibility than that wall, here am I, a poor
-dying creature” (and then she wept so that it was
-piteous to hear her), “half killed by these nasty black
-beasts. Last night, instead of coming refreshed out
-of my bath, soothed by a gentle perspiration, I was
-drier than ever, with my mouth parched, my skin
-parched, and feebler than I was yesterday. But they
-will all suffer for it; not here, perhaps, but in the
-other world: for God will not see a poor miserable
-creature trampled under foot as I have been.”</p>
-
-<p>As she grew a little calm, I expressed my regret to
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span>
-see her so annoyed and tormented by her servants.
-The conversation then turned on blacks: and I asked—“Are
-they then never susceptible of feeling: can kind
-treatment never work on their sensibility?”—“Doctor,”
-answered Lady Hester, “they have neither one nor
-the other: it is a bit of black skin, which the people
-of the country say you must work on with the korbàsh,
-and with nothing else. I recollect an aga, who told
-me that he had a black slave, who, when he first
-bought her, one day got hold of his poniard, and
-seemed as if she was going to stab him with it. He
-started up, seized his sabre, and gave her a cut or
-two; then, with a switch, beat her pretty handsomely.
-From that day she became fond of him, faithful, and
-so attached, that, when he wanted to sell her, she
-would not be sold, but always contrived that the contract
-should be broken by her swearing she would kill
-herself, throw herself over the terrace, or something,
-that made the buyer refuse to take her.</p>
-
-<p>“I recollect another story. There were five European
-travellers coming down the banks of the Nile on
-horseback, when they saw an aga, who was sitting in
-the open air, lay hold of a black woman by the hair of
-her head, throw her down, and flog her most unmercifully
-with the korbàsh. One of the party was a
-German count, or something, who, being what you
-call a humane man, said he must interfere; but the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span>
-others told him he had better not. However, he did:
-and what was the consequence? why, the woman immediately
-jumped up, called him an impudent rascal,
-slapped his face with her slipper, hooted him, and
-followed the party until she fairly frightened them by
-her violence.</p>
-
-<p>“No, doctor, they do not like mild people. They
-always say they want no old hens, but a <em>jigger</em>” (I
-believe her ladyship meant some ferocious animal)
-“for their master. As for what you say, that the
-common people of this country stand in respect of
-nobody, I can tell you that they do. You should
-have seen the Shaykh Beshýr, how they respected
-him. When I was at his palace, I recollect, one day,
-one of his secretaries brought in a bag of money. ‘Is
-it all here?’ said the Shaykh, with a terrible, cross,
-frowning face. ‘It is, your felicity,’ said the man.
-‘Very well,’ said the Shaykh, still with the same
-fierce countenance; and I asked him what he put on
-such a severe look for to a very pleasing-looking man.
-‘Why,’ answered he, ‘if I did not, I should be robbed
-past imagination: if I said to him, I am much obliged
-to you, sir; you have given yourself a great deal of
-trouble on my account, and the like compliments, he
-would go away and chuckle in his own mind to think
-his peculations were not suspected; but now he will
-go, and say to himself, I will bet an <i>adli</i> some one
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span>
-has told the Shaykh of the five hundred piasters that
-were left for me at my house: I must send directly,
-and desire they may be returned—or, he knows about
-the tobacco that was brought me by the peasant; I
-had better get rid of it; and so on. Their peculations
-are past all bounds, and they must be kept under with
-a rod of iron.’</p>
-
-<p>“There was Danna, the poor old Frenchman, who
-lost his trunk with all his doubloons in it: do you
-think he would ever have found them, if the Emir
-Beshýr had not sent Hamâady to that village about a
-league off—what do you call it?—where the robbery
-was committed? He assembled all the peasants, men
-and women, and he told them—‘Now, my friends,
-Monsieur Danna does not want anybody to be punished,
-if he can help it; therefore, you have only to produce
-the money, and nothing farther will be said: for the
-money was lost here, and some of you must know
-where it is.’ To see what protestations of innocence
-there were, what asseverations! and from the women
-more than the men. So Hamâady, finding that talking
-was of no use, heated his red-hot irons and his copper
-skull caps, and produced his instruments of torture;
-and, seeing that the women were more vociferous than
-the men, he selected one on whom strong suspicions
-had fallen, and drove a spike under her finger-nails.
-At the first thrust, she screamed out—‘Let me off!
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span>
-let me off! and I will acknowledge all.’ She then immediately
-confessed—would you believe it?—that the
-curate’s son had robbed Danna, and she had shared
-the money with him.</p>
-
-<p>“Now, tell me, was it best that the old Frenchman
-should die of starvation, or that the rascally thief of a
-woman, who had induced the curate’s son to commit
-the robbery, should be punished, as a warning to
-others? If such severe punishments were not used
-among them, we should not sleep safe in our beds.
-How well is it known that they have with pickaxes
-opened a roof, and thrown in lighted straw to suffocate
-people, that they might rob in security.</p>
-
-<p>“I recollect once, when Captain Y. was here, I was
-showing him the garden; and, seeing some lettuces
-which were badly planted, he said to me, ‘That’s not
-the way to plant lettuces: they should be so and so.’—‘Yes,’
-I replied, ‘I have told the gardener so a
-hundred times, and he will never listen to me.’—‘Oh!
-oh!’ said he, ‘won’t he? Let me bring a boatswain’s
-mate to him, and I’ll soon see whether he will or not?—‘You
-are very good,’ was my answer; ‘but then I
-should lose your company for half a day, and I had
-rather have no lettuces than do that.</p>
-
-<p>“When I first came to this country, you know
-perfectly well that I never behaved otherwise than
-with the greatest kindness to servants. You ask me
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span>
-why I don’t now try gentle measures with them, rewarding
-the good, and merely dismissing the idle and
-vicious: my reply is, I did so for years, until I found
-they abused my forbearance in the grossest manner.
-Do you think it would frighten the rest, were I to
-turn away one or two? no such thing. Why, upon
-one occasion, four of them, after they had received
-their wages, and had each got a present of new shawls,
-new girdles, and new kombázes, all went off together,
-clothes, wages and all, in the night. It is by degrees
-I am become what I am; and, only after repeated
-trials and proofs of the inefficiency of everything but
-severity, that I am grown so indifferent, that I do
-nothing but scold and abuse them.</p>
-
-<p>“But you talk of cruelty: it is such men as
-Mustafa Pasha, who was one of those who besieged
-Acre when Abdallah Pasha was <i>firmanlee</i>” (proscribed),
-“that you should call cruel; he was indeed
-a sanguinary tyrant. Doctor, he made a noise
-sometimes like the low growl of a tiger, and his
-people knew then that blood must flow. It was his
-custom, when the fit was on him, to send for some
-poor wretch from prison, and kill him with his own
-hand. He would then grow calm, smoke his pipe,
-and seem for a time quieted. But he was a shrewd
-man, and a clever pasha. He wrote with his own
-hand (which pashas never do, except on particular
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span>
-occasions) a letter to the Shaykh Beshýr, desiring him
-to pay marked attention to me. The Shaykh was
-highly flattered with the distinction shown him.”</p>
-
-<p>The recollection of the Pasha’s civility and the
-Shaykh Beshýr’s letter recalled her thoughts to what
-she had proposed to do at the beginning of the
-evening, which was to write an answer to Sir Gore
-Ouseley, and to thank the Oriental Translation Fund
-Society for their present. This was done in a letter
-from which the following are extracts:—</p>
-
-
-<p class="p2 center"><i>To the Right Hon. Sir Gore Ouseley, Bart.</i></p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p class="right">
-Djoun, on Mount Lebanon,<br>
-<span class="r2">November 20, 1837.</span></p>
-
-<p>Forgotten by the world, I cannot feel otherwise
-than much flattered by the mark of attention which
-it has pleased the society of learned men to honour
-me with. I must therefore beg leave, in expressing
-my gratitude, to return them my sincere thanks.
-You must not suppose that I am the least of an
-Arabic scholar, for I can neither read nor write one
-word of that language, and am (without affectation) a
-great dunce upon some subjects. Having lived part
-of my life with the greatest philosophers and politicians
-of the age, I have been able to make this
-<em>observation</em>, that all of them, however they may dispute
-and ingeniously reason upon abstruse subjects,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span>
-have, in moments of confidence, candidly declared
-that we can go no <em>farther</em>. Here we must stop—all
-is problematical: therefore I have wished, however it
-may appear presumptuous, <em>to go farther</em> and remove
-some of these stumbling-blocks, not by erudition, but
-by trusting to some happy accident.</p>
-
-<p>It is extraordinary that many of this nature have
-occurred to me during my residence in the East. First,
-many proofs of the fallacy of history; next, the denial
-of many curious facts, which are even scouted as gross
-superstitions, and are pretended to be doubted, because
-no one knows how to account for them, but which real
-knowledge can clearly substantiate. Then there is a
-gap in history which ought to be filled up with the
-reign of Malek Sayf (a second King Solomon), and
-his family, and after him with that of Hamzy, the
-sort of Messiah of the Druzes, who is expected to
-return in another form. I once saw a work, which
-clearly proved the Pyramids to be antediluvian, and
-that Japhet was aware the deluge was to be partial, as
-he placed <em>that</em> which was most valuable to him in
-another quarter of the world.</p>
-
-<p>The Bedoween Arabs may be divided into two
-distinct classes, original Arabs, and the descendants
-of Ismael, whose daughter married the ninth descendant
-of the great Katàn, out of which germ sprang
-the famous tribe of the Koreish, subdivided into many
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span>
-tribes, and which are a mixture of Hebrew blood.
-One of the most famous tribes was that of the Beni
-Hasheniz, from which spring the Boshnàk and the
-Beni Omeyn, the Irish, always famed for the beauty
-of their women. The Scotch are likewise Koreish—the
-nobility descending from the King Al Yem (and
-his court), father of Gebailuata, who headed the
-50,000 horse, when they took their flight from the
-Hedjáz, after a quarrel with the Caliph Omar. They
-resided some time in Syria; but, when the town of
-Gebeili became inadequate to contain their numbers,
-many took themselves off to the Emperor Herculius,<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a>
-towards Antioch and Tarsus.</p>
-
-<p>You must look over the Scotch titles and names
-of persons and places, and you will see how many
-there are, who, it is plain to perceive, are of Arabic
-origin; and you will soon observe the relation they
-bear either to circumstances, former employments,
-propensities, or tastes.</p>
-
-<p>You cannot expect, as when a Frenchman remains
-forty years in England, and can neither pronounce nor
-spell a name, that, during such a lapse of time, many
-of these names should not have undergone changes;
-but their origin is yet evident.</p>
-
-<p>The Duke of Leinster’s motto (<i>Croom Aboo</i>—his
-father’s vineyards) has a grand signification, alluding
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span>
-to the most learned of works, of which only two
-copies exist, and which was not well understood even
-by the great Ulemas until about five hundred years
-afterwards, when Shaikh Mohadeen of the Beni Taya
-found out the key.</p>
-
-<p>If the philosopher of chance should have presumed
-to have offered a little heterogeneous information
-to the learned, you, sir, must forgive me.
-Your star denotes you to be of admirable good taste
-and great perspicuity, and therefore well calculated to
-investigate the subjects I have had the honour to lay
-before you.</p>
-
-<p>You will forgive me for having used the pen of
-another, but my sight and state of health will not at
-all times allow of my writing a long letter.</p>
-
-<p class="right">
-I salute all the philosophers with respect,<br>
-<span class="smcap r2">Hester Lucy Stanhope</span>.&emsp;</p>
-</div><!--end blockquote-->
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a>
-See the History of the Temple of Jerusalem, translated
-from the Arabic by the <abbr title="Reverend">Rev.</abbr> Mr. Reynolds, <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 403.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a>
-Heraclius?</p>
-
-</div><!--end footnotes-->
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span>
-
-<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span> <abbr title="Five"><span class="allsmcap">V.</span></abbr></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="small short">Rainy season—Lady Hester’s despondency—Her Turkish
-costume—Turkish servants—Terror inspired by Lady Hester
-in her servants—Visit of Messieurs Poujolat and Boutés—Lady
-Hester’s inability to entertain strangers—Her dejected
-spirits and bad health.</p>
-
-
-<p class="p2">November 24.—Still rain, rain! The courtyards
-were deep in mud and puddles, and the men-servants
-walked about in wooden clogs, such as are worn in
-breweries. The flat roofs, which cover the houses in
-most parts of Syria, are made of a cement of mortar
-and fine gravel, in appearance like an asphaltum
-causeway. In the hot months fissures show themselves;
-and it rarely happens, when winter comes on,
-that, during the first heavy rains, the wet does not
-filter through. Lady Hester, therefore, had to suffer,
-as well as all the house, from this annoyance, hardly
-bearable when a person is in health, but extremely
-distressing and even dangerous in sickness. For some
-days past pans had been standing on the bedroom
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span>
-floor to catch the droppings, and it continued to rain
-on. The sloppy communications from door to door,
-where every door opens into a courtyard, gave likewise
-a damp to the apartments only supportable in a
-climate as mild as that of Syria. Snow had covered
-the upper chain of Mount Lebanon in great abundance,
-and the wind blew furiously. Everybody was
-out of humour, and many of the servants were labouring
-under bad coughs and colds: but the women, notwithstanding,
-always moved about the house with
-naked feet. It was a wonder to see how, with coughs
-that might be heard from one courtyard to another,
-they constantly went barefoot, and yet got well; and
-a servant, if sent to the village, was sure to leave his
-shoes at the porter’s lodge, and, drawing his <i>sherwáls</i>
-or trousers up above his knees, to set off as light as a
-deer through the pelting storm, careless of wet, if he
-could but cover his head.</p>
-
-<p>I saw Lady Hester about two in the day: she
-was in low spirits, lying in her bed with the window
-and door open from a sense of suffocation which had
-just before seized her.</p>
-
-<p>“Would you believe it,” said she, as I entered,
-“those beasts would leave me to die here before they
-came to my assistance! and, if I happen to fall asleep,
-there is not one would cover my shoulders to prevent
-my taking cold.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span>
-Poor Lady Hester! thought I, the contrast between
-your early days and your present sufferings is
-almost enough to break your heart. So I abused the
-maids handsomely; and then, being satisfied with the
-warmth of my expressions, and having vented her own
-anger, she began to talk composedly.</p>
-
-<p>I remained until near dinner-time, and, after dinner,
-went to her again. She observed that the nights were
-dreadfully long, and that she should be obliged to me if
-I would read to her. Her stock of books, and mine too,
-was very small, and, after naming a few, which did
-not please her, I recollected she had asked me once if
-I had by me a heathen mythology, and she immediately
-fixed on that. So, writing on a slip of paper
-to my daughter to send me hers, Lady Hester said,
-“First let me order a pipe for you:” for this was usually
-the preliminary to all business or conversation.
-Every sitting was opened with a pipe, and generally
-terminated with one; as her ladyship would say, “But,
-before you go, doctor, you must smoke one pipe more.”
-When the book came, she desired me to turn to the
-part about Jupiter Ammon, and it will be seen farther
-on why she did so. After a page or two, she began
-to talk of the coming of the Mahadi, and the conversation
-was prolonged far into the night. She afterwards
-ordered tea—for I now drank tea with her almost
-every evening—and I then returned to my house,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span>
-covered with my thick capote, which, in the short distance
-of a few hundred yards, could hardly save me
-from being wet through.</p>
-
-<p>November 25.—The annual fast of the Mahometans,
-called Ramazàn, had begun on the preceding day. It
-is customary for persons of rank to make presents of
-clothes and other things to their dependants, during
-the lunar month that the Ramazàn lasts, in order that
-they may appear dressed up in finery on the first day
-of the succeeding new moon, at the holyday of the
-Byràm, which succeeds it, as Easter-day does Lent
-among Christians. Lady Hester, who never was behindhand
-in beneficence, made it a rule to clothe all
-her Mahometan servants anew at this season, as she
-did all her Christian ones on New Year’s Day or at
-Easter. New capotes, pelisses, sherwáls, shirts,
-shifts, turbans, gowns, &amp;c., were always bought
-previous to the time; and, the best being given to
-the most deserving, the worst to the least so, with
-none at all to the lazy and worthless, some sort of
-activity was observable in their service previous to
-the expected time. But the objects they coveted once
-in their possession, they soon relapsed into their customary
-sloth.</p>
-
-<p>Some of these articles of dress were lying on the
-floor, Lady Hester having had them brought for her
-to look at. She said to me, “You must take home
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span>
-one of these abahs<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> to show to your family. You
-must tell them,” continued she, “that once I had all
-my servants clothed in such abahs as that: but they
-played me such tricks, I have given it up. Some sold
-them; and, on one occasion, four of them marched off
-within twenty-four hours after I had dressed them
-from head to foot, and I never saw them again: isn’t
-it abominable? At the time that I dressed them so
-well, and rode out myself with my bornôos, crimson
-and gold, the gold lace being everywhere where silk
-tape is generally put, I did not owe a shilling in
-the world.”</p>
-
-<p>“Once,” she continued, “when riding my beautiful
-Arabian mare Asfoor, near a place called Gezýn, in
-that crimson bornôos, with a richly-embroidered dress
-under it, and on my crimson velvet saddle, I happened
-to approach an encampment of the Pasha’s
-troops. Several <i>benát el hawa</i>” (street ladies), “who
-were living with the soldiers, ran across a field to come
-up with me, thinking I was some young bey or binbashi.
-Every time, just as they got near, I quickened
-my horse’s pace, that they might not see I was a
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span>
-woman: at last, two fairly came and seized my knees,
-to make me turn and look at them. But what was
-their confusion (for such women are not so hardened
-as in Europe) when they saw I had no beard or mustachios,
-and was one of their own sex!”</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester related this droll adventure to me
-more than once, to show, I believe, what a distinguished
-and real Turkish appearance she made on
-horseback, which was perfectly true: but to return to
-the servants.</p>
-
-<p>A Turk for work is little better than a brute animal:
-he moves about nimbly, when roused by vociferation
-and threats, and squats down like a dog the
-moment he is left to himself. England produces no
-type of the Syrian serving-man. He sets about his
-work as a task that is given to him, and, when it is
-over, sits down immediately to smoke his pipe and to
-gossip, or seeks a snug place near at hand, and goes
-to sleep. You call him, and set him to do something
-else, and the same practice follows. The next day
-you expect he will, of his own accord, recommence
-what was shown to him on the preceding one; but
-no such thing: you have to tell him over again, and
-so every day. He is a thief from habit, and a liar
-of the most brazen stamp, as no shame is ever attached
-to detection. In plausible language, protestations
-of honesty and fidelity, he has no superior;
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span>
-and, if beaten or reviled, he will smother his choler,
-nay, kiss the hand that has chastised him, but waits
-a fit opportunity for vengeance, and carefully weighs
-kicks against coppers. He is generally so servile as
-to make you bear with his worthlessness, even though
-you despise him; and, when your anger appears to
-threaten him with the loss of his place and is at the
-highest, he smooths it down with an extraordinary
-day’s activity, making you hope that a reformation
-has taken place in him: but it is all delusion. And
-think not that you, a Christian, can raise your hand
-against the meanest servant, if a Mahometan: when
-you would have him beaten, you must employ another
-Mahometan to do it, who will, however, lay on to your
-heart’s content.</p>
-
-<p>What has been said above applies to the menials of
-towns and cities. Of another class of servants taken
-from the villages, Lady Hester used to say, “I have
-tried the Syrian <i>fellahs</i>” (peasants) “for twenty years
-as servants, and I ought to know pretty well what
-they are fit for. It is my opinion that, for hard
-work, lifting heavy things, going with mules and
-asses, for foot messengers across the country, and for
-such business, you may make something of them, but
-for nothing else. The women are idle, and prone to
-thieving; and it is impossible to teach them any
-European usages.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span>
-One day, in walking through the back yard, I
-observed two stakes, about six feet high and sharply
-pointed, stuck deep and firmly into the ground, which
-had before escaped my notice. I inquired what they
-were for, but got no satisfactory answer, the dairyman,
-to whom I addressed myself, using the reply so
-common throughout the East, <i>Ma aref</i> (I don’t know);
-for no people in the world have so quick a scent of the
-danger of being brought into trouble by professing to
-know what is inquired about as the Orientals. A
-Jew, in a street in Turkey, and a Christian likewise,
-is sure to answer the most simple question by an “I
-don’t know”—“I have not heard”—“I have not
-seen;” for he fears what that question may lead to,
-and that, if he knows a little, a bastinadoing may be
-resorted to to make him know more: so I afterwards
-asked Lady Hester. “Oh!” replied she, “I’ll tell
-you how those stakes came there: I had forgotten all
-about them. One day, at the time they were robbing
-me right and left, I ordered the carpenter to make two
-stakes, such as people are impaled upon, and to erect
-them in the back yard. I spoke not to any one why
-or wherefore I had given the order; but if you had
-seen the fright that pervaded the house, and for weeks
-how well the maids behaved, you would then have
-known, as I do, that it is only by such terrible means
-that these abominable jades can be kept under. From
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span>
-that time to this it appears the stakes have remained;
-for, as I never go into that yard, I had forgotten
-them: but since they are there still, there let them be.”</p>
-
-<p>Thus Lady Hester was dying in a struggle to cure
-her men and maids of theft, lying, and carelessness,
-whilst they ended the month with the same indifference
-to honesty, truth, and cleanliness, as they began
-it.</p>
-
-<p>Each one was a sycophant to those who had authority
-over him; each one distrusted his comrade.
-Lady Hester might say with truth, “If I did not act
-so, they would cut your throat and mine:” but why
-did she keep such wretches about her? why not turn
-them away, and procure European servants? or why
-continue to live in such a wild mountain, and not
-make her dwelling-place in or near a city, where consular
-protection was at hand? The first three questions
-I have endeavoured to answer already; and, as
-for the last, respecting consular protection, he that had
-dared to suggest such an expedient of safety to her
-would have rued the observation. To name a consul
-in that sense to her was to name what was most
-odious; and the epithets that were generally coupled
-with their names were such as I have too much
-respect for that useful body of magistrates to put
-down in writing.</p>
-
-<p>Saturday, November 25.—As I was returning from
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span>
-the village about four in the afternoon, on ascending
-the side of the hill on which Lady Hester’s house
-stands, I met four persons mounted on mules, and
-conjectured them, by their boots, which were black,
-and reached up to the calf of the leg, not to be of the
-country; for in Syria either red or yellow boots are
-always worn. They had on Morea capotes, and their
-dress was that of the more northern provinces of
-Turkey. In passing them, I said, “Good evening!”
-in Arabic, but, on receiving no answer from the two
-nearest to me, I looked hard at them, and immediately
-saw they were Europeans.</p>
-
-<p>On alighting at my own door, I asked the servant
-if he had seen anybody go by, and his reply was, that
-three or four Turkish soldiers had passed. I then
-inquired of one of Lady Hester’s muleteers, who was
-unloading some provisions he had brought from Sayda,
-if he knew who the four men were whom I had seen;
-and he answered that, at the foot of the hill, they had
-inquired of him the road to Jôon, and that they were
-Milordi travelling: Milordo being the term applied to
-every European who travels in the Levant with a
-man-servant, and has money to spend.</p>
-
-<p>I went in to Lady Hester a few minutes afterwards,
-and told her that some travellers, as I thought, to get
-a nearer view of her house than could be had from the
-high road, had made a round, and had just ridden past
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span>
-the door. About a quarter of an hour afterwards, the
-maid brought in a message from the porter to say that
-two Franks, just arrived at the village of Jôon, had
-sent their servant with a note, and the porter wished
-to know whether the note was to be taken in. For
-Lady Hester had been so tormented with begging
-letters, petitions, stories of distress, &amp;c., that it was
-become a general rule for him never to receive any
-written paper, until he had first sent in to say who
-had brought it, and from whom it came; and then
-she would decide whether it was to be refused or not.
-The note, accordingly, was fetched.</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester read it to herself, and then the following
-conversation took place, which will explain
-some of the reasons why she did not always receive
-strangers who presented themselves at her gate.
-“Yes, doctor,” said she, “you were right: they are
-two travellers, who have been to Palmyra and about,
-and want to come and talk to me concerning the Arabs
-and the desert. Should you like to go to Jôon, and
-tell them I can’t see them, because I have been confined
-to my room for several days from a bad cold?”
-I answered, “Certainly; I would go with the greatest
-pleasure.” She then rang the bell, and desired the
-servant to order my horse. She continued, “One of
-the names, I think, is a man of a great family.”—“What
-is it?” I asked. She took up the note
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span>
-again. “Boo, poo, bon—no—Boo—jo—lais—Beaujolais,
-I think it is. No, Pou—jo—lat; it is Poujolat.”—“Then,”
-interrupted I, “I guess who they are:
-there was a Monsieur Poujolat, who came into the
-Levant six or seven years ago, to make researches
-respecting the crusades: I saw him at Cyprus; he
-and Monsieur Michaud were together. They were
-considered men of talent, and I believe were contributors
-to some Paris newspaper during Charles the
-Tenth’s time. They had published already some
-volumes of their travels before I left Europe, and the
-greatest part of the ground was travelled over, as I
-surmise, in the saloons of their consuls, during the
-long evenings when they were shut in by the plague
-of 1831 and 1832; for they speak of many places
-where they could hardly have gone. But this is not
-unusual,” I added, “with some writers; for Monsieur
-Chaboçeau, a French doctor at Damascus, told me, in
-1813, when I was staying in his house, that Monsieur
-de Volney never went to Palmyra, although he leads
-one to suppose he had been there; for, owing to a
-great fall of snow just at the period when he projected
-that journey, he was compelled to relinquish the
-attempt. Monsieur Chaboçeau, an octogenarian, had
-known him, and entertained him as his guest in his
-house; and he answered me, when I reiterated the
-question, that Volney never saw Palmyra.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span>
-“Oh! if they have written about the crusades,”
-said Lady Hester, paying no attention to what I said
-about Volney, “tell them that all the crusaders are
-not dead, but that some of them are asleep only;
-asleep in the same arms and the same dress they wore
-on the field of battle, and will awake at the first resurrection.
-Mind you say the first resurrection; for
-I suppose you know there are to be two, one a partial
-one, and the last a general one.<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p>
-
-<p>“But there, doctor, I must not detain you. Now,
-just listen to what you have got to do. Mohammed
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span>
-shall take to them two bottles of red wine, and two
-bottles of <i lang="es">vino d’oro</i>” (ding, ding.) “Zezefôon, tell
-Mohammed to get out four bottles of wine, two of
-each sort; of my wine—you understand—and he is to
-put them in a basket, and be ready to go with the
-doctor to Jôon.” Then, addressing herself again to
-me, “You must say to them that I am very sorry I
-can’t see them, but that I am not very well, and that
-I beg their acceptance of a little wine, which, perhaps,
-they might not find where they sleep to-night. Say
-to them, I should be very much pleased to talk over
-their journey to Palmyra with them; and add that
-the respect I bear to all the French makes me always
-happy to meet with one of their nation. Say that the
-wine is not so good as I could wish it to be, but that,
-since Ibrahim Pasha and his soldiers have been in the
-country, they have drunk up all the good, and it is
-now very difficult to procure any. If they talk about
-Ibrahim Pasha, say that I admire his courage, but
-cannot respect him; that I am a faithful subject of
-the Sultan, and shall always be so, and that I do not
-like servants that rise against their masters; for
-whether Cromwells, or Buonapartes, or people in these
-countries, it never succeeds. If they allude to the
-horrors of the recruiting service, and to the nizàm
-troops, tell them that I never interfere in matters like
-that; but that, when heads were to be saved and the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span>
-wounded and houseless to be succoured, as after the
-siege of Acre, then I was not afraid of Ibrahim Pasha,
-or any of them. Well, I think that’s all:” then,
-musing a little while, she added, “I ought, perhaps,
-to ask them to pass the night here; but, if I did, it
-would be all confusion: no dinner ready for them—and,
-before it could be, it would be midnight, for I
-must have a sheep killed: besides, it would be setting
-a bad example. There would be others then coming
-just at nightfall to get a supper and be off in the
-morning, as has happened more than once already.
-So now go, doctor, and” (ding, ding) “Fatôom! who
-is that woman that lodges strangers sometimes at
-Jôon?”—“Werdy, Sytty, the midwife.”—“Ah! so;
-very well. Tell them, doctor, that they had better
-not think of going to Sayda to-night, as the gates
-will be shut; and that they will be nowhere better
-off for sleeping in all the village than at Werdy, the
-midwife’s: for she has good beds and clean counterpanes:
-so now go.”</p>
-
-<p>I half rose to go, still hanging back, as knowing her
-ladyship would, as usual, have much more to say.
-“Oh! by the bye,” she resumed, “if they inquire
-about me, and ask any questions, you may say that
-sometimes I am a great talker when subjects please
-me, and sometimes say very little if they do not. I
-am a character: what I do, or intend to do, nobody
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span>
-knows beforehand; and, when done, people don’t
-always know why, until the proper time, and then it
-comes out.” Here she paused a little, and then
-resumed. “I dare say they came here to have something
-to put in their book, so mind you tell them
-about the crusaders; for it is true, doctor. You
-recollect I told you the story, and how these sleeping
-crusaders had been seen by several persons; and I
-don’t suppose those persons would lie more than other
-people; why should they?”—“Why should they
-indeed?” I answered. “They were martyrs,” resumed
-her ladyship, “and those who sleep are not only of
-the Christians who fought, but of the Saracens also;
-men, that is, who felt from their souls the justice of
-the cause they fought for. As for yourself, if you
-don’t believe it, you may add you know nothing about
-it; for you are lately come into the country, and all
-these are things which are become known to me during
-my long residence here.”</p>
-
-<p>At last I went, mounted my horse, and rode out of
-the gate, Mohammed following with the basket of
-wine. But, instead of having to go to the village, I
-found the strangers waiting on their mules about two
-or three hundred yards from the porter’s lodge. My
-horse, taken from his feed, for it was near sunset, and
-seeing the mules, jumped and pranced so that I was
-obliged to dismount before I could approach them. I
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span>
-delivered Lady Hester’s message to them, and in
-answer they expressed, in polite terms, their regret at
-not seeing her, and their still greater regret that the
-reason was from her ill state of health. Unlike what
-some Englishmen have done on similar occasions, they
-uttered not the slightest murmur about her want of
-hospitality, nor the least doubt of the veracity of the
-excuse; but, as soon as they found that they should
-not be admitted, they cut short all further conversation;
-lamenting, as night was fast approaching, that
-they could not stop, and that they were under the
-necessity of bending their way somewhere as fast as
-possible to get a night’s lodging. I pointed to the
-village, recommended them to go there, and repeated
-Werdy, the midwife’s name, two or three times, as a
-cottage where they would be comfortably lodged. But,
-yielding to the advice of their servant, who, as is the
-case with all travellers ignorant of the language in a
-strange country, seemed to lead his masters pretty
-much where he liked, they were induced to set off for
-Sayda, where they could not arrive in less than three
-hours, instead of passing the night at Jôon, where
-they would have been housed in ten minutes. So,
-presenting them with the wine, and having informed
-them of the name of the French consular agent at
-Sayda, where they would do well to demand a lodging,
-I wished them good night, and took my leave. They
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span>
-mounted their mules, and descended the bank by the
-narrow path that led under the hill to the Sayda road;
-when, as I was going back to the house, I heard one of
-the gentlemen calling out to me, “But the empty
-bottles?” Now the interview had been conducted, on
-my part, with all the etiquette I was master of, and
-on theirs, up to the moment of saying good night,
-with the politeness so natural to the French nation.
-But the exclamation, “What’s to be done with the
-empty bottles? you gave us the wine, but did you
-give us the bottles too?” sounded so comic, and in the
-vicinity of that residence too, where it was customary
-to give in a princely way, that the speaker fell a degree
-in the scale of my estimation on the score of breeding,
-how much soever he might be commended for his
-intended exactitude and probity.</p>
-
-<p>I returned to Lady Hester. During my short
-absence, one of her maids had informed her that the
-Franks, although they had made a show of going to
-Jôon when first they passed the gate, had in fact only
-retired into the valley between the two hills, where
-they had unpacked their saddle-bags and shifted
-themselves, in order to make a decent appearance
-before her. This increased her regret at the trouble
-they had so uselessly put themselves to. The rain
-came on soon after, and their unpleasant situation was
-the subject of conversation for a good half hour. The
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span>
-name of the other gentleman who accompanied Monsier
-Poujolat was Boutés.</p>
-
-<p>Much has been said of Lady Hester Stanhope’s
-rudeness to her countrymen and others in refusing
-them admittance when at the door, and probably
-Messrs. Poujolat and Boutés might have complained
-at Sayda of her inhospitable conduct: but it is
-scarcely necessary for me to say that her real motives
-for acting as she did were not from a dislike to see
-people, since nobody enjoyed half-a-day’s conversation
-with a stranger more than she did. A few days after,</p>
-
-<p>December 2.—I had taken a long ride in the morning,
-and had seen a frigate under her studding sails
-running towards Sayda. The arrival of a ship of
-war was always an event to set the house in commotion;
-for it was very well known that, if her colours
-were English or French, the chances were ten to one
-that either the captain or some of the officers would
-come up to Jôon. Accordingly, on returning home at
-about 4 o’clock, I told Lady Hester Stanhope of it:
-but she was not well, had passed the night badly, and
-all she said was,—“Well, if they come, I shall not
-see any of them.” Now, it is not improbable, if any
-of the officers had presented themselves, and had been
-told that her ladyship was unable to receive them,
-owing to the state of her health, that they would have
-gone away discontented, and disposed to attribute her
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span>
-refusal to any other cause than the real one: but let
-any one, who reads what follows, say if she was in a
-fit state to hold conversation with strangers.</p>
-
-<p>Her health was still very far from good, and this
-day was a day of sorrow. Her maids had been
-sulky and impertinent, and her forlorn and deserted
-situation came so forcibly across her mind, that she
-raised up her hands to heaven, and wept. “Oh!”
-said she, “if these horrid servants would but do as
-they are told, I could get on by myself, and should
-not want anybody to help me: but they are like
-jibbing horses, and the only good horse in the team
-is worked to death. Were I well, I would not care
-for a thousand of them; I should know how to manage
-them: but, sick as I am, hardly able to raise my
-hand to ring the bell, if anything were to happen
-to me, I might die, and nobody would come to my
-assistance.”</p>
-
-<p>I offered, as I had done almost daily, to have my
-bed removed to the room next to hers, and to sleep
-there, in order to be at hand if she should want my
-assistance: but she would not admit of it; and I
-could only use my best efforts to soothe her, which
-was no easy matter. I remained six hours with her,
-sitting the whole time in a constrained posture, that I
-might catch her words, so low was her voice. And I
-could not move without sensibly annoying her, as she
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span>
-was sure to construe it into a wish to be gone, or a
-disregard of her situation, and to say she was neglected
-by everybody.</p>
-
-<p>It is incredible how Lady Hester Stanhope used to
-torment herself about trifles. People, who never happened
-to meet with a person of her peculiar character,
-would be amazed at the precision with which she set
-about everything she undertook. The most trivial
-and fugitive affairs were transacted with quite as
-much pains and exactitude as she brought to bear
-upon the most important plans. This was, in fact,
-the character of her mind, exhibiting itself throughout
-her entire conduct. I have known her lose nearly a
-whole day in scolding about a nosegay of roses which
-she wished to send to the Pasha’s wife. For the purpose
-of sending nosegays safely to distant places, she
-had invented a sort of canister. In the bottom part
-was placed a tumbler full of water, in which the flower-stalks
-were kept moist; and the nosegay was thus
-carried to any distance, suspended to the mules,
-saddle, or in a man’s hand. The servants, who could
-not understand why such importance was attached to
-a few flowers, were remiss in keeping the canisters
-clean, nor would the gardener arrange the flowers as
-Lady Hester wished. For a matter like this she
-would storm and cry, and appeal to me if it was not a
-shame she should be so treated.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span>
-December 3.—To-day, a servant, who was ill, had
-become the object of her immediate anxiety. “As
-for myself,” cried she, “I care not how ragged, how
-neglected I am; but I am in a fever if I think a poor
-creature is in want of such comforts as his illness may
-require. Such is my despotism: and I dread every
-moment of the day lest his necessities should not be
-attended to. Who is to see his room warmed, to take
-care he has proper drinks, to give him his medicine?
-I know nobody will do it, unless I see to it myself.”
-I assured her he should have every attention possible.</p>
-
-<p>It was in vain to expect any sentiment or feeling
-from servants and slaves, who had no prospect before
-them but one constant round of forced work, against
-their habits and inclinations. Although Lady Hester
-Stanhope had adopted almost all the customs of the
-East, she still retained many of her own: and to condemn
-the slaves to learn the usages of Franks was
-like obliging an English housemaid to fall into those
-of the Turks. Thus, the airing of linen, ironing,
-baking loaves of bread instead of flat cakes, cleaning
-knives, brightening pots, pans, and kettles, mending
-holes in clothes, and other domestic cleanly usages,
-were points of contention which were constantly fought
-over and over again for twenty years, with no better
-success at the last than at the first.</p>
-
-<p>Her conversation turned one day on Sir G. H.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span>
-“What can be the reason?” said she, “I am now
-always thinking of Sir G. H. Seven years ago, when
-you were here, you spoke about him, and I thought
-no more of him than merely to make some remarks at
-the moment; but now I have dreamed of him two
-or three times, and I am sure something is going to
-happen to him, either very good or very bad. I have
-been thinking how well he would do for master of the
-horse to the Queen, and I have a good way of giving
-a hint of it through the Buckleys: for I always said
-that, next to Lord Chatham, nobody ever had such
-handsome equipages as Sir G.: nobody’s horses and
-carriages were so neatly picked out as theirs. Sir G.
-is a man, doctor, from what you tell me, that would
-have just suited Mr. Pitt. That polished and quiet
-manner which Sir G. has was what Mr. Pitt found so
-agreeable in Mr. Long. It is very odd—Mr. Pitt
-always would dress for dinner, even if we were alone.
-One day, I said to him, ‘You are tired, and there is
-no one but ourselves; why need you dress!’ He replied,
-‘Why, I don’t know, Hester; but if one omits
-to do it to-day, we neglect it to-morrow, and so on,
-until one grows a pig.’”</p>
-
-<p>December 7, 1837.—Poor Lady Hester’s appearance
-to-day would have been a piteous sight for her
-friends in England. I saw her about noon: she was
-pale, very ill, and her natural good spirits quite gone.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span>
-“Doctor,” said she, in a faint voice, “I am very
-poorly to-day, and I was still worse in the night. I
-was within that” (holding up her finger) “of death’s
-door, and I find nothing now will relieve me. A little
-while ago, I could depend on something or other,
-when seized with these spasmodic attacks; but now
-everything fails. How am I to get better, when I
-can’t have a moment’s repose from morning till night?
-When I was ill on former occasions, I could amuse
-myself with my thoughts, with cutting out in paper;—why,
-I have a closet full of models, in paper, of
-rooms, and arches, and vaults, and pavilions, and
-buildings, with so many plans of alterations, you can’t
-think. But now, if I want a pair of scissors, they
-can’t be found; if I want a needle and thread, there is
-none forthcoming; and I am wearied to death about
-the smallest trifles.”</p>
-
-<p>She here began to cry and wring her hands, presenting
-a most melancholy picture of despair. When
-she had recovered a little, she went on: “To look
-upon me now, what a lesson against vanity! Look at
-this arm, all skin and bone, so thin, so thin, that you
-may see through it; and once, without exaggeration,
-so rounded, that you could not pinch the skin up.
-My neck was once so fair that a pearl necklace scarcely
-showed on it; and men—no fools, but sensible men—would
-say to me, ‘God has given you a neck you
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span>
-really may be proud of: you are one of nature’s
-favourites, and one may be excused for admiring that
-beautiful skin.’ If they could behold me now, with
-my teeth all gone, and with long lines in my face—not
-wrinkles, for I have no wrinkles when I am left
-quiet, and not made angry: but my face is drawn out
-of its composure by these wretches. I thank God
-that old age has come upon me unperceived. When
-I used to see the painted Lady H. dressed in pink
-and silver, with her head shaking, and jumped by her
-footman into her sociable, attempting to appear young,
-I felt a kind of horror and disgust I can’t describe.
-I wonder how Lady Stafford dresses, now she is no
-longer young: but I can’t fancy her grown old.”</p>
-
-<p>She paused, and then resumed. “I have,” she
-said, “been under the saw” (drawing the little finger
-of her right hand backward and forward across the
-forefinger of her left) “for many years, and not a
-tooth but what has told; but it is God’s will, and I
-do not repine: it is man’s ingratitude that wounds
-me most. How many harsh answers have even you
-given me, when I have been telling you things for
-your good: it is that which hurts me.”</p>
-
-<p>I confessed my fault, and expressed my deep regret
-that I had ever caused her any pain.</p>
-
-<p>She went on. “When I see people of understanding
-moidering away their time, losing their memory,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span>
-and doing nothing that is useful to mankind, I must
-be frank, and tell them of it. You are in darkness,
-and I have done my best to enlighten you: if I have
-not succeeded, it is not my fault. As for pleasing or
-displeasing me, put that out of your head: there is
-no more in that than in pleasing or displeasing that
-door. I am but a worm—a poor, miserable being—an
-humble instrument in the hands of God. But, if
-a man is benighted, and sees a light in a castle, does
-he go to it, or does he not? Perhaps it may be a
-good genius that guides him there, perhaps it may be
-a den of thieves: but there he goes.”</p>
-
-<p>In this mournful strain Lady Hester went on for
-some time. Every thing around me presented so
-affecting a picture, that, unable to restrain my emotions,
-I burst into tears. She let me recover myself,
-and then, making me drink a finjàn of coffee, with a
-little orange-flower water in it, to restore my spirits,
-she advised me to go and take a walk.</p>
-
-<p>An hour or two afterwards I saw her again. She
-was much better, and was sitting up in her bed, cutting
-out articles of clothing, and fixing on patterns for
-new gowns for her maids. “I hate money,” she said,
-“and could wish to have nothing to do with it but
-saying, ‘Take this, and lay it out so and so.’” Ever
-sanguine, she was forming plans of what she should
-do in the spring, when she purposed remodelling her
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span>
-household, and replacing her present servants by a
-fresh set. The world was to be convulsed by revolutions,
-nations were to be punished by sickness and
-calamities; and her object was to secure, for those in
-whose welfare she felt interested, an asylum in the
-coming days of trouble.</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
-
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a>
- An abah is either a long cloak, or else a woollen frock-coat,
-sometimes brocaded in a triangle of gold thread (the base going from
-shoulder to shoulder, and the apex pointing at the waist), on a
-marone-coloured ground, as this was, and presenting a very brilliant
-appearance.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a>
-It was by such speeches as these that Lady Hester sometimes left
-an impression on her hearers that she was insane. The reader must judge
-for himself. There are, however, strong reasons for believing that
-there was a profound and deeply-planned method in all her actions,
-and those who said she was unsound in her intellects would have had
-great difficulty in proving it before a competent tribunal. The vast
-combinations of her mind, when it was possible to get a glimpse
-of them, filled one with surprise, and set at naught all previous
-conjecture or conception; whilst separate and particular conversations
-and reasonings wore the stamp of great oddity and sometimes of
-insanity. Let Mr. Dundas, Lord Hardwicke, Mr. Way, Lord <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Asaph,
-Count Delaborde, Count Yowiski, if still alive, Count de la Porte,
-Dr. Mills, <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Lamartine, Count Marcellus, and a hundred others who
-have conversed with her, say what was the impression she left on their
-minds; and not till then let persons who have never held intercourse
-with her of late years pronounce her mad.</p>
-
-</div><!--end footnotes-->
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span>
-
-<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span> <abbr title="Six"><span class="allsmcap">VI.</span></abbr></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="small short">The Delphic priestess—Abdallah Pasha’s ingratitude—His
-cowardice—Lady Hester’s spies—Her emaciation—History
-of General Loustaunau.</p>
-
-
-<p class="p2">December 8.—A most violent storm of rain, thunder,
-and lightning, kept me prisoner. The courtyards
-were flooded. When all the house was in confusion
-from the wet, and clogs were heard clattering on all
-sides, I entered Lady Hester’s room, and remained
-for about an hour, talking on indifferent subjects, without
-hearing from her one word in allusion to the state
-of the weather. At last she said, “Doctor, I find
-myself better from the thunder!” And when I replied
-that there were many persons who felt oppressed
-from an electric condition of the atmosphere and were
-relieved by its explosion, she observed, with some
-sharpness, “that I must be a great booby to make
-such a remark to her, as there was not a servant in
-the house who did not know that she could always
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span>
-tell, three days beforehand, when a thunder-storm was
-coming on.”</p>
-
-<p>In the evening I sat with her about four hours.
-She was up, and had placed herself in a corner of
-her bed-room on a low ottoman (as it is called in England),
-which the Syrians name <i>terâahah</i>. The candle
-was put far back in the window recess, the light being
-thrown on my features, whilst it left hers in obscurity.
-This was her custom on almost all occasions, even
-when she had strangers visiting her, under pretence
-that she could not bear the light in her eyes, but, in
-fact, as I have reason to believe, to watch the play of
-people’s countenances.</p>
-
-<p>She resumed the subject of the preceding evening.
-I was too weary when I left her, and too busy next
-morning, to be able to write down her conversation,
-but, could I have done it, it must have left a profound
-impression on the reader’s mind, an idea of
-sublimity, whether he held her visionary opinions to
-be the mere rhapsodies of a disordered intellect, or
-the deductions of great reasoning powers, aided by remarkable
-foresight. Her language was so forcible and
-sublime, that I sometimes suspended my breath, and
-from time to time tried to assure myself that I was
-not hearkening to a superhuman voice. The smoke
-from our pipes by degrees filled the room, closely shut
-up as it was, and cast a deep gloom around us. The
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span>
-wind howled without, with now and then occasional
-echoes of the thunder among the mountains: and it
-required no great stretch of imagination to believe
-one’s self listening to the inspired oracles of the Delphic
-priestess, as she poured forth the warnings of what
-seemed a preternatural insight into futurity.</p>
-
-<p>December 9.—The morning was employed in writing
-letters, and in the evening I remained until half-past
-one with Lady Hester. She spoke of the alarm
-created in Mahomet Ali’s cabinet, by her affording
-protection to Abdallah Pasha’s people after the surrender
-of <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Jean d’Acre. “That impudent fellow
-C********,” said she, “sent me a packet of letters
-from Colonel Campbell, and told me I was to prepare
-a list of all the people in my house, giving their
-names, nation, a description of their persons, &amp;c. I
-returned him the packet, and desired him to forward
-it to the quarter whence it came, adding, ‘These are
-all the commands that Lady Hester Stanhope has at
-present to give to Mr. C********.’ To Colonel C. I
-wrote ‘that it was not customary for consuls to give
-orders to their superiors; that, as for the English
-name, about which he talked so much, I made over to
-him all the advantage he might derive from it.’ And
-my letter to Boghoz was to the effect that, ‘in confessing,
-as he did, that I rendered the state of this
-country unsettled by my measures, he acknowledged
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span>
-the weakness of his master’s cause; that I disdained
-all partnership in it; and that the column on which
-Mahomet Ali’s exaltation rested would, before long,
-sink beneath him, and his greatness melt like snow
-before the fire.’ I added, ‘there could be little honour
-for Mahomet Ali to make himself a gladiator before a
-woman;’ and here I meant that, as a gladiator was
-some criminal who descended into the arena to fight,
-so he was a malefactor too.</p>
-
-<p>“As for Abdallah Pasha, he was not worth the
-pains I took about him; but I did it for my master,
-the Sultan. I kept and maintained for two years two
-hundred of his people, wounded, sick, and proscribed;
-and when I wrote to him to know what I should do
-with them, as the expense was too great for me, the
-answer of this ungrateful wretch was to ask me for a
-loan of twenty-five purses, and not even to send his
-remembrance to one of those who had bled and suffered
-in his cause. His ingratitude, however, has partly
-met with its reward: for the Sultan himself has heard
-of his cold-hearted conduct, and has taken away half
-what he allowed him. This is the man whose head I
-saved by my intercession with a person in power.</p>
-
-<p>“He was a coward, after all. The last day of the
-siege of Acre he lost his senses quite. As Ibrahim
-Pasha had effected a breach, some of Abdallah Pasha’s
-officers forced him to come upon the ramparts to
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span>
-encourage the soldiers; for he had remained during the
-whole time shut up in a vault under-ground with his
-women and boys, and had never once appeared. Well,
-the first thing he did was to sit down amidst the fire,
-quite bewildered. He then asked for an umbrella:
-then he called for some water; and, when they presented
-to him an <i>ibryk</i><a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> as being the only thing they
-had near at hand, not supposing that at such a moment
-he would mind what it was he drank from, he
-would not drink out of it?”</p>
-
-<p>They fetched him a goblet, and he made them take
-it back, because it was a glass he drank sherbet out of,
-and not water. The very man who handed it to him
-told me the story. At last they placed him in one
-corner of the battery, and covered him with a cloak.
-All this time the bullets were flying about.<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span>
-Lady Hester continued:—“Of all those to whom
-I gave an asylum and bread, after the siege, I can’t
-say there were many who showed the least gratitude—four
-perhaps: the rest robbed me, and abused my
-goodness in every possible manner. One family alone
-consisted of seventeen persons. Will it be believed,
-that when I had new clothes made for the women for
-the Byrám holyday, they had the baseness to grumble
-at the stuff, the make, and everything, complaining
-they were not good enough for them? But this did
-not hurt me half so much as the little credit I get for
-everything I do among my relations and the English
-in general. My motives are misconstrued, or not appreciated;
-and, whilst a mighty fuss is made about
-some public subscription for people in Jamaica, Newfoundland,
-or God knows where, I, who, by my own
-individual exertions, have done the like for hundreds
-of wretched beings, driven out of their homes by the
-sabre and bayonet, am reviled and abused for every
-act of kindness or benevolence.</p>
-
-<p>“I knew a pretty deal of what was going forward
-during the siege of Acre by my own spies. Hanah,
-your old servant—Giovanni, as he used to be called—was
-one of them. He carried on his trade of a barber,
-and was married in Acre; and, when the bombarding
-began, he got out somehow, and came to me. So I
-furnished him with a beggar’s dress. But first I
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span>
-made him take leave of the other servants, and set off
-from the door. Then, hiding himself under a rock,
-when he was at a distance, he dressed himself as a
-<i>fakýr</i>, and, so perfect was his disguise, that, when he
-came back to me, I did not know him. He was a poor
-timid fellow, and that was the reason why I chose
-him as fit for my purpose. In such a nice business
-as that, I wanted a man that would follow my instructions
-exactly, and do nothing out of his own
-head: and Giovanni was in such a fright, that I was
-sure of him in that respect. Well, he succeeded perfectly
-well. There was a poor devil of a <i>sacca</i>, or
-water-carrier, in the camp, who used to take water to
-Derwish Pasha’s tents. Meanly dressed, and with
-his head held down, like one in misery, nobody paid
-any attention to him; at night he would frequently
-creep between the ropes of the Pasha’s tent, and
-seem to sleep there like an unhappy being who had
-no hole to put his head in. Through a slit in the
-tent, he could see and hear much that passed, communicating
-whatever information he obtained to
-Giovanni, who brought it at convenient opportunities
-to me. But when I wanted a stout-hearted fellow to
-carry a letter through the entrenchments to the foot of
-the walls, to be drawn up, then I chose a different sort
-of a messenger; for I had them all ready.”</p>
-
-<p>December 16.—The last three days Lady Hester
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span>
-had suffered greatly. To-day she was in very low
-spirits, and sobbed aloud and wrung her hands, while
-she bitterly deplored her deserted state. “I believe
-it will do me good to cry,” she said, and she gave way
-freely to her emotions; but her weeping was not
-woman-like: it had a wild howl about it, that was
-painful to me to hear; she seemed not to be made of
-stuff for tears: and, if Bellona could have ever wept,
-she must have wept in this way. After she had given
-vent to her feelings, she gradually recovered, and her
-natural fecundity of language returned.</p>
-
-<p>December 17.—Christmas day was approaching,
-but the weather was of extraordinary mildness. Some
-idea may be formed of the climate of Syria from the
-circumstance that my house had no glass to the windows,
-and that the family sat always with the doors
-open. It was only during the heavy rains that the
-rooms felt chilly, and then a brazier, with lighted coals,
-was agreeable and quite sufficient to obviate the cold.</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester made me observe how thin she had
-become. Her bones almost protruded through her
-skin, and she could not lie comfortably in any posture;
-so that it was difficult for her to get rest. Her fretfulness
-had increased to such a degree as to be equally
-distressing to herself and to those about her: yet the
-vigour of her mind never forsook her for a moment
-when anything called for its exertion.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span>
-December 20.—was a rainy day, and, when I entered
-her ladyship’s chamber, I saw it would be a melancholy
-one. She was seated in the corner of the room,
-her features indicating great suffering. She burst into
-tears the moment I approached her. She had not
-slept the whole night, and had passed the hours, from
-the time I left her, in getting up and walking about
-supported by her women, and then lying down again,
-seeking relief from the feeling of suffocation and oppression
-which so much distressed her. The floor of
-the bed-room was covered with plates, pots, and pans,
-turnips, carrots, cabbages, knives and forks, spoons,
-and all other appurtenances of the table and kitchen.</p>
-
-<p>I must observe that, on the preceding day, at Lady
-Hester’s request, I had ridden over to Mar Elias to
-see General Loustaunau, the decayed French officer,
-who had now lived on her bounty for a period of more
-than twenty years. And although, from being of a
-choleric and violent temper, he had, on more than one
-occasion, embroiled himself with her, yet the only
-difference it made in her treatment towards him was
-merely to keep him at a distance from herself: but
-she had never, for one day, ceased to occupy herself
-with his wants and to provide for his comforts. He
-was now, as I was told, eighty years old, and his mind
-was possessed with hallucinations, which he fell into
-from a belief that he could interpret the prophecies in
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span>
-the Bible. He was constantly poring over that book,
-and he went very generally by the name of the Prophet:
-Lady Hester herself always called him so.
-He had a maid-servant to take care of him, a barber,
-on fixed days, to shave him. Lamb, mutton, or beef,
-flour for his bread, and wine, were sent as his consumption
-required, money being liberally furnished him
-for purchasing everything else from Sayda.</p>
-
-<p>Finding that he was very much neglected by the
-woman who was appointed to attend him, I mentioned
-the fact on my return to Lady Hester, and to this
-communication was to be attributed the extraordinary
-display on the floor of her bed-room; for, from her
-accustomed sensibility to the sufferings of others, she
-had fancied that the poor man was in want of everything.
-“See,” she said, “what I am reduced to:
-ever since daylight this morning” (and it was then
-nearly noon) “have I been handling pots and pans to
-make the Prophet comfortable. For on whom can I
-depend?—on these cold people—a pack of stocks and
-stones, who rest immoveable amidst their fellow-creatures’
-sufferings? Why did not you give that
-woman a dressing? I’ll have her turned out of the
-village—an impudent hussy!”</p>
-
-<p>Here, from having raised her voice, she was seized
-with a spasm in the throat and chest, and, making a
-sudden start, “Some water, some water! make haste!”
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span>
-she cried, and gasped for breath as if almost suffocated.
-I handed her some immediately, which she greedily
-drank: I then threw the window open, and she became
-better. “Don’t leave me, doctor: ring the bell;—I
-can’t bear to be left alone a moment; for, if one of
-these attacks were to come on, and I could not ring
-the bell, what could I do? You must forgive me if I
-fall into these violent passions; but such is my nature:
-I can’t help it. I am like the horse that Mr. Pitt
-had. Mr. Pitt used to say, ‘You must guide him
-with a hair; if I only move my leg, he goes on; and
-his pace is so easy, it’s quite charming: but, if you
-thwart him or contradict him, he is unmanageable;’—that’s
-me.”</p>
-
-<p>But, to return to General Loustaunau, or the Prophet—as
-his name has already appeared several times, it
-may not be amiss to give a short outline of his life, the
-particulars of which he communicated to me himself.
-From a village in the Pyrenees, near to Tarbes, one
-day, a young man, about twenty-four years of age,
-sallied forth, he knew not whither, to seek his fortune.
-Sprung from a family of peasants, he had received
-little or no education, and had nothing to depend on
-but his well-knitted frame, an intelligent and handsome
-countenance, robust health, and activity. He directed
-his steps towards one of the great sea-ports of France,
-resolved to work his passage to America. But, when
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span>
-walking the quays and inquiring for a vessel bound
-across the Atlantic, he was told there was none; there
-was, however, a large merchant-ship freighting for the
-East Indies. Learning that the country she was
-chartered for was still more distant than the western
-colonies, he concluded, in his ardent and youthful mind,
-that it would open to him a still greater chance of
-meeting with adventures and of enriching himself.
-He accordingly got himself rated to work his passage
-as a seaman, and arrived in safety at the ship’s
-destination.</p>
-
-<p>It would be useless to occupy the reader’s time with
-the struggles which every man, unknown and without
-recommendations, has to make on a foreign shore, before
-he gets a footing in some shape congenial to his
-talents or his inclination. Natural talents Loustaunau
-had; for, in the space of a few months after his arrival
-on the Indian coast, he was spoken of as an intelligent
-young man to the French ambassador, Monsieur de
-Marigny, residing at Poonah, the Mahratta court,
-as far as I could understand: since it is to be borne
-in mind that Mr. Loustaunau, when he related all
-this, was eighty years old, had almost lost his memory,
-and was relapsing into second childhood. He
-soon after became an inmate of the embassy, on terms
-of some familiarity with Monsieur de Marigny, who
-discovered, in the young adventurer’s conversation, so
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span>
-much good sense and elevation of mind, that he used
-to say to him, “It strikes me that you are no common
-man.”</p>
-
-<p>It so happened that the war between the English
-and the Rajah of the Mahrattas brought the hostile
-armies into the field at no great distance from Poonah;
-and Mr. L. one day told the ambassador, that, as he
-had never seen what war was, and had not far to go
-to do so, he should be much obliged if he would permit
-him to absent himself for a short time to be spectator
-of the action, which, report said, must soon take
-place between the two armies. Monsieur de M. tried
-to dissuade him from it, asking him of what use it
-would be to risk his life for the satisfaction of an empty
-curiosity. Mr. L.’s reply was, “If I am killed, why
-then <i lang="fr">bon jour</i>, and there will be an end of me:” M. de
-Marigny, therefore, complied with his wishes, and sent
-him with some of his own people and an introductory
-letter, to General Norolli, a Portuguese, who commanded
-the Rajah Scindeah’s artillery.</p>
-
-<p>He had not to wait long for the gratification of his
-curiosity. An action took place: the forces were
-warmly engaged, and Mr. L. walked about within
-musket-shot distance to observe the manœuvres of the
-two armies. The English had planted a battery on a
-rocky elevation, which made much havoc among the
-Mahratta forces. Between this battery on its flank
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span>
-and an opposite cliff there was a deep ravine, which
-rendered all access from one height to the other impracticable:
-but a sloping ground, by making a
-circuit in the rear of the Mahratta forces, afforded
-a practicability of bringing field-pieces to the summit
-of the cliff to bear on the English battery from the
-Mahratta side.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. L. took an opportunity of addressing himself
-to General N., and pointed out to him the probability
-of silencing, or, at least, of annoying the English
-battery from the cliff in question; but the general
-treated his remark in a slighting manner, and, riding
-to another part of the field, took no farther notice of
-him. Mr. L. had seated himself on a hillock, still
-making his reflections, when an old Mahratta officer,
-who had heard the conversation between Mr. L. and
-the general of the artillery, and had partly understood
-what Mr. L. proposed should be done, approached
-him. “Well, sir,” said he, “what do you
-think of our artillery?”—“If I were a flatterer,” replied
-Mr. L., “I should say that it was well served;
-but, as I am not, you will pardon me if I think it
-bad.” The officer went on—“You see the day is
-likely to go against us—what would you do if you
-had the command?”—“Oh! as for the command, I
-don’t know,” rejoined Mr. L., “but this one thing I
-do know, that, if I had but two pieces of cannon, I
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span>
-would turn the day in your master’s favour.”—“How
-would you do that?” asked the officer: “perhaps I
-could put two field-pieces at your disposal.”—“If you
-could,” said Mr. L., “I would plant them on yonder
-height” (pointing at the same time to it), “and let
-my head answer for my presumption, if I do not effect
-what I promise.”</p>
-
-<p>The bearing of the Frenchman and his energetic
-manner of speaking, together with his evident coolness
-and self-possession on a field of battle, made a
-great impression on the Mahratta officer. “Come with
-me, young man,” said he, “I will conduct you to the
-rajah.”—“With all my heart,” replied Mr. L. When
-brought into his presence, Scindeah asked the officer
-what the stranger wanted, and the officer repeated the
-conversation that had just passed. “Well,” says
-Scindeah, “he does not ask for money, he only asks
-for guns: give them to him, and let them be served
-by some of my best gunners. The idea may be good:
-only be expeditious, or we may soon be where that
-infernal battery of the English can annoy us no
-longer.”</p>
-
-<p>Accordingly, without a moment’s delay, two field-pieces
-were dragged up by the back of the cliff to the
-spot pointed out, Mr. L. entrusting the command of
-one of them to another Frenchman, whose curiosity
-had brought him on the field also. The very second
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span>
-shot that was fired at the English battery blew up an
-artillery waggon (caisson) full of powder. The explosion
-dismounted some of the cannon, killed several
-men, and created so much confusion, that the English,
-in consequence of it, eventually lost the battle, and
-were forced to retreat. Mr. L. had two or three of
-his men killed. “There! you may take your cannon
-back,” said he, as soon as the explosion took place;
-“I have nothing farther to do;” and he and his
-brother Frenchman walked away to watch the result
-of the mischief they had done.</p>
-
-<p>When the day was over, an officer of the rajah’s
-conveyed to Mr. Loustaunau his master’s request that
-he would attend on him at his tent. Mr. L. presented
-himself, and Scindeah received him with marks
-of great consideration. Addressing himself to Mr. L.,
-“You have done me, sir,” said he, “a most essential
-service to-day; and, as a small recompense for your
-gallantry and the military talent you have shown, I
-beg your acceptance of a few presents, together with
-the assurance that, if you like to enter my service,
-you shall have the command of a company immediately.”
-Mr. L. thanked him in proper language,
-and, declining the presents offered, said, “Your
-highness will excuse me if I refuse your gifts: I will,
-however, with pleasure accept the sword which I see
-among them, but nothing else. The offer of a commission
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span>
-in your army I must equally decline, as I am
-bound to return to our ambassador, to whom I owe
-too many obligations to take any step without his
-permission.” Scindeah could not but approve of this
-reply; and Mr. L., making his bow, returned towards
-the place where he was lodged.</p>
-
-<p>When night came, and General Norolli, having
-made his dispositions, had also returned to his quarters,
-whilst yet on horseback, and, as if moved by jealousy
-to repress the exultation which he imagined Mr. L.
-might have indulged in, he called out in a loud and
-angry tone, “Where is Mr. Loustaunau, where is
-that gentleman?” Mr. L., who was standing not far
-off, approached, and, as the general dismounted, said,
-“Here I am, general, at your command.”—“I saw,”
-observed Mr. L. (interrupting himself whilst relating
-this part of his story to me) “that the general was in
-a rage, which appeared more plainly as he continued.”—“Who,
-sir, authorized you to present yourself to
-the rajah without my leave? don’t you know that all
-Europeans must be introduced by me?”—“General,”
-replied Mr. L., “I was summoned by his highness,
-and I went: if you are angry because I have done
-some little service to your master, I cannot help it.
-You are not ignorant that I pointed out to you first
-of all the commanding position which struck me as
-fitted for planting a battery: you refused to listen
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span>
-to my suggestion; and, if it was afterward adopted
-by others, that is your fault, not mine.”—“Sir,”
-cried the general, irritated more and more by this
-remark, “you deserve to have this whip across your
-shoulders.”—“General,” retorted Mr. L., “you suffer
-your anger to get the better of your reason: if you
-have any whippings to bestow, you must keep them
-for your Portuguese—Frenchmen are not accustomed
-to take them.” The general’s fury now knew no
-bounds; he put his hand on one of the pistols in his
-girdle, intending to shoot Mr. L. “But I,” said
-Mr. L., “was ready; and, with my eyes fixed on
-him, would have seized the other, had he drawn it
-out, and I would have shot him; for, you know, in
-self-defence, one will not stand still to have a bullet
-through one’s body, without preventing it, if possible.
-However, some officers held the general’s arm, and
-shortly after I retired, and, remaining a day or two
-more in the camp, returned to the place where I had
-left our ambassador.</p>
-
-<p>“When I told him what had happened—‘Stay
-with me, Loustaunau,’ said he; ‘it is my intention
-to raise a few troops here, and, since you seem to like
-fighting, you shall be employed:’ but in a few weeks
-the ambassador was recalled to France, and he offered
-to take me with him, promising to get me employment
-at home. However, I considered that I had
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span>
-better chances in remaining where I was, than in
-going to my native country, where birth, patronage,
-and the usages of good society, are necessary for a
-man’s advancement, all which I wanted.”</p>
-
-<p>Mr. Loustaunau, left to his own exertions, recollected
-the rajah’s offer; and on applying to him, received
-a commission in the Mahratta army. Eminently
-qualified by nature for military command, his
-advancement was rapid; and, after distinguishing
-himself in several actions, and showing likewise a
-very superior judgment in political affairs, he finally
-became general of Scindeah’s troops, although I could
-not ascertain in how short a time. His reputation
-spread rapidly through the territory, and his noble
-conduct and intrepidity must have been very generally
-known, since, on one occasion, after having been
-severely wounded in his left hand, two fingers of
-which he had lost, the commander of the English
-forces sent a flag of truce and his own surgeon with
-an offer of his professional assistance, fearing that
-Mr. L. might not have a European surgeon to attend
-him. Scindeah, in his despatches to him, styled him
-a lion in battle, and a lynx in council. He consulted
-him in difficult negociations with the East
-India Company’s servants; and, in acknowledgment
-of his services, he gave him a village as an appanage
-to his rank. Mr. L. married the daughter of a French
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span>
-officer, by whom he had four or five children, one of
-whom is now living at Givet, in the department of the
-Ardennes.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. L. was fearless at all times, and inimical to
-despotism even in the centre of its worshippers.
-Scindeah had unjustly imprisoned an Armenian
-merchant, whose wealth he intended to confiscate for
-his own benefit. As the oppressive act was founded
-on no just grounds, and application had been made to
-General Loustaunau for his interposition, when he
-found that entreaties were of no avail, “one day,”
-said he, “I took fifty of my men, fellows <i lang="fr">de bonne
-volonté</i>, and, marching strait to the rajah’s palace at a
-time when I knew he was in his divan, I entered,
-walked up to him, and in a mild, but pretty determined
-tone, said, ‘Your highness, be not alarmed, I
-am come to ask a favour of you: you must release
-the Armenian merchant, as I have sworn to set him
-free.’ Scindeah saw that I meant not to trifle, and,
-assuming a friendly air, he complied with my request.
-The guards were astounded at my audacity, but they
-dared not stir, for I and my men would have sabred
-them instantly.”</p>
-
-<p>After having covered himself with glory, as the
-French express it, he obtained his congé; and, being
-resolved to return to France, he visited some of the
-English settlements in his way to the place of his
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">174</span>
-embarkation, where he was most honourably and hospitably
-treated. He always spoke of this period as
-the happiest of his life, and mentioned the names of
-some English gentlemen with the highest encomiums
-and most pleasing reminiscences.</p>
-
-<p>Having converted what property he could into
-money, he obtained bills on France, and set out for
-his native country. The revolution had broken out;
-and, on his arrival, his bills were all paid, but in
-assignats; so that in a few weeks he found himself
-almost penniless. Of this calamitous part of his history
-I could gather but few details. I have heard
-him say that some branch of the Orleans family
-assisted him. Certain it is that he had either money
-or friends yet left; for, with the wreck of his property,
-or by some other means, he established an iron-foundry
-near the place of his nativity. He was so close, however,
-to the frontiers of Spain, that, during the war
-with that country and France, in an incursion of the
-enemy, all his property was destroyed.</p>
-
-<p>How he got to Mahon, or for what purpose, I am
-equally ignorant: but, embarking from that port, he
-found his way to Syria, probably intending to make
-his way overland to India, there to reclaim his property.
-But his intellects must have been already
-somewhat disordered: for, when we heard him first
-spoken of in Palestine, in 1812 or 1813, he was described
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span>
-as a man living almost on the alms of the
-Europeans, and generally to be seen with a bible
-under his arm, negligent of his person, housed in a
-hovel, and going, even then, by the sobriquet of the
-Prophet.</p>
-
-<p>At the time I am now speaking of, the bare mention
-of politics or catastrophes was sure to set him
-wandering on the prophetic writings, and then common
-sense was at an end. But I had known him for
-twenty years, when his lucid intervals were only
-occasionally interrupted by these hallucinations; and
-I had seldom met with a man who had such an independent
-character, such naturally noble sentiments
-couched in such appropriate language, and such an
-intuitive discernment of what was suitable in unlooked-for
-emergencies. He was bold as a lion; and, when
-in anger, had the physiognomy and expression of that
-noble animal. He had never served in diplomatic
-situations before his elevation, had never studied
-political economy, moral philosophy, literature, or
-anything else, that I could find; and yet, in all these,
-the innate dictates of his mind responded at once to
-the call, and he could see the right and wrong, the
-<i lang="fr">utile et decorum</i>, the expediency and the evil, the loveliness
-and the ugliness of every subject presented to
-him. He had a strong memory, and retained many
-of the passages of the best French authors by heart.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">176</span>
-He was handsome in his person, rather tall, and his
-demeanour was suitable to his station in life. In a
-word, he was born to “achieve greatness.”</p>
-
-<p>General L. had now lived five and twenty years on
-Lady Hester’s bounty. His family, consisting of two
-or three sons and some daughters, were left with not
-very bright prospects in France. Lady Hester Stanhope
-had at different times employed persons to assist
-them, and, to my knowledge, had sent 1000 francs
-through a merchant’s hands at Marseilles, besides
-other sums, of which I have heard her speak. She
-also paid for the education of one daughter some
-years. In 1825, one of the sons, who had by his
-military services obtained the rank of captain in Napoleon’s
-Imperial Guard, being left, by the fall of that
-Emperor, in inactivity, resolved to visit Syria, to see
-his father.</p>
-
-<p>General L.’s intellects were so far weakened, that
-nothing which happened to him personally seemed to
-affect him, only as it verified some of his favourite
-predictions, drawn from texts in the Bible. He therefore
-beheld his son’s arrival with indifference, as far as
-paternal affection went, but discovered in it other bearings,
-of immense importance in the political changes
-that were at hand. Not so Lady Hester Stanhope:
-she knew that the general had a right to the revenue
-of a whole village in the Mahratta country,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span>
-which had been given to him by Scindeah; and she
-resolved to furnish Captain L. with money to enable
-him to go and recover his father’s possessions.</p>
-
-<p>The captain remained at Dar Jôon for some months:
-he had his horse, was lodged in a pavilion in the
-garden, and treated with every mark of respect.
-Restless, hasty in his temper, overbearing, and accustomed
-to the blustering manners of a camp, he occasionally
-got into difficulties with the natives, both
-Mahometans and Christians. Not aware of the necessity
-of much precaution in shunning checks of perspiration
-in hot climates, he one day caught a fever,
-which almost brought him to his grave. He recovered,
-however, and was convalescent, when his imprudence
-caused a relapse, and he died. He was buried in Lady
-Hester’s garden, where his tomb, ornamented with
-flowering shrubs, and entirely shaded by a beautiful
-arbour, still remains.<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> The poor father never would
-believe in his death. “He is not interred,” he used
-to say, “but is still alive and on the earth: do not
-be grieved about him; in the year 1847 he will join
-me here. I and my lady shall then be made young
-again, and your little daughter is destined to be my
-future wife.” The poor old general, it was observed
-by us, seemed to have no greater pleasure than watching
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span>
-our daughter whilst she watered her flowers or fed
-her <i>bulbuls</i>.</p>
-
-<p>The way in which Lady Hester herself sometimes
-sought to lighten the weight of the obligations she
-conferred on the general will serve to show the delicacy
-of her feelings. At different periods, several places
-had been chosen for his residence, according as he
-grew tired of one or the other: for he was a testy old
-man in some respects, and seemed to forget how much
-it was his duty not to put her ladyship to more
-trouble and expense than he could help. Once, when
-she had had a comfortable cottage fitted up for him in
-a village called Aynâaty (from taking in dudgeon
-something that happened to him), he suddenly quitted
-it, and went off to Beyrout. “He went off,” said
-Lady Hester, “with no less than five trunks full of
-clothes and other things, with two watches bought
-with the money I had given him, and with a good bag
-full of piasters: for he had little occasion to spend, as
-I sent him every two days fresh meat of my own
-killing, flour for his bread when it was wanting, sugar,
-tea, coffee—and everything, I may say, except milk
-and vegetables. He went to Beyrout, and there lived
-and talked away largely and foolishly, and gave out
-that he would sooner live with the devil than with
-such a woman as I was. After a time, his resources
-failed him, his friends grew cool, and he returned to
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span>
-Sayda, where he fastened himself on Monsieur Reynaud,
-who soon grew tired of keeping him, and little
-by little I heard he was reduced to great straits.”
-The fact is, he found no friend, except for an occasional
-invitation to dinner, and Lady Hester knew he
-must be in want; but she knew also, in the state of
-mind he was in, he would refuse assistance from her:
-she therefore made use of an expedient to furnish him
-with money.</p>
-
-<p>Sending for one of the Pasha’s Tartars, and putting
-a bag of gold into his hand, she told him he was to
-ride into Sayda, and proceed strait to the gate of the
-French khan (where Mr. Loustaunau was), dusty and
-sweating, as if from a long journey. There he was
-to inquire if they knew anything of a Frenchman, once
-a general in India; and, after apparently well ascertaining
-it was the man he was in search of, the Tartar
-was to desire to speak with him, and to say—“Sir,
-when on my road from Damascus, a Hindu mussulman
-on his pilgrimage to Mecca, who once served
-under you in India, but is now rich and advanced in
-years, learning that you were in these countries, and
-anxious to testify the respect which the natives of
-Scindeah’s territories still retain for you, has commissioned
-me to put this into your hands.”—“Having
-done so,” added Lady Hester Stanhope, “you are
-not to give him time to see what it is, but to ride
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span>
-away.” The vile fellow promised faithfully to execute
-his commission, received in advance a recompense
-for his trouble, and then rode off with the money, and
-kept it. But Lady Hester, who was careful to ascertain,
-by indirect means, whether a Tartar had made
-his appearance at the khan, on learning his perfidy,
-caused it to be spread among the Pasha’s and the
-government Tartars; and they were so indignant at
-his little trustworthiness, a quality on which, from the
-nature of their employ, they are obliged to value
-themselves, that they turned him out of their corps,
-and he never dared to show his face again.</p>
-
-<p>To finish what remains to be said of this once
-shining character, but now the pensioner of an English
-woman, he had resided for the last ten years at a distance
-from Lady Hester Stanhope’s residence, and
-they had not even seen each other for five or six years.
-“I have been obliged to keep him at a distance,” said
-her ladyship, “for the last ten years, in order that people
-might not think I had taken care of him to make him
-trumpet my greatness: for you don’t know what harm
-that man has done me. He used to go about preaching
-that all the queens in Christendom were a pack of
-women of the town, and that I was the only real queen.
-He told everybody he would not change situations
-with the first prince in Europe; for the day would
-come when, through me, he should be greater than
-any of them.”</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> An <i>ibryk</i> is a common earthenware jug with a spout to it,
-the usual drinking-vessel of the lower classes.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a>
-This Pasha was so afraid, in the midst of all his power, of being
-poisoned, that he had the dishes brought to his table under padlock.
-When he travelled, a horseman in his suite had the office assigned
-him of carrying the implement that makes such a distinguished figure
-in the farce of Pourceaugnac. When he was shaved, he always had some of
-his guards standing round the barber with their pistols cocked, and he
-himself had a drawn sabre lying across his lap. Fancy the situation of
-a man who, in the midst of these formidable preparations, is obliged to
-keep his hand steady.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a>
-In this same tomb Lady Hester herself was afterwards interred.</p>
-
-</div><!--end footnotes-->
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span>
-<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span> <abbr title="Seven"><span class="allsmcap">VII.</span></abbr></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="small short">Lady Hester like the first Lord Chatham—Her recollections
-of Chevening—Her definition of insults—Her deliberate
-affronts—Her warlike propensities—Earl C—— Marquis of
-Abercorn—Logmagi—Osman Chaôosh—Letter from Colonel
-Campbell—George the Third’s flattering compliment to Lady
-Hester—Her Majesty Queen Victoria—Lord M.—Prophecy
-of a <i>welly</i>—Lady Hester’s poignant affliction—Her intractability—Her
-noble and disinterested benevolence.</p>
-
-
-<p class="p2">December 21, 1837.—I had sat up until two in the
-morning, despatching letters to Europe, which I had
-written by Lady Hester’s dictation, through the channel
-of <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys, the French consul at Beyrout, who,
-alone, among the Europeans there, had contrived to
-remain on friendly terms with her. In my letter to
-him, Lady Hester required that I should tell him she
-was in a state of convalescence. Alas! she was far
-from being so; for, on going to her, I found her
-labouring under many bad symptoms, against which
-she contended with a spirit that seemed to brook no
-control—not even from nature herself. As she could
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span>
-not talk, I read to her, out of the Speaker, a character
-of the first Lord Chatham. She recognized, and so
-did I, so many points of resemblance between herself
-and her grandfather, that she said, more than once,
-“That’s me.” At the words, “He reigned with unbounded
-control over the wilderness of free minds,” I
-observed that there was something contradictory in
-control and freedom. “No, there is not,” said she.
-“If you are walking on the road, and you inquire the
-way of some person you meet, he tells you the best
-road is in such a direction, and then takes his leave;
-you turn round, every now and then, as long as the
-person is in sight, to look at him to see if he points to
-you that you are going right; but you are free to go
-which way you will.”</p>
-
-<p>December 31.—I saw Lady Hester in the morning,
-after which I took a walk with my family: on my
-return, I went again to inquire how she was. One of
-her maids told me that, soon after I had left her, she
-suddenly burst into tears, and cried a great deal, they
-could not tell why; that she had called for Zezefôon
-to dress her, had, in a manner, rushed out of her bed-room,
-and had gone to the saloon, where, in consequence
-of her long confinement, she found all the sofa
-cushions piled up, and the sofa mattresses removed,
-so that she had not a place to sit down on; that then
-she had left the saloon abruptly, on seeing the state it
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span>
-was in, and returned to her bed-room, where she gave
-a loose to her sorrow.</p>
-
-<p>My presence being announced, I was admitted.
-“Doctor,” said she, “to-night in my father’s house
-there used to be a hundred tenants and servants sitting
-down to a good dinner, and dancing and making
-merry. I see their happy faces now before my eyes:
-and, when I think of that and how I am surrounded
-here, it is too much for me. When you left me this
-morning, things of former times came over my mind,
-and I could not bear to sit here, so I went out to
-break the chain of my thoughts. I would have gone
-into the garden, if it had not rained.”</p>
-
-<p>I endeavoured to say something consolatory to her.
-“Everybody,” she continued, “is unkind to me. I
-have sought to do good to everybody, either by relieving
-their distresses or purifying their morals, and
-I get no thanks for my pains. I sometimes make
-reproaches to myself for having spent my money on
-worthless beings, and think it might have been better
-otherwise; but God knows best. I had hoped to find
-some persons whose minds might have been enlightened,
-and who would have felt the importance of
-what I tell them. But you even, of whom I had
-some hope, are as bad as the rest; and, if you assent
-to the truth of what I say, you make so many hums
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span>
-and hahs that I don’t believe you care a farthing about
-it. I want nobody that has no conviction.”</p>
-
-<p>“I should think it a sin if I saw people acting
-foolishly, not to tell them of it. It does not signify
-who it is, you or the stable-boy; if I can make them
-aware of their folly, I have done my duty. Why do
-I scold you so much, but because I wish you to prepare
-yourself for the convulsions that will shortly take
-place. I always acknowledge your spotless integrity,
-and thank you for the care you bestow on my affairs,
-and in keeping things a little in order; but, in these
-times, something more is wanting: a man must be
-active, and prepared for great events. People are
-teaching their children to read and write, when they
-should be teaching them to drive a mule: for of
-what use are your reading men, who sit poring for
-hours over books without an object? I have a thorough
-contempt for them, and for all your merchants,
-and your merchants’ clerks, who spend their time between
-the counting-house and the brothel.”</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester reverted again to Chevening, and
-spoke at great length of her grandmother Stanhope’s
-excellent management of the house, when she (Lady
-Hester) was a child. At all the accustomed festivals,
-plum puddings, that required two men to carry them,
-with large barons of beef, were dressed, &amp;c., &amp;c. All
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span>
-the footmen were like gentlemen ushers, all the
-masters and mistresses like so many ambassadors and
-ambassadresses, such form and etiquette were preserved
-in all the routine of visits and parties. Every person
-kept his station, and precise rules were laid down for
-each inmate of the family. Thus, the lady’s maid was
-not allowed to wear white, nor curls, nor heels to her
-shoes, beyond a certain height; and Lady Stanhope
-had in her room a set of instruments and implements
-of punishment to enforce her orders on all occasions.
-There were scissors to cut off fine curls, a rod to whip
-with, &amp;c., &amp;c.</p>
-
-<p>No poor woman lay-in in the neighbourhood, but two
-guineas in money, baby linen, a blanket, some posset,
-two bottles of wine, and other necessaries, were sent
-to her. If any one among the servants was sick, the
-housekeeper, with the still-room maid behind her, was
-seen carrying the barley-water, the gruel, the medicine,
-&amp;c., to administer to the patient, according to
-the doctor’s orders. In the hopping time, all the
-vagrants and Irish hoppers were locked up every night
-in a barn by themselves, and suffered to have no communication
-with the household. A thousand pieces
-of dirty linen were washed every week, and the wash-house
-had four different stone troughs, from which the
-linen was handed, piece by piece, by the washerwomen
-from the scalder down to the rinser. In the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span>
-laundry a false ceiling, let down and raised by pulleys,
-served to air the linen after it was ironed. There
-was a mangle to get up the table-linen, towels, &amp;c.,
-and three stoves for drying on wet days. The tablecloths
-were of the finest damask, covered with patterns
-of exquisite workmanship. At set periods of the
-year, pedlars and merchants from Glasgow, from Dunstable,
-and other places, passed with their goods.
-The housekeeper’s room was surrounded with presses
-and closets, where were arranged stores and linen in
-the nicest order. An ox was killed every week, and a
-sheep every day, &amp;c., &amp;c. In the relation of these
-details, which I spare the reader, as being, probably,
-what he has observed in many other families, Lady
-Hester by degrees recovered her self-possession, whilst
-they only served to impress more forcibly on my
-mind the sad contrast which reigned in everything
-about her between her former and her present condition.</p>
-
-<p>January 10-15, 1838.—The cough continued, attended
-by spasms in the limbs. Yet, although she was
-thus exhausted and harassed by continued suffering,
-the elasticity of mind she exhibited in the few intervals
-of ease she enjoyed was astonishing. The moment
-she had a respite from actual pain, she immediately
-set about some labour for the benefit of others;
-and the room was again strewed over with bundles
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span>
-and boxes. But, in spite of these delusive appearances,
-I could not conceal from myself that a hectic spot occasionally
-marked the inroads which disease was now
-making on her lungs.</p>
-
-<p>January 17, 1838.—What a day of anxiety and
-sorrow for me, and of anguish for Lady Hester!
-From morning until midnight to see a melancholy
-picture of a never-dying spirit, in an exhausted frame,
-wrestling with its enemy, and daring even to set the
-heaviest infirmities of nature at defiance. Yet, who
-does not bend under the power of disease? Lady
-Hester held out as long as a human being could do;
-but at last her anguish showed that, like Prometheus
-bound, she was compelled to acknowledge the weight
-of a superior hand, and that resistance was vain.</p>
-
-<p>The reflections she made on her abandoned situation,
-neglected by her friends and left to die without one
-relation near her, were full of the bitterness of grief.
-In these moments, as if the excess of her indignation
-must have some object to waste itself upon, she would
-launch out into the most fierce invectives against me,
-and tell me I was a cannibal and a vulture that tore
-her heart by my insensibility.</p>
-
-<p>A day or two before, in defending myself against
-the accusation of coldness and want of feeling, I had
-inadvertently said that it was an insult to a person,
-whose intentions she could not but know were well
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span>
-meaning, to heap so much abuse on him. To this
-her ladyship said nothing at the time; but to-day,
-being in a state of excitement, the word <em>insult</em> recurred
-to her recollection. “Do you not know,” she asked,
-“that people of my rank and spirit are incapable of insults
-towards their friends: it is only the vulgar who
-are always fancying themselves insulted. If a man
-treads on another’s toe in good society, do you think
-it is taken as an insult? It is only people like ——
-and —— who take such things into their heads. I never
-have hurt a person’s feelings in my life intentionally,
-except, perhaps, by my wit. But if people expect
-that I should not tell them the truth to their face,
-they are much mistaken; and if you or anybody else
-act like a fool, I must say so. Such people as Lord
-Melville and Mr. Pitt would stop, perhaps, until a
-person was gone out of the room to say, ‘That man is
-the most egregious ass I ever saw;’ but I, were he a
-king, must say it to his face. I might, if I chose,
-flatter and deceive you and a hundred others. There
-is no one whom I could not lead by the nose, if I chose
-to do it; I know every man’s price, and how to buy
-him: but I will not stoop to the baseness of making
-you run your head through a wall, even though I saw
-some advantage for myself on the other side. As for
-your saying, that’s your character, and that you can’t
-bear to be spoken to as I speak to you, what do you
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">189</span>
-talk to me of character for? Everybody has a character,
-and so they have a behind: but they don’t go
-about showing the one any more than the other. Fools
-are always crying out, ‘That’s my disposition;’ but
-what’s their disposition to other people more than
-their anything else?</p>
-
-<p>“Let us have no more of that stuff; for, though
-not a man, I shall no more put up with it than if I
-were; and I warn you that, if you repeat that word,
-you stand a chance of having something at your
-head.”</p>
-
-<p>Let not the reader imagine that this was all, or
-even one half of what her ladyship said on this occasion:
-it is only a tissue of the most striking sentences.
-Never had I seen her so irritated as that one expression
-of mine had made her. She went on in this
-merciless way for four hours; and, although I frequently
-attempted to soothe her by assurances and
-explanations, she continued in the same strain until
-evening, when she subsided into a gentler tone. Being
-now restored to a calmer temper, she seemed
-desirous to atone by kindness for the wound she
-had inflicted on my feelings, and wanted, amongst
-other things, to get ponies for my children to ride.
-The generosity of her nature was obvious in all this,
-and I resolved, whatever language she might make
-use of in future, never to take the slightest notice
-of it.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">190</span>
-This haughty assumption of superiority over others
-on almost all occasions was a salient feature in her
-character. It must have created her a host of enemies,
-during the period when she exercised so much power
-in Mr. Pitt’s time; and probably those persons were
-not sorry afterwards to witness her humiliation and
-downfall.</p>
-
-<p>Once, at Walmer Castle, the colonel of the regiment
-stationed there thought himself privileged to take his
-wife occasionally to walk on the ramparts of the
-castle. I do not know the localities, and am ignorant
-how far, in so doing, these two persons might infringe
-on the privacy of Mr. Pitt and Lady Hester Stanhope:
-but, without intimating by a note or a message
-that such a thing was disagreeable, she gave
-orders to the sentry to stop them when they came,
-and tell them they were not to walk there. Let
-any one put himself in the place of Colonel W.,
-and fancy how such an affront must have wounded
-his pride.</p>
-
-<p>Mr. B., a Frenchman, who for many years had
-been her secretary, and who afterwards held the post
-of French vice-consul at Damascus, paid her a visit
-at Jôon, and, in the leisure of the morning, took his
-gun and went out partridge-shooting. On his return
-to the house, he gave the birds he had shot to the
-cook, desiring they might be dressed for Lady Hester’s
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">191</span>
-dinner; but, when they were served up, to his astonishment,
-she ordered them to be thrown out of the
-window; observing that it was strange he should
-presume to do that in Syria which he would not dare
-to do in his native country; for she thought that, at
-the restoration of the Bourbons, all the ancient game-laws
-were revived. She had a secretary afterwards
-who was an Englishman, who also went out shooting,
-and to whom she expressed her notions in much the
-same way, and wondered where he got his licence to
-carry a gun. Yet in Syria, every person, from the
-European stranger to the lowest Mahometan slave, is
-at liberty to go after the game wherever he likes.</p>
-
-<p>If any one expected from her the common courtesies
-of life, as they are generally understood, he would be
-greatly disappointed. In her own way, she would show
-them, that is, mixed up with so many humiliations,
-and with such an assumption of personal and mental
-superiority in herself, that much was to be borne from
-her, if one wished to live amicably with her. Her
-delight was to tutor others until she could bring them
-to think that nobody was worthy of any favour but by
-her sufferance. Where she had the means, she would
-assume the authority of controlling even thought. Her
-daily question to her dependants was—“What business
-have you to suppose? what right have you to think? I
-pay people for their hands, and not their stupid ideas.”
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">192</span>
-She would say—“What business have people to
-introduce their surmises, and their ‘probably this,’ and
-‘probably that,’ and ‘Lady Hester Stanhope, no doubt,
-in so doing,’ and ‘the Pasha, as I conjecture, had
-this in view?’ how do they know what I intended, or
-what the Pasha thought? I know that newspapers
-every day take such liberties, and give their opinions
-on what ministers and kings intend to do; but nobody
-shall take such a liberty with me without my calling
-them out. My name is everything to me, and nobody
-shall say he presumes this was what I had in my
-mind, or that was what I intended to do. At least,
-if people must pick pockets, let them pick it of a clean
-pocket-handkerchief, and not of a dirty one. Others
-are not to be made responsible for their dirty opinions.”</p>
-
-<p>From her manner towards people, it would have
-seemed that she was the only person in creation
-privileged to abuse and to command: others had
-nothing else to do but to obey, and not to think.
-She was haughty and overbearing, impatient of control,
-born to rule, and more at her ease when she had
-a hundred persons to govern than when she had only
-ten. She would often mention Mr. Pitt’s opinion of
-her fitness for military command. Had she been a
-man and a soldier, she would have been what the
-French call a <i lang="fr">sabreur</i>; for never was any one so fond
-of wielding weapons, and of boasting of her capability
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span>
-of using them upon a fit occasion, as she was. In her
-bed-room, or on her <i lang="fr">divàn</i>, she always had a mace,
-which was spiked round the head, a steel battle-axe,
-and a dagger; but her favourite weapon was the mace.
-When she took it up, which sometimes was the case if
-vociferating to the men-servants, I have seen them
-flinch and draw back to be out of the reach of her
-arm; and, on one occasion, a powerful Turk, a man
-about forty, of great muscular strength, and with a
-remarkable black beard, on her making a gesture as if
-to strike him, flew back so suddenly that he knocked
-down another who was behind him, and fell himself.
-But, though fearless and unruffled in every danger,
-Lady Hester Stanhope was magnanimous, gentle to
-an enemy in her power, and ever mindful of those who
-had done her any service. Her martial spirit would
-have made a hero, and she had all the materials of
-one in her composition.</p>
-
-<p>Two more anecdotes may serve to show how she
-sometimes rendered herself disliked. Once, at a
-cabinet dinner, Lady Hester Stanhope entered the
-room in a way so as to pass the Earl C. who was
-ushered in just at the same moment; and, as she did
-not bow or speak to him, Mr. Pitt said, “Hester, don’t
-you see Lord C.?” Lady Hester replied, “No, I saw
-a great chameleon as I came in, all in pigeon-breasted
-colours, if that was Lord C;” this was because he was
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span>
-dressed in a pigeon-breasted coloured court-dress.
-“And,” she added, as she related the story, “I gave
-it him prettily once: I said his red face came from the
-reflection of red boxes; for, when at breakfast and
-dinner, he was always calling for his despatch-boxes,
-and pretending mysterious political affairs, although
-they were no more than an invitation to a party, or a
-present of a little Tokay, or something equally trivial.
-Lord C. had learned his manners, I suppose, from Lord
-Chesterfield, or some book or another. He attempted
-being pompous with his large stomach, and his garter
-on a bad leg, and his great whiskers sticking out as
-far as this,” (here Lady Hester put her fore-fingers
-indexwise to her cheeks to show how far) “and a
-forehead quite flat like the Bourbons. He would talk
-very loud in the lobby as he came in, or contrive to
-have his red box brought to him, as if he had papers
-of great importance in it.”</p>
-
-<p>“One day, at court,” continued Lady Hester, “I
-was talking to the Duke of Cumberland of Lord Abercorn’s
-going over to Addington, and saying I would
-give it to him for it, when Lord Abercorn happened to
-approach us. The prince, who dearly enjoyed such
-things, immediately cried out—‘Now, little bulldog,
-have at him.’ This was uttered at the moment I
-advanced towards him. You know, doctor, he had
-asked for the Garter just before Mr. Pitt went out,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span>
-and, not having obtained it, had toadied Addington,
-and got it. I thought it so mean of him, after the
-numberless favours he had received from Mr. Pitt, to
-go over to Addington, that I was determined to pay
-him off. So, when I was close to him, looking down
-at the garter round his leg, I said—‘What’s that you
-have got there, my lord?’ and before he could answer,
-I continued—‘I suppose it’s a bandage for your broken
-legs:’ for Lord Abercorn had once had both his legs
-broken, and the remark applied doubly, inasmuch as
-it hit hard on Addington’s father’s profession. Lord
-Abercorn never forgot this: he and I had been very
-great friends; but he never liked me afterwards.”</p>
-
-<p>Tuesday, January 23, 1838.—I found Lady Hester
-to-day out of bed, seated on the ottoman. She wished
-me to talk or to read to her, so that she might not be
-forced to speak herself; but her cough, which was
-incessant, precluded the possibility of doing either.
-The accumulation of phlegm in her chest made her
-restless to a painful degree. Shortly afterwards, her
-spasms began, which caused her arms and sometimes
-her head to be thrown from side to side with jerks.
-Her irritability was excessive. Without consulting
-me, she had been bled the preceding night by a
-Turkish barber. Her conversation the day before
-had turned in a general manner on bleeding; and
-having ascertained my opinion that bleeding would not
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">196</span>
-be proper for her, she said no more, but took the
-opposite course.</p>
-
-<p>The fear of remaining in a recumbent posture made
-her get up from her bed, and her figure, as she stalked
-about the room in a flannel dress, having thrown off
-her pelisse and abah, was strange and singular, but
-curiously characteristic of her independence.</p>
-
-<p>The only newspaper she received was “Galignani’s
-Messenger,” which, whether I was in Syria or in
-Europe, I had for some years caused to be sent to her
-from Marseilles, and a file generally came by every
-merchant-vessel that sailed for Beyrout, which, on an
-average, was about once a month. Sometimes there
-was much irregularity in the departure of vessels, as
-in the winter season, and then, in the solitude of
-Mount Lebanon, one might remain ignorant of every
-event in Europe for six weeks and even two months
-together.</p>
-
-<p>She had latterly shown a particular desire to have
-those passages read to her which related to the Queen,
-either as describing her court, her rides, or any other
-circumstance, however trivial, of a personal nature.</p>
-
-<p>Wednesday, January 24.—Lady Hester sent to
-me to say that she could see nobody, and requested
-that I would do nothing, as the day was an unlucky
-one.</p>
-
-<p>January 25.—Although suffering in a manner that
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span>
-would have incapacitated any other person from undertaking
-any occupation, Lady Hester was busily
-employed in making up a mule-load of presents for
-Logmagi. “You see, doctor,” said she, “how I act
-towards those who serve me: this man neglects his
-business in town for me, and I, in return, try to make
-him comfortable. I have packed up a few coloured
-glass ornaments to stick up in his cupboards, and some
-preserves and sweetmeats to treat his old messmates
-with, who would eat him out of house and home, I
-believe, if I did not take care of him. Only think,
-too, how he beat his breast and cried, and what signs
-of sorrow he showed at my illness, the last time I saw
-him!</p>
-
-<p>“I must have that stupid fellow, Osman, in, to
-talk to him about new roofing the dairy, but I shall
-stick him behind the curtain. Poor man, his mother
-is very ill, and I think I must let him go to Sayda.
-He, Mahjoob, and Seyd Ahmed, may have asses
-when they go to town, but all those other lazy fellows
-shall walk: I won’t have one of them ride, unless
-they have more than eight or ten rotoles in weight to
-bring back, idle beasts as they are!”</p>
-
-<p>Now Osman’s mother might be ill, and no doubt she
-was; the dairy, too, might be the ostensible cause of
-his being called in; but it is also more than probable
-that, besides all this, she wanted Osman for other
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span>
-purposes. The truth was, he was no stupid fellow,
-but a wily knave and a clever spy, and Lady Hester
-was often in the habit of employing him on secret
-missions—to find out the reason of any movement of
-the pasha’s troops for instance, or to get a clue to
-some intrigue of the Emir Beshýr’s. But she would
-say, “Osman is gone to town to see his sick mother;”
-and nobody dared to say otherwise.</p>
-
-<p>January 27.—To-day the secretary requested me to
-acquaint Lady Hester that he wished to see her on
-important business. He was admitted, and showed a
-letter from his father, the English consular agent at
-Sayda,<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> signifying that, in the course of the day, he
-should be the bearer of a letter to Lady Hester
-Stanhope, which had been sent by Mr. Moore, Her
-Britannic Majesty’s consul at Beyrout, which he was
-charged to deliver into her ladyship’s own hands himself.
-I had retired when the secretary entered; but,
-when he was gone, Lady Hester sent for me, and I
-found her in a violent passion. “There is that man, the
-old Maltese,” said she, “coming to pester me with his
-impertinence, but I have sent off his son to meet him
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span>
-on the road, and drive him back. If anything in the
-shape of a consul sets his foot within my doors, I’ll
-have him shot; and, if nobody else will do it, I’ll
-do it myself. See that he sets off this very instant,
-and tell him to return with the letter, without
-stopping.”</p>
-
-<p>I did so, and returned to Lady Hester. Conceiving
-that this letter was an answer she was expecting to
-one she had written to Sir Francis Burdett, about the
-property supposed to have been left her, her agitation
-and impatience rose to such a degree, that I thought
-she would have gone frantic, or that her violence
-would have ended in suffocation. She complained she
-could not breathe. “It’s here, it’s here,” she cried in
-extreme agitation, taking me by the throat to show
-me where, and giving me such a squeeze, that now,
-when I am writing, twenty-four hours after, I feel it
-still. I tried in vain to calm her impatience. I sent
-off a servant on horseback to hurry the secretary back,
-but he did not appear, and the day, until about four
-o’clock, was passed in this manner.</p>
-
-<p>To account for this extraordinary agitation, it must
-again be observed that, at the recurrence of the period
-of each steamboat’s arrival at Beyrout, Lady Hester
-anxiously expected an answer to her letter to Sir
-Francis Burdett; for it was on the strength of this
-property supposed to have been left her that she had
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span>
-intimated to some of her creditors her expectation of
-being soon enabled to satisfy all their demands. It
-was in reliance on this, too, that she had invited me
-to come over. And not doubting in the least the
-truth of the information secretly conveyed to her by
-some one of her friends, it may be supposed that a
-packet to be delivered into nobody’s hands but her own
-was readily conjectured to relate to this business.</p>
-
-<p>About four o’clock, Mr. Abella, the English agent,
-his son, and the servant, made their appearance. The
-secretary was called in. “Tell your father I shall
-not see him; and, doctor, go and take the letter, and
-bring it to me,” was Lady Hester’s exclamation. I
-went to Mr. Abella, but found him determined not to
-part with it, unless he gave it into Lady Hester’s own
-hand. I urged upon him the impossibility of his doing
-so, as she had seen nobody for some weeks; at last, on
-his still persisting, we became somewhat warm on the
-matter. This was better than going to Lady Hester
-to ask her what was to be done; for her answer probably
-would have been to desire two of her stoutest
-Turks to go with sticks, and take it from him by
-force. At last, Mr. Abella gave up his trust, upon
-condition that I would write a paper representing that
-he had done it forcibly; in such a fright was he lest
-Mr. Moore should turn him out of his place.</p>
-
-<p>Instead of being an answer from Sir Francis Burdett,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">201</span>
-the letter was from Colonel Campbell, signifying
-that, in consequence of an application made to the
-English government, by Mâalem Homsy, one of Lady
-Hester Stanhope’s creditors, an order had come from
-Lord Palmerston to stop her pension, unless the debt
-was paid.</p>
-
-<p>It might have been supposed that the double disappointment
-of not hearing from Sir Francis Burdett
-and of receiving such a missive from Colonel Campbell
-would have considerably increased her anger: but,
-on the contrary, she grew apparently quite calm,
-gently placed the letter on the bed, and read the
-contents:—</p>
-
-
-<p class="p2 center">
-<i>Colonel P. Campbell, Her Majesty’s Consul-general for</i><br>
-<i>Egypt and Syria, to Lady Hester Stanhope.</i><br>
-</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p class="right r2">
-Cairo, Jan. 10, 1838.<br>
-</p>
-
-<p class="indent2">Madam,</p>
-
-<p class="indent5">I trust that your ladyship will believe my
-sincerity, when I assure you with how much reluctance
-and pain it is that I feel myself again<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> imperatively
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">202</span>
-called upon to address you upon the subject of the
-debt so long due by you to Mr. Homsy.</p>
-
-<p>The Government of the Viceroy has addressed that
-of Her Majesty upon the subject, and, by a despatch
-which I have received from Her Majesty’s Principal
-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, I am led to
-believe that a confidential friend of your ladyship will
-have already written to you to entreat you to settle
-this affair.</p>
-
-<p>Your ladyship must be aware that, in order to procure
-your pension from Her Majesty’s Government, it
-is necessary to sign a declaration, and to have the
-consular certificate, at the expiration of each quarter.</p>
-
-<p>I know that this certificate has hitherto been signed
-by <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys, the consul of France at Beyrout; but,
-in strict legality, it ought to be certified by the British,
-and not by any foreign consul; and, should your
-ladyship absolutely refuse the payment of this just
-claim, I should feel myself, however deeply I may
-regret it, forced to take measures to prevent the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span>
-signature of the French, or any other consul but the
-British, being considered as valid, and consequently
-your bill for your pension will not be paid at home.
-I shall communicate this, if your ladyship’s conduct
-shall oblige me so to do, to <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys and the other
-foreign consuls of Beyrout, in order that your certificate
-may not be signed—and also send this under
-flying seal to Mr. Moore, Her Majesty’s consul at
-Beyrout, in order that he may take the necessary
-steps to make this known to those consuls, if your
-ladyship should call on them to sign the quarterly
-certificate for your pension.</p>
-
-<p>I trust your ladyship will be pleased to favour me
-with a reply, informing me of your intentions, and
-which reply will be forwarded to me by Mr. Moore.</p>
-
-<p>I beg your ladyship will be assured of the pain
-which I experience in being obliged to discharge this
-truly unpleasant duty, as well as of the respect with
-which I have the honour to remain, your ladyship’s
-most obedient humble servant,</p>
-
-<p class="right">
-<span class="smcap r2">P. Campbell,</span><br>
-Her Majesty’s Agent for Egypt and Syria.</p>
-</div><!--end blockquote-->
-
-<hr class="tb">
-
-<p>When she had finished, she began to reason on the
-enormity of the Queen’s and her Minister’s conduct.
-“My grandfather and Mr. Pitt,” said she, “did something,
-I think, to keep the Brunswick family on the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span>
-throne, and yet the grand-daughter of the old king,
-without hearing the circumstances of my getting into
-debt, or whether the story is true (for it might be
-false), sends to deprive me of my pension in a foreign
-country, where I may remain and starve. If it had
-not been for my brother Charles and General Barnard,
-the only two who knew what they were about when
-the mutiny took place against the Duke of Kent at
-Gibraltar, she would not be where she is now; for her
-father would have been killed to a certainty.”</p>
-
-<p>She mused for some time, and then went on.
-“Perhaps it is better for me that this should have
-happened: it brings me at once before the world, and
-let them judge the matter. It would have looked too
-much like <i>shucklabán</i>” (the Arabic for charlatanism—and
-Lady Hester was accustomed now to interlard
-her conversation with many Arabic words) “if I had
-to go and tell everybody my own story, without a
-reason for it: but now, since they have chosen to
-make a bankrupt of me, I shall out with a few things
-that will make them ashamed. The old king<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> wrote
-down on the paper, ‘Let her have the greatest pension
-that can be granted to a woman:’—if he were to
-rise from his grave, and see me now!”</p>
-
-<p>“Did I ever tell you what he said to Mr. Pitt one
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span>
-day, on Windsor Terrace? The king and all the
-princes and princesses were walking, and he turned
-round to him—‘Pitt,’ says he, ‘I have got a new
-minister in your room.’ Mr. Pitt immediately replied—‘At
-your majesty’s pleasure; and I shall be happy
-that your majesty has found one to relieve me from
-the burden of affairs: a little retirement and fresh
-air will do me good.’ The king went on, as if finishing
-his sentence, and without heeding what Mr. Pitt
-had said—‘a minister better than yourself.’ Mr. Pitt
-rejoined—‘your majesty’s choice cannot be but a wise
-one.’ The king resumed—‘I tell you, Pitt, I shall
-have a better minister than you, and, moreover, I
-shall have a good general.’ The raillery began to
-grow puzzling, and Mr. Pitt, with all his courtly
-manners, was at a loss to know what it meant. So he
-said, ‘Do, pray, condescend to tell me who this unknown
-and remarkable person is, that I may pay him
-the respect due to his great talents and your majesty’s
-choice.’ The king relieved him from his embarrassment:
-‘<em>There</em> is my new minister,’ said he, pointing
-to me, whom Mr. Pitt had under his arm. ‘There is
-not a man in my kingdom who is a better politician
-than Lady Hester: and’ (assuming an air of seriousness,
-which his manner made quite touching) ‘I have
-great pleasure in saying, too, there is not a woman
-who adorns her sex more than she does. And, let
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span>
-me say, Mr. Pitt, you have not reason to be proud
-that you are a minister, for there have been many
-before you, and will be many after you; but you have
-reason to be proud of her, who unites everything that
-is great in man and woman.’ Doctor, the tears came
-in Mr. Pitt’s eyes, and how the court ladies did bite
-their lips!</p>
-
-<p>“The <em>what what what?</em> certainly did the old king
-harm, in point of dignity, when no subject of conversation
-interested him; but he sometimes was more
-serious, and could assume a manner and a tone befitting
-a king. A peer, who had never known the Duke
-of Cambridge, told me that, on the return of the Duke
-from the continent, the king presented him to H.R.H.
-with this short but fine compliment—‘This is my son,
-my lord, who has his first fault to commit.’ How fond
-the king was of him and the Duke of York!<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> He was
-a fine man, and with a person so strong, that I don’t
-think there was another like him in England.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span>
-“The king liked me personally. I recollect once,
-at court, when we were standing, as he passed round
-the circle, he stopped at Harriet E., my cousin, and
-said to her something about her dress; and then,
-coming to me, he remarked how well I dressed myself,
-and told me to teach H. E. a little. She was so
-vexed that she cried: but it was her own fault; for,
-with a good person, good fortune, and fine dresses, she
-never could get a husband.</p>
-
-<p>“I suppose the Queen is a good-natured German
-girl. Did you ever see Lord M——? he has got fine
-eyes; and, if he is fattened out, with a sleek skin
-and good complexion, he may be a man like Sir
-Gilbert, and about his age: such men are sometimes
-still loveable. He used to be a prodigious favourite
-with some of the handsomest women in London: so
-that his friends used to say, when he married Lady
-M., though she was not a bad-looking woman—‘Poor
-fellow! what will he do? you know he can’t like her
-long?’ I recollect seeing her and Lady —— sitting
-at a party on the top of the stairs, like two figures in
-a pocket-book—both little creatures; those that you
-call delicate.</p>
-
-<p>“Lord M. is a very handsome man. His eyes are
-beautiful, and he has spent forty years of his life in
-endeavouring to please the women. I recollect, the
-last time I saw him, he was behind Sir G. H., as
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span>
-they came into Lord Stafford’s. I had dined there,
-<i lang="fr">en famille</i>, and there was a party in the evening. I
-was in the second room, and the Prince was standing
-by the fire, showing his behind, as usual, to everybody,
-and there was Lord M., always looking about
-after somebody whom he did not find perhaps for
-three or four hours. They say he is filled out: he
-was slim when I knew him. Doctor, he is a very
-handsome man; but he must be sixty, or more.”</p>
-
-<p>Ever and anon, Lady Hester Stanhope would revert
-to Colonel Campbell’s letter. “Yes,” she said;
-“if he feels regret at being obliged to write it, I will
-say to him, ‘No doubt, he feels pain at having to do
-with one of the most blackguard transactions I ever
-knew;’ but I dare say he feels nothing of the sort.”
-Then, after a pause, <a id="chg2"></a>she added, “I think I shall take
-the bull by the horns, and send a letter to the Queen.
-If getting into debt is such a crime, I should like to
-know how the Duchess of K—— got into debt.</p>
-
-<p>“Doctor, would you believe it? a <i>welly</i>” (in Arabic,
-a sort of soothsayer) “foretold what has happened to
-me now so exactly, that I must relate the story to
-you. He was sitting in a coffee-house one day, with
-one of my people, and had taken from the waiter a
-cup of coffee; but, in carrying it to his mouth, to
-drink it, his hand stopped midway, and his eyes were
-fixed for some time on the surface of the liquor in
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span>
-silence. ‘Your coffee will get cold,’ said my servant:—the
-<i>welly</i> heaved a deep sigh. ‘Alas!’ said he, ‘I
-was reading on the surface of that cup of coffee the
-fate of your lady, the <i>meleky</i>. There will rise up evil
-tongues against her, and a sovereign will try to put
-her down; but the voice of the people will cry aloud,
-and nations will assemble to protect her.’ Now, doctor,”
-said Lady Hester, “does not that mean just
-what has happened? Is not the Queen trying to put
-me down, and going to deprive me of my pension?—and
-you will see, when I have written my letter, how
-many persons will turn on my side. But isn’t it very
-extraordinary how that man in a coffee-house knew
-what was going to happen?—yet so it is: they have
-secret communications with spirits. A glass, or something,
-is held before their eyes, which nobody else can
-see; and, whether they can read and write or not,
-they see future events painted on it.”</p>
-
-<p>January 30, 1838.—Lady Hester was still very ill;
-the convulsive attacks returning now regularly every
-day. She began to be sensible that fits of passion,
-however slight, did her injury, and she was more
-calm for a continuation than I had ever known her to
-remain since I had been here. But a fresh occurrence,
-trifling in its nature, although she gave much importance
-to it, excited her anger considerably to-day,
-and did her mischief in proportion. She had reason
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span>
-to suspect that her secretary had been endeavouring
-to ascertain whether she was consumptive, and how
-long she was likely to live. To dispel such a suspicion,
-she made a great effort, got up, and went and
-sat in the garden. Before she left her room, her wailings
-were for some moments heart-rending. “Oh,
-God, have mercy! oh, God, have mercy!” she cried;
-“only keep those beasts away: who is to take care of
-me, surrounded as I am with those horrible servants?—only
-take care they don’t rob me.”</p>
-
-<p>While she remained in the garden, her chamber
-was put to rights (a process which it much required,
-in consequence of her long confinement); and, at her
-earnest request, I superintended the performance.
-“Overlook them,” she said, “or they will rob me.”
-But oh! what a sight!—such dust, such confusion,
-such cobwebs! Never was a lady’s room seen before
-in such a condition: bundles, phials, linen, calico,
-silk, gallipots, clothes, étuis, papers, were all lying
-about on the floor, and in the corners, and behind and
-under the scanty furniture; for all this while she had
-been afraid to get the chamber put into order, lest her
-servants should take advantage of the opportunity to
-plunder her.</p>
-
-<p>When she returned to her room from the garden,
-she was raving. “You had better leave me to die,”
-she cried, “if I am to die; and, if I am not, oh!
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span>
-God, only let me crawl to my own country” (by her
-own country she meant Arabia, among the Koreýsh),
-“and there, with not a rag on me, I may be fed by
-some good-natured soul, and not such cannibals as
-these servants! What are they good for? I will be
-obeyed; and you are not a man, to see me treated in
-this manner.”</p>
-
-<p>Thus she went on, walking up and down her room,
-until she worked herself up into a state of madness.
-I was afraid she would rupture a blood-vessel. All
-my attempts to pacify her were in vain—indeed they
-only excited her the more. Seeing her in this way,
-I left the room, and sent Fatôom to her; but, before
-Fatôom could get there, she rang her bell violently,
-and I heard her say, “Where’s the doctor?—where’s
-the doctor?” so I returned again to her. “Don’t
-leave me;” she cried; and she expressed her sorrow
-for the excess of her passion. “I am much obliged
-to you, very much obliged to you, for the trouble you
-take on my account; but you must not be angry
-with me. Perhaps, if I get worse, I shall ask you to
-let Mrs. M. come and sit with me.” Soon after, as if
-her very violence had relieved her, she <a id="chg3"></a>grew calmer.</p>
-
-<p>Up to this time she had never seen my wife, since
-her second visit to Syria; nor my daughter nor the
-governess at all. I had, since her illness, said more
-than once that they would be happy to come and sit
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">212</span>
-with her by day or by night, to relieve the tedium of
-her solitary situation. But her dismantled room, her
-ragged clothes, her altered appearance—and, above
-all, her pride, compromised as it was by these unfortunate
-circumstances—always made her turn off the
-subject, although her secret feelings must have often
-prompted her to avail herself of the solace thus frankly
-and cordially offered to her. The exclamation by
-which she usually evaded the proposal was, “Oh!
-how I hate everything Frankified! how I hate everything
-Frankified!” or, “I must not see them until I
-get into my saloon.” After about half an hour I left
-her. “I must see nobody this evening,” she added;
-“so good bye!”</p>
-
-<p>I went home, and, for the first time, told my family
-how ill Lady Hester was. Alas! I had not dared to
-do so before: she had enjoined me not. “To say I
-am ill,” she would observe, “would be bringing a host
-of creditors upon me, and I should not be able to get
-food to eat.” Consequently, I had kept them and
-everybody, as much as I could, in ignorance of the
-real state of her health; indeed, there was too much
-truth in what she said not to make me see the mischief
-such a disclosure would entail. She had now
-only twenty pounds left in the house to provide for
-the consumption of two months; and, as her pension
-was stopped, there was every probability she would be
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span>
-left penniless, with the exception of a few dollars
-which I had by me. Yet, in spite of all this, she
-commissioned me, a day or two before, to give 150
-piasters to a leper, 150 to a distressed shopkeeper, and
-some other small benefactions to other pensioners on
-her inexhaustible bounty.</p>
-
-<p>It may be said that any one, like myself, might
-have represented, from time to time, the necessity of
-a little more economy—I did so once: but I received
-such a peremptory injunction never to give my advice
-on that subject again, that I took good care how I
-committed myself a second time. She fired up, and
-said, “You will give me leave to judge what I ought
-to do with my own money. There are various ways
-of spending: you may think it best to be just before
-being generous; but I, with my character and views,
-must be even munificent, and trust to God, as I
-have hitherto done, for helping me on in my difficulties.
-Never touch on that subject again: I will
-have no human being interfere with me as to what I
-am to do with my money.”</p>
-
-<p>All I can say is that, like her grandfather, she was
-so intractable, that I never yet saw the mortal who
-could turn her an inch from her determinations. It
-was easy to lead the current of her bounty into one’s
-own pocket; for I believe any person who knew her
-foibles might have kept it flowing in that direction
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span>
-until he had enriched himself. It was only necessary
-to encourage her dreams of future greatness, to say
-the world was talking of her, to consider her as the
-associate of the <i>Mahedi</i>, the Messiah of nations, to
-profess a belief in visions, in aërial beings, in astrology,
-in witchcraft, and to bear witness to apparitions
-in which her coming grandeur was prognosticated,
-and then she would refuse nothing: but that was
-not my forte, and I never did so. I went to her with
-a small patrimony; was with her, off and on, for
-thirty years; and left her somewhat poorer than I
-went.</p>
-
-<p>But it is not to be supposed that knaves, such as
-some I have alluded to above, were the only objects of
-her bounty. No; the widow, the orphan, the aged,
-the proscribed, the sick, the wounded, and the houseless,
-were those she sought out in preference: and
-time will show, when gratitude can speak out, the
-immeasurable benevolence of her nature.</p>
-
-<p>It may not be useless to observe here that many
-stories have been circulated of Lady Hester’s harshness
-to petitioners who presented themselves at her
-door, which, if explained, would wear a very different
-aspect. Sometimes a suppliant, apparently unworthy of
-her commiseration, would gain admittance to her presence,
-and be dismissed with a handful of piasters;
-and sometimes another, known to be a fit object of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span>
-benevolence, would receive nothing but a rude repulse.
-Lady Hester said to me, “Do you suppose,
-doctor, I don’t know that many people think I fool
-away my money in giving it to adventurers? that
-others say I am capricious? that some call me mad?
-Why, let them: I am not bound to give reasons for
-what I do to anybody. The good I do, first of all, I
-don’t wish to be known: and, again, many times the
-publicity of an act of charity would be injurious to
-him it was intended to serve. I’ll give you an instance.
-There was a merchant at Acre, who was <i>avanized</i><a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> by
-Abdallah Pasha, to whom he was obnoxious, until all
-his property was squeezed out of him, and nothing was
-left but a house, of which he was not generally known
-to be the proprietor—for, had it been known that
-the house was his, the Pasha, who fancied he had reduced
-him to beggary, would have persecuted him
-until he had got that also. The man wished to sell
-his house, and then to retire into Egypt; he therefore
-came to me, and told me his story, begging my assistance.
-As I was obliged to use an interpreter, who, I
-feared, would talk of any act of kindness of mine for
-the man, it appeared to me that the best thing I could
-do was to turn the applicant roughly out of doors,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">216</span>
-which I did at once, bawling out as he went, that I
-did not want to be pestered with beggars. Well, my
-strange harshness, of course, was talked of, and of
-course was repeated to the Pasha, who, thinking the
-object of his oppression was now an object of contempt
-also, was perfectly satisfied, and left the man, as he
-supposed, to utter ruin and degradation. But, after a
-few days, I privately sent to the poor distressed merchant,
-provided a purchaser for his house, smoothed
-the difficulties in the way of the sale, and, furnishing
-him from my own purse with a sum of money sufficient
-to begin the world with again, I shipped him off with
-his family to Egypt.”</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester was indeed generous and charitable,
-giving with a large hand, as Eastern kings are represented
-to have given. She would send whole suits of
-clothes, furnish rooms, order camels and mules to convey
-two or three quarters of wheat at a time to a
-necessitous family, and pay carpenters and masons to
-build a poor man’s house: she had a munificence
-about her that would have required the revenue of a
-kingdom to gratify. Hence, too, sprung that insatiable
-disposition to hoard—not money, but what money
-could buy: she seemed to wish to have stores of whatever
-articles were necessary for the apparel, food, and
-convenience of man. Beds, counterpanes, cushions,
-carpets, and such like furniture, lay rotting in her
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span>
-store-rooms. Utensils grew rusty, wine spoiled;
-reams of paper were eaten by the mice, or mildewed
-by the damp; carpenters’ work lay unserviceable from
-an over-supply; mats rotted; candles, almonds,
-raisins, dried figs, cocoa, honey, cheese—no matter
-what—all was laid by in destructive profusion; and
-every year half was consumed by rats, ants, and other
-vermin, or otherwise spoiled. One store-room, which
-was filled with locked-up trunks, full of what was
-most valuable, had not been entered for three years:
-and, oh! what ruin and waste did I not discover!</p>
-
-<p>When I told her of all this, and suggested that it
-would be better to give them to her poor pensioners,
-she said—“Such things never cause me a moment’s
-thought: I would rather they should have been used
-to some good purpose; but, if I have got such rascals
-about me, why, let the things all rot, sooner than
-that they should profit by them. Money can replace
-all that; and, if God sends me money, I will
-do so; if he does not, he knows best what should
-be: and it would not give me a moment’s sorrow to
-lie down in a cottage with only rags enough to keep
-me warm. I would not, even then, change places
-with Lord Grosvenor, the Duke of Devonshire, the
-Duke of Buckingham, or any of them: they can’t do
-what I can; so of what use are all their riches?
-I have seen some of them make such a fuss about the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span>
-loss of a ten guinea ring or some such bauble:—not
-that they cared for it, but they could not bear to lose
-it. But if I want to know what is passing at Constantinople,
-or London, or anywhere, I have nothing
-to do but to turn my thoughts that way, and in a
-quarter of an hour I have it all before me, just as it is;
-so true, doctor, that if it is not actually passing, it
-will be in a month, in three months—so true: isn’t it
-extraordinary?”...</p>
-
-<p>Upon some occasions, her munificence wore the appearance
-of ostentation. She would bestow on strangers,
-like dervises, sheykhs, and fakyrs, large sums of money,
-and yet drive hard bargains with those about her
-neighbourhood; and would sometimes make presents,
-apparently not so much to comfort those who received
-them as to display her own superiority and greatness
-over others.</p>
-
-<p>I have said, in a preceding chapter, that she used
-to give new suits of clothes to her people on Byràm
-day, and at Easter, according to their religion: but it
-should be mentioned that, on those days, every servant
-was called in, and received forty piasters; and
-one thousand piasters were divided by Logmagi among
-the persons in Sayda who in any way were occasionally
-useful to her or her people. These were the porter of
-the French khan and the janissary there; the porters
-of the town-gate; the harbour-master; the gardener
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span>
-who supplied vegetables; the fisherman who sent her
-choice fish, &amp;c. Two hundred piasters were paid
-annually to old Jacob, a tailor; fifty here and there to
-the imàms of particular mosques; as much to the mistress
-of the bath to which she sent her maids to be
-washed. Mr. Loustaunau generally had about five
-hundred piasters a quarter. Of many of her benefactions
-I never knew anything. Had I kept a list of
-the sums which, besides these customary donations,
-she gave to the distressed, few would wonder that she
-was so beloved and so generally lamented. Thus, when
-the <i>ferdy</i> and <i>miri</i>, two onerous taxes, fell due, she
-commonly paid them for such of her servants as were
-burdened with families, or whose means were scanty:
-she did the same when unusual contributions were
-levied, as during the conscription. On the 8th of
-December, I find a note that I gave fifty piasters and
-a counterpane to a poor shepherd boy, labouring under
-anasarca from an indurated spleen, a most common
-complaint in the country, the effect of protracted agues;
-and eighty to an old man, who had some years before
-been her <i>asackjee</i>. To Logmagi mostly fell the distribution
-of all these sums, and it was only occasionally
-that I was the almoner to this truly noble
-and disinterested woman; else I should have been
-able to have cited more examples.</p>
-
-<p>January 31.—Being Wednesday, it was a rule with
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span>
-Lady Hester Stanhope to shut herself up from Tuesday
-at sunset until the sunset of Wednesday, during
-which time she saw nobody, if she could avoid it,
-did no business, and always enjoined me to meddle
-in no affairs of hers during these twenty-four hours.
-Wednesday was an unlucky day with her, a <i lang="la">dies
-nefastus</i>. After sunset, I waited on her, and found
-her languid, moaning, and still visibly suffering from
-her yesterday’s exertion; for it appeared, although
-I had not seen her, that she had walked about
-her garden, forcing her strength so far as to deceive
-the gardeners, who had given out that she would soon
-be as well as ever; and this was what, no doubt,
-she aimed at, for the purpose of confounding the
-secretary.</p>
-
-<p>Reminding her of the wish she had expressed to
-have Mrs. M.’s company, I now proposed that she,
-my daughter, and the governess, should sit with her
-by turns, suggesting that, by this means, much of
-the disagreeable service of the maids, whom she constantly
-complained of, might be dispensed with. But
-to this she answered, “No, doctor, it will not do:
-you must tell them how very much obliged to them
-I am for their kind offers and intentions, but that
-their presence will only be an embarrassment to me.
-You don’t consider the matter in its true point of view,
-as you never do anything. In the first place, it kills
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span>
-me to talk; I can’t fatigue myself by giving them information
-about the country, and be a Pococke: and,
-as for giving them good advice, the world is so turned
-topsy-turvy, that everything one says is lost on everybody.
-Then, as for being of any use to me, they
-could be of none: if I wanted anything, they don’t
-know where it is; and how are they to tell the nasty
-wretches, who only speak Arabic? Besides, I am not
-sure their <i>nijems</i> would suit me; and then they
-would do me more harm than good. Poor little
-Eugenia! I had thought that I might derive some
-consolation from looking on her innocent face whilst
-she sat working at my bedside; but some one told me
-her star perhaps would not agree with mine: is it so,
-doctor? I am like Mr. Pitt: he used to say, ‘I
-hear that man’s footsteps in the passage—I can’t bear
-it; do send him away to town, or to Putney:’ so
-it is with me. There was my grandfather, too—how
-he felt the effect of the peculiar star of those people
-who did not suit him!—he could bear nobody near
-him, when he was ill, but Lady Chatham, and an old
-woman who had been a sort of woman of the town:
-he sent all his children to Lyme Regis; and even
-his tutor, Mr. Wilson, he could not bear. I know
-the reason of it now, from my recollection of them,
-but I did not at the time. My grandfather was born
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span>
-under Mars and Venus; Lady Chatham was born
-under Venus, and so was the old woman, but both in
-different <i>burges</i> [houses]: and that is why their sympathies
-were the same.”</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> The English consular agent at this time was Signor Abella, whose
-father was a Maltese: hence Mr. Abella was known as El Malty. The noble
-family of Testaferrata and Abella is the stock from which Signor Abella
-is descended; but in Turkey, <i lang="la">Stemmata quid faciunt</i>?</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a>
-At the word “again,” Lady Hester made the following remarks:—“He
-never addressed me on the subject, neither has any one else. Nearly
-two years ago, there was a report in the Bazar that my debts had been
-spoken of to the King; that my pension was to be seized; that I was to
-be put under consular jurisdiction; and a set of extravagant things
-that nobody ever heard the like; and certainly those who had ventured
-to charge themselves with such a message would have found that I was a
-cousin of Lord Camelford’s.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote">“Another version was, that the King talked very good sense upon the
-subject, and had taken my part, and had been much surprised that I
-had been so neglected by my family, to whom he said some sharp and
-unpleasant things. There the matter rested, and I heard no more of it,
-until Colonel Campbell’s letter.”</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a>
- Lady Hester means George <abbr title="Three">III.</abbr></p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a>
-The Duke of York’s behaviour is incomparable; he is their great
-and only comfort and support at the Queen’s house, and without
-his manly mind and advice neither the Queen nor Princesses would
-be able to bear up under their present distress.—<cite>Diaries and
-Correspondence</cite>, <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 20, <abbr title="volume">v.</abbr> 4.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote">It is pleasing to find in persons so entirely different in every
-respect a corresponding testimony to the merits of an excellent prince.</p>
-
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a>
- To <i>avanize</i> is the expression used throughout the Levant to
-signify oppressive and forcible exactions of money from individuals,
-without right or claim.
-
-</div><!--end footnotes-->
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span>
-
-<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span> <abbr title="Eight"><span class="allsmcap">VIII.</span></abbr></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="small short">Lady Hester’s system of astrology—Sympathies and antipathies—People’s
-<i>nijems</i> or stars—Mesmerism explained—Lord
-Suffolk—Lady Hester’s own star—Letter to the Queen—Letter
-to Mr. Speaker Abercrombie—Messieurs Beck and
-Moore—Letter to Colonel Campbell—The Ides of March—Lady
-Hester’s reflections on the Queen’s conduct to her—Letter
-to Sir Edward Sugden—What peers are—Junius’s
-Letters—Spies employed by the first Lord Chatham—Mr.
-Pitt’s opinion of the Duke of Wellington—Lady Hester’s
-letter to his Grace, &amp;c.</p>
-
-
-<p class="p2">In order to render intelligible to the reader many
-passages which have occurred, and will occur again,
-in Lady Hester’s conversations, respecting what she
-called people’s <i>nijems</i> or stars, it may not be amiss
-to give an outline of her system of astrology, and
-of the supposed influence that the position of the stars
-in the heavens at our nativity has on our future fate
-and on our sympathies. I must preface what follows
-by observing that she had a remarkable talent for
-divining characters by the make of a person. This
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span>
-every traveller will testify who has visited her in
-Syria; for it was after she went to live in solitude
-that her penetration became so extraordinary. It was
-founded both on the features of the face and on the
-shape of the head, body, and limbs. Some indications
-she went by were taken from a resemblance to animals;
-and, wherever such indications existed, she
-inferred that the dispositions peculiar to those animals
-were to be found in the person. But, independent
-of all this, her doctrine was, that every creature is
-governed by the star under whose influence it was
-born.</p>
-
-<p>Every star has attached to it two aërial beings, two
-animals, two trees, two flowers, &amp;c.; that is, a couple
-of all the grand classes in creation, animal, vegetable,
-mineral, or etherial, whose antipathies and sympathies
-become congenial with the being born under the same
-star. She would say, “My brother Charles vomited
-if he ate three strawberries only: other people, born
-under the same star as his, may not have such an insurmountable
-antipathy as his was, because their star
-may be imperfect, whilst his was pure; but they will
-have it, more or less. Some persons again will have
-as much delight in the smell of particular flowers as
-cats have in the smell of valerian, when they sit and
-purr round it.</p>
-
-<p>“The stars under which men are born may be one
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span>
-or more. Thus Mr. H*****, an English traveller,
-who came to see me, was born under four stars, all
-tending to beauty, but of no good in other respects.
-His forehead was as white as snow; his mouth” (I
-think she said) “was good, with a handsome small
-black beard; but his stars were otherwise dull: for
-you know the stars in the heavens are not always
-bright and twinkling, but sometimes heavy and
-clouded. It is like engravings—some of them are
-proofs, and those are perfect. Some persons may
-have a good star, but it may be cracked like a glass,
-and then, you know, it can’t hold water.</p>
-
-<p>“The influence of stars depends, likewise, on whether
-they are rising, or in their zenith, or setting;
-and the angle at which they are must be determined
-by calculations, which good astrologers make very
-readily. But a clever man will, from his knowledge
-of the stars, look even at a child and say, ‘That child
-will have such and such diseases, such and such virtues,
-such and such vices;’ and this I can do: nay,
-what is more, I can give a description of the features
-of any person I have never seen, if his character is
-described to me, and vice versa. There is a learned
-man at Damascus, who possesses the same faculty in
-an extraordinary degree. He knew nothing of me
-but by report, and had never seen me: but a friend of
-his, having given him a description of my person and
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span>
-features, he noted down my virtues, vices, and qualities
-so exactly, that he even said in what part of my body
-I had got a mole, and mentioned the small mark on
-my shoulder, where Mr. Cline removed a tumour.
-There’s for you? do you believe these things, or do
-you not?</p>
-
-<p>“A man’s destiny may be considered as a graduated
-scale, of which the summit is the star that presided
-over his birth. In the next degree comes the good
-angel<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> attached to that star; then the herb and the
-flower beneficial to his health and agreeable to his
-smell; then the mineral, then the tree, and such other
-things as contribute to his good; then the man himself:
-below him comes the evil spirit, then the <a id="chg4"></a>venomous
-reptile or animal, the plant, and so on; things
-inimical to him. Where the particular tree that is
-beneficial or pleasurable to him flourishes naturally,
-or the mineral is found, there the soil and air are
-salubrious to that individual; and a physician who
-understood my doctrines, how easily could he treat his
-patients!—for, by merely knowing the star of a person,
-the simples and compounds most beneficial to him in
-medicine would be known also.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span>
-“How great the sympathies and antipathies are in
-stars that are the same or opposite I have told you
-before in my grandfather’s case, in Mr. Pitt’s, and in
-my own. Lord Chatham, when on a sick bed, could
-bear three people only to wait on him—Lady Chatham,
-Sarah Booby, and somebody else. My grandmamma’s
-star and Sarah Booby’s star were the same—both
-Venus—only grandmamma’s was more moderate; she
-could keep it down. Mr. Pitt, when he was ill at
-Putney, had such an aversion to one of the footmen,
-that he was nervous when he heard his step; for you
-know people, when they are sick, can hear a pin drop:
-he said to me, ‘Hester, do send that fellow to town.’
-I did not let him know why he was sent to town, but
-I got him off as quickly as possible: he was, notwithstanding,
-a good servant, clean, and had otherwise
-good qualities; but Mr. Pitt’s and his star were
-different. As to myself, since I have been here, I
-had a professed French cook, called François—the
-people named him <i>Fransees el Franjy</i>. His skill was
-undoubted; yet, whenever he dressed my dinner, I
-was always sending for him to complain, and sometimes
-threw the dish in his face: a sweetmeat from his
-hand turned bitter in my mouth. But, what is most
-extraordinary of all, Miss Williams’s star was so disagreeable
-to me that I could not bear her to be near me
-when I was ill:—if I was in a perspiration, it would
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span>
-stop the moment she came into the room. You know
-how many good qualities she had, and how attached
-she was to me, and I to her: well, I always kept her
-out of my sight as much as I could, when anything
-was the matter with me.</p>
-
-<p>“Such is the sympathy of persons born under the
-same star, that, although living apart in distant places,
-they will still be sensible of each other’s sufferings.
-When the Duke of York died, at the very hour, a
-cold sweat and a kind of fainting came over me, that
-I can’t describe. I was ill beyond measure, and I
-said to Miss Williams, ‘Somebody is dying somewhere,
-and I am sure it is one of my friends: so I
-made her write it down. Some time after, when she
-was poking over a set of newspapers, she came to me,
-and said, ‘It’s very singular, my lady; but, the time
-you were so very ill, and could not account for it, corresponds
-exactly with the date of the Duke of York’s
-death—the hour, too, just the same!’ Now, doctor,
-wasn’t it extraordinary? You drawl out ‘Y—e—s,’
-just as if you thought I told lies: oh, Lord! oh,
-Lord! what a cold man!</p>
-
-<p>“The proof of sympathy between the stars of two
-persons, or, in other words, of the star of another
-being good for you, is, when a person puts his finger
-on you and you don’t feel it. Zezefôon, when Mademoiselle
-Longchamp touches her with her fingers in
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span>
-examining the Turkish dress, shudders all over: that
-is a proof that her star is not good for her, and yet
-Miss L. uses more kind expressions to her than anybody;
-but that makes no difference; there is no sympathy
-in their stars.</p>
-
-<p>“Animal magnetism is nothing but the sympathy
-of our stars. Those fools who go about magnetizing
-indifferently one person and another, why do they
-sometimes succeed, and sometimes fail?—because, if
-they meet with those of the same star with themselves,
-their results will be satisfactory, but with opposite stars
-they can do nothing. Some people you may magnetize,
-some you cannot; and so far will the want of sympathy
-act in some, that there are persons whom it
-would be impossible to put in certain attitudes: they
-might be mechanically placed there, but their posture
-never would be natural; whilst others, from their
-particular star, would readily fall into them. Oh!
-if I had your friend, Mr. Green,<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> here, I could give him
-some useful hints on choosing models for his lectures.</p>
-
-<p>“There are animals, too, under the same star with
-human beings. I had a mule whose star was the same
-as mine; and, at the time of my severe illness, this
-mule showed as much sensibility about me, and more,
-than some of the beasts who wait on me. When that
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span>
-mule was first foaled, I had given orders to sell the
-foal and its mother; but, happening to see it, I
-countermanded the order immediately. It received a
-hurt in its eye, and when, with my hand, I applied
-some eye-water with camphor in it, which, of course,
-made the eye smart, it never once turned its head
-away, or showed the least impatience of what I was
-doing. When this mule was dying some years afterwards,
-she lay twenty-four hours, every minute seeming
-to be going to breathe her last; but still life
-would not depart. They told me of this, and I went
-to the stable. The moment she saw me, she turned
-her eyes on me, gave an expressive look, and expired.
-All the servants said she would not die until my star,
-which was hers, had come to take her breath: isn’t
-it very extraordinary? Serpents never die, whatever
-you can do to them, until their star rises above the
-horizon.<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p>
-
-<p>“Some can do well only when under the guidance
-of another person’s star. What was Lord Grenville
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span>
-without Mr. Pitt? with him to guide him he did
-pretty well; but, as soon as Mr. Pitt was dead, he
-sunk into obscurity: who ever heard of Lord Grenville
-afterwards? So again Sir Francis Burdett has never
-been good for anything since Horne Tooke’s death.
-So long as Napoleon had Josephine by his side he was
-lucky: but, when he cast her off, his good fortune left
-him. You know you sent me her portrait: well, it
-was a good engraving, and I have no doubt was a likeness.
-I observed in her face indications of much
-falsity, and a depth of cunning exceedingly great: it
-was her <i>sâad</i> (luck) that held him up. You may see
-so many examples of such good fortune depending on
-men’s wives. Mahomet Ali owes all to his wife—a
-woman without a nose. What saved the Shaykh
-Beshýr but the sâad of the Syt Haboos? Hamâady
-told the Emir Beshýr, ‘You will never do anything
-with the Shaykh Beshýr until you get rid of her, and
-then the Shaykh is in your power.’ So what did he
-do? he sent his son—the little Emir Beshýr, as they
-call him—who surrounded her palace with twenty
-horsemen, and, when she attempted to escape, drove
-her into her own courtyard, and stabbed her: her
-body was cut in pieces, and given to the dogs to eat.</p>
-
-<p>“What is to account for some people’s good fortune
-but their star? There was Lord Suffolk, an
-ensign in a marching regiment, and thirteenth remove
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">232</span>
-from the title—see what an example he was! It was
-predestined that he should arrive at greatness, although,
-when the news was brought him that he was
-come to the title, he had not money enough to pay for
-a post-chaise: but nothing could hinder what his good
-star was to bring him. Lady Suffolk, the daughter
-of a clergyman of a hundred a-year, was a very clever,
-shrewd woman, and filled her elevated station admirably.”</p>
-
-<p>I have embodied thus much in Lady Hester Stanhope’s
-own words of what may give a tolerable idea of
-her notion of planetary influence. What her own
-star was may be gathered from what she said one day,
-when, having dwelt a long time on this, her favourite
-subject, she got up from the sofa, and, approaching the
-window, she called me to her—“Look,” said she, “at
-the pupil of my eyes; there! my star is the sun—all
-sun—it is in my eyes: when the sun is a person’s
-star, it attracts everything.” I looked, and replied
-that I saw a rim of yellow round the pupil.—“A
-rim!” cried she; “it isn’t a rim—it’s a sun; there’s
-a disk, and from it go rays all round: ’tis no more a
-rim than you are. Nobody has got eyes like mine.”<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span>
-Lady Hester Stanhope, in a letter she wrote to
-Prince Pückler Muskau, describes her system briefly
-as follows; and she desired me to keep a copy of it,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span>
-that I might not, as she said, substitute my own ideas
-for hers.</p>
-
-<p>“Every man, born under a given star, has his
-aërial spirit, his animal, his bird, his fruit-tree, his
-flower, his medicinal herb, and his dæmon. Beings
-born under any given star may be of four different
-qualities and forms, just as there may be four different
-qualities of cherries, having little resemblance one to
-another, but being nevertheless all cherries. Added
-to this, there may be varieties in the same star, occasioned
-by the influence of other stars, which were
-above the horizon in particular positions at the hour
-of a man’s birth: just as you may say that a ship
-is more or less baffled by certain winds, though she is
-standing her course. Again, a man being born under
-the same star with another man, whilst that star is in
-one sign of the zodiac, changes somewhat the character
-and appearance when in another sign of the
-zodiac: just as two plants which are alike, when one
-grows where there is always shade and the other where
-there is constantly sunshine, although precisely of one
-and the same kind, will differ slightly in appearance,
-odour, and taste.</p>
-
-<p>“A man born under a certain star will have, from
-nature, certain qualities, certain virtues and vices,
-certain talents, diseases, and tastes. All that education
-can do is merely artificial: leave him to himself,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span>
-and he returns to his natural character and his
-original tastes. If this were better known, young
-people would not be made to waste their time uselessly
-in fitting them for what they never can be.</p>
-
-<p>“I have learned to know a man’s star by his face,
-but not by astrological calculations, as perhaps you
-fancy; of that trade I have no knowledge. I have
-been told that the faculty which I possess is much
-more vague than the astrological art, and I believe
-it: but mine is good for a great deal, though not for
-calculating the exact epoch of a man’s maladies or
-death.</p>
-
-<p>“You will ask me how it is possible to know mankind
-by looking at their features and persons; and so
-thoroughly too. I answer—a gardener, when he sees
-twenty bulbs of twenty different flowers on the table
-before him, will he not tell you that one will remain
-so many days under ground before it sprouts, then it
-will grow little by little, very slowly, and in so many
-days or weeks will flower, and its flowers will have
-such a smell, such a colour, and such virtues: after
-so many days more, it will begin to droop and fade,
-and in ten days will wither: that other, as soon as it
-is out of the ground, will grow an inch and a half in
-every twenty-four hours: its flowers will be brilliant,
-but will have a disagreeable smell; it will bloom for
-a long time, and then will wither altogether in a day
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span>
-and why may not I, looking on men, pronounce on
-their virtues, qualities, and duration in the same way?
-This may not be well explained, but a clever person
-will divine what I mean.”</p>
-
-<p>Such were, in the main, the opinions of Lady
-Hester on astrology, to which several travellers have
-alluded, but which, from defective information, they
-have hitherto misrepresented. It will be seen that
-there was at least method in her belief. We will
-now return from this digression.</p>
-
-<p>Our narrative broke off in the middle of a conversation
-on the evening of January 31, 1838.</p>
-
-<p>Tea was ordered; but so simple a process as getting
-tea ready was now a painful business. If it did not
-come immediately, Lady Hester grew so impatient,
-that it was distressing to see her agitation. She
-would then ring for a pipe, and perhaps send it back
-to be fresh filled or changed four or five times in succession,
-each one being, for some trifling reason, rejected.
-Alas! it was not the tea nor the pipes that
-were in fault; it was Colonel Campbell’s letter that
-had given a stab to her heart, from which she never
-recovered; and, in proportion to the apparent calm
-which she endeavoured to assume, when speaking on
-that subject, did the feeling of the supposed indignity
-which she had received prey on her spirits and on
-her pride.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span>
-She reverted to the letter. “The thing to be
-considered,” she said, “is whether I shall write a
-letter to the Queen, and ask the Duke of Wellington
-to give it to her, or whether I shall put it in the
-newspapers: for I am afraid, if I send it to him, he
-will not give it to her; or, if he does, they will say
-nothing about it. I should like to ask for a public
-inquiry into my debts, and for what I have contracted
-them. Let them compare the good I have done in
-the cause of humanity and science with the D——s
-of K——’s debts. When I am better, I’ll set all
-this to rights. I wonder if Lord Palmerston is the
-man I recollect—a young man just come from College,
-that was hanging about, waiting to be introduced to
-Mr. Pitt. Mr. Pitt used to say, ‘Ah! very well;
-we will ask him some day to dinner.’ Perhaps it is
-an old grudge that makes him vent his spite. He is
-an Irishman, I think.”</p>
-
-<p>February 1.—To-day Lady Hester was much the
-same as on the preceding days: her pulse was low;
-her lungs were loaded with phlegm; aphthæ had
-shown themselves on her tongue; her nails were
-cracked from the contraction of the surrounding integuments;
-the tips of her fingers were cold; her back,
-as she sat up in bed, was bent; her bones almost protruded
-through the skin, from being obliged to lie
-always on one side. Speaking of her inability to
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span>
-sleep, except in some particular position, she observed
-that she was like those little figures of tumblers;
-place her as you would, she rolled over to the left side,
-as if there was a weight of lead there.</p>
-
-<p>After the usual preliminaries of smoking a pipe and
-a little conversation, she dictated her letter to the
-Queen and to Mr. Abercrombie, speaker of the House
-of Commons.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb">
-
-<p class="p2 center">
-<i>Lady Hester Stanhope to the Queen.</i></p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p class="right r2">
-Jôon, February 12, 1838.</p>
-
-<p>Your Majesty will allow me to say that few things are
-more disgraceful and inimical to royalty than giving
-commands without examining all their different bearings,
-and casting, without reason, an aspersion upon
-the integrity of any branch of a family who had faithfully
-served their country and the house of Hanover.</p>
-
-<p>As no inquiries have been made of me what circumstances
-induced me to incur the debts alluded to, I
-deem it unnecessary to enter into any details upon
-the subject. I shall not allow the pension given by
-your royal grandfather to be stopped by force; but I
-shall resign it for the payment of my debts, and with
-it the name of English subject, and the slavery that
-is at present annexed to it: and, as your Majesty has
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span>
-given publicity to the business by your orders to consular
-agents, I surely cannot be blamed in following
-your royal example.</p>
-
-<p class="right r2">
-<span class="smcap">Hester Lucy Stanhope.</span></p>
-</div><!--end blockquote-->
-
-<hr class="tb">
-
-<p class="p2 center">
-<i>Lady Hester Stanhope to Mr. Speaker Abercrombie.</i></p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p class="right r2">Jôon, February 12, 1838.</p>
-
-<p class="indent5">Sir,</p>
-
-<p>Probably the wheel-horse has forgotten his driver,
-but the latter has not forgotten him.<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> I am told that
-the chief weight of the carriage of state bears upon
-you; if so, it must be a ponderous one indeed, if I can
-judge by a specimen of the talent of those who guide it.</p>
-
-<p>You, who have read and thought a great deal upon
-men and manners, must be aware that there are situations
-almost unknown in Europe from which persons,
-in what is called a semi-barbarous country, cannot
-extricate themselves with honour without taking a
-part either for or against humanity: besides, there
-are extraordinary gusts of knowledge—of extraordinary
-information—which, if you do not take advantage of
-them at the moment, are lost to you for ever. I have,
-therefore, exceeded my pecuniary means, but always
-with the hope of extricating myself without the assistance
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">240</span>
-of any one; or at least (and ever before my
-eyes, should the worst come to the worst) with that of
-selling the reversion of what I possess. Your magnificent
-Queen has made me appear like a bankrupt
-in the world, and partly like a swindler; having given
-strict orders that <em>one</em> usurer’s account must be paid, or
-my pension stopped, without taking into consideration
-others who have equal claims upon me. Her Majesty
-has not thrown the gauntlet before a driveller or a
-coward: those who are the advisers of these steps
-cannot be wise men.</p>
-
-<p>Whatever men’s political opinions may be, if they
-act from conscientious motives, I have always respected
-them; and you know that I have had friends in all
-parties. Therefore, without any reference to the present
-or past political career of ministers, or her Majesty’s
-advisers, their conduct would appear to me,
-respecting myself, identically as it was, gentlemanlike
-or blackguard. But, having had but too strong a
-specimen of the latter by their attempting to bully a
-Pitt, and to place me under consular control, it is
-sufficient for me to resign the name of an English
-subject; for the justice granted to the slave of despotism
-far exceeds that which has been shown to me.
-Believe me, with esteem and regard, yours,</p>
-
-<p class="right r2">
-<span class="smcap">Hester Lucy Stanhope.</span></p>
-</div><!--end blockquote-->
-
-
-<hr class="tb">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">241</span>
-Friday, February 2.—To-day, I found her ladyship
-busied in sorting out certain articles of apparel,
-which had just before been brought home for herself:
-they had been made by the wife of Lufloofy, the
-person at Sayda who generally lodged English travellers.
-As the fair sex may like to know what the
-texture of ladies’ under-garments is in the East, these
-were made of half cotton and half silk, and, to the
-appearance and touch, not unlike crape. Some women
-have them all silk. Either kind is favourable for
-absorbing perspiration, and, under any circumstances,
-never strikes cold to the body.<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p>
-
-<p>There had arrived, also, from Marseilles six cases of
-claret, two of brandy, one of rum, twelve baskets of
-champagne, one case of Kirsch water; and from Leghorn
-six cases of Genoese <i lang="fr">pâte</i>, two Parmesan cheeses,
-some Bologna sausages, pots of preserve, one barrel of
-salmon and tunny, one ditto of anchovies, brooms,
-scuppets, perfumery, two chests of tea, and numberless
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">242</span>
-other good things, to meet the wants of her expected
-guest, the Baroness de Fériat, who was coming from
-the United States. It was sad enough that Lady
-Hester herself, with abundance of choice provisions
-and wines, was unable to partake of any. However,
-when samples of them were brought in, as the cases
-were opened one after another, to be shown her, her
-usual (what shall I call it?) greediness of manner
-manifested itself. She tasted everything, and swallowed
-a great deal: the natural consequence of which
-was that she threw herself back in her bed, gasping
-for breath, and suffering horribly. On these occasions,
-her favourite plan was to relieve the succession of
-momentary symptoms by a host of palliatives, never
-leaving her stomach empty or her digestive organs at
-rest, and always fancying that it was want of nourishment
-that generated uneasiness or caused the oppression
-on her chest, from both of which she never was
-free; nor would she listen to any arguments that
-tended to show she was in error.</p>
-
-<p>February 4, Sunday.—This morning it was discovered
-in my house that a silver spoon had been lost.
-I had a man-servant and a boy, the former a Greek,
-the latter a Mahometan. The Greek had one of the
-most sinister countenances I ever beheld: he was the
-same man who had accompanied Mr. Moore and Mr.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">243</span>
-Beck to the Dead Sea,<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> and had been sent to me from
-Beyrout by the innkeeper there: he was a knave, a
-drunkard, and a liar. Suspicion fell on him, and he,
-to throw it on others, first accused the milk-girl, and
-then the water-carrier.</p>
-
-<p>Theft, in houses in Turkey, where many are suspected,
-generally leads to the punishing of them
-all; and Logmagi suggested that he should apply the
-korbàsh to all three, to elicit the truth. However, I
-thought it more just to resort to the European way,
-saying if the spoon were not found, the two servants
-must pay for it, not doubting the innocence of the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">244</span>
-water-carrier, a hard-working fellow of good repute.
-Logmagi objected to this. “You must flog that
-Greek,” said he, “or you will lose, one by one,
-everything of value you possess.”</p>
-
-<p>Here the matter rested, as the morning had been
-fixed for answering Colonel Campbell’s letter: so I
-wrote from her ladyship’s dictation the following
-laconic <a id="chg5"></a>epistle to him, and the friendly one to Mr.
-Moore, British consul at Beyrout. When I had
-finished them, I asked Lady Hester what she would
-have me put at the close, and how she chose to subscribe
-herself. “Say nothing,” replied she: “how
-many times I have said I could never call myself the
-humble servant of any body. I hate and detest all
-those compliments so unmeaning and so false: but to
-Mr. Moore you may express my esteem and regard.
-I know I shall have a great liking for Mrs. Moore, if
-ever I see her: is she so very handsome as they say?
-When you go to Beyrout, you must tell her that I
-consider it a duty to like her: she does not know
-why, no more do you.”</p>
-
-<hr class="tb">
-
-<p class="p2 center">
-<i>Lady Hester Stanhope to Colonel Campbell.</i></p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p class="right r2">
-Jôon, February 4, 1838.</p>
-
-<p class="indent5">Sir,</p>
-
-<p>I shall give no sort of answer to your letter of the
-10th of January (received the 27th), until I have
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">245</span>
-seen a copy of her Majesty’s commands respecting
-my debt to Mr. Homsy, or of the official orders from
-her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,
-as also of Mr. Homsy’s claim, as well as of the statement
-sent to England—to whom, and through whom—in
-order that I may know whom I have to deal
-with, as well as be able to judge of the accuracy of
-the documents.</p>
-
-<p>I hope in future that you will not think it necessary
-to make any apologies for the execution of your duty;
-on the contrary, I should wish to recommend you all
-to put on large Brutus wigs when you sit on the woolsack
-at Alexandria or at Beyrout.</p>
-
-<p class="right r2">
-<span class="smcap">Hester Lucy Stanhope.</span></p>
-</div><!--end blockquote-->
-
-<hr class="tb">
-
-<p class="center">
-<i>Lady Hester Stanhope to Mr. Moore, British Consul at</i><br>
-<i>Beyrout.</i><br>
-</p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p class="right r2">
-Jôon, February 4, 1838.</p>
-
-<p class="indent5">Sir,</p>
-
-<p>The sacrifice which I have made of your acquaintance
-and your society, that you might stand quite
-clear of everything that affects me, appears to be to
-little purpose. You will have some very disagreeable
-business to go through, as you will be made Colonel
-Campbell’s honourable agent, and he the agent of the
-wise Lord Palmerston, and he the agent of your magnificent
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">246</span>
-Queen. There is Colonel Campbell’s answer,
-which I leave open for your perusal, as he did his.</p>
-
-<p>If in the end I find that you deserve the name of a
-true Scotchman, I shall never take ill the part that
-you may have taken against me, as it appears to be
-consistent with your duty in these dirty times.</p>
-
-<p>I remain with truth and regard, yours,</p>
-
-<p class="right r2">
-<span class="smcap">Hester Lucy Stanhope.</span></p>
-</div><!--end blockquote-->
-
-<hr class="tb">
-
-<p>Besides these letters, I wrote others for England
-and for Beyrout—in all about a dozen. What with
-waiting and listening to her conversation, I was with
-her five hours before dinner and five hours after. I
-had to seal and put covers to all these; and just at
-the moment when I was about to retire to my study,
-a little room set apart for me in her house, to do this,
-Lady Hester stopped me, and returned to the subject
-of the silver spoon. After some consideration, she
-recommended also the use of the korbàsh.<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p>
-
-<p>“How am I to live,” cried she, “with thirty servants
-in my house, and such a man as you are that
-can’t say boh! to a goose? How do you expect they
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">247</span>
-will mind me, if you don’t keep them under?
-Hamâady is coming to-morrow to Jôon: he must be
-sent for, and shall interrogate the rascal; I warrant
-you, he’ll soon bring it to light.”</p>
-
-<p>When I left her for dinner, she had said to me,
-“Send me word a quarter of an hour before you
-return to say you are coming.” This, in my hurry to
-get through so much writing for her, I had neglected
-to do; and it, therefore, served now as the text for a
-new grievance. “Didn’t I say,” she asked me, “let
-me know a quarter of an hour beforehand when you
-are ready to come to me? that quarter of an hour
-was everything to me: I wished to have more candles
-brought in on account of your eyes, to have the paper
-and ink got ready, and to collect my thoughts; but
-no! everybody must do as they like, and poor I be
-made the sacrifice.—I <em>will</em> live by the rule of grandeur.”</p>
-
-<p>Then she called her maids in, one after another,
-poured on them a torrent of abuse for their laziness,
-dirt, and insolence. My heart sickened to think what
-would be the consequence of all this to herself; for I
-knew very well that her whole frame, the next morning,
-would be debilitated from such excitement: yet
-all this time her passion was sublimely eloquent, and,
-sick though she was, terrible. Her maids tumbled
-over each other from fright, and the thunder that
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">248</span>
-rolled in the sky (for a storm was raging at the time)
-was but a faint likeness of her paroxysm. When it
-was over, we drank tea, and at half-past one separated
-for the night.</p>
-
-<p>February 5. The weather was still stormy. Snow
-fell in abundance on the higher chains of Mount
-Lebanon, where it lay apparently very thick.</p>
-
-<p>When I paid my morning visit, Lady Hester held
-out her hand to me the moment I approached her
-bedside. “I said too much last night,” she observed;
-“think no more about it, doctor; but you know my
-irritability, and you must bear with it.” She was
-pale, languid, and extenuated: her hands and arms
-were jerked in convulsive flings. Strong electrical
-shocks could not have shaken her so much. Alas!
-I sympathised too deeply with her wrongs not to
-forget all her ebullitions of anger the moment they
-were over.</p>
-
-<p>When she found herself a little easier, she asked me
-to explain to her Julius Cæsar’s calendar, which she
-had on some occasion lighted on in Ainsworth’s dictionary.
-“When I was a girl,” said she, “I knew
-all the constellations in the heavens, and was so quick
-at astronomy, that they took my books and maps
-away, fearing I should give myself up to it, to the
-neglect of my other studies. I had it all before my
-eyes, just like a pocket-handkerchief. What day are
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">249</span>
-the ides of March?” I told her. “I think,” she
-continued, “the word Ides must be derived from
-<i>âayd</i>, [Arabic: عيد].” I guessed at once what was passing in
-her mind. It was an illusion with her that her destiny
-and Cæsar’s, or her character and his, had some
-resemblance: and, when she mentioned Brutus-wigs in
-her letter to Colonel Campbell, it had a reference to the
-stabs they were giving her from England in depriving
-her of her pension, and putting insults upon her.</p>
-
-<p>She was deeply wounded in her pride by the treatment
-she had received from home. “The Queen,”
-she would say, “should have desired her ministers to
-write to me, and say, ‘It grieves me that you should
-have exceeded your income, and incurred debts, which
-you know, when complaints are made to me, I cannot
-countenance; endeavour to pay them by instalments,
-and all may yet be well,’ or something to that effect—
-* &emsp; * &emsp; *  &emsp; *  &emsp; *  &emsp; *
-But no! she shall have my pension, and, if they
-make me a bankrupt, why, let them pay the usurers
-themselves.”</p>
-
-<p>February 9.—I did not see Lady Hester the whole
-of the preceding day: she had sent me a message to
-say she did not wish to trouble me. I attributed this
-to the state of the weather; for the wind was high,
-the atmosphere wet and cold, and everything about
-the residence uncomfortable. To go from my house
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">250</span>
-to Lady Hester’s, I was obliged to wear high wooden
-clogs and a thick Greek capote with a hood to it.
-Umbrellas, from the gusts of wind, were out of the
-question. The ground was like soap. But it was not
-the weather that made her decline my visit: she had
-been closeted with a doctor of the country from Dayr
-el Kamar, the son of that <i>Metta</i> of whom mention has
-been made in a former part of these pages as having
-bequeathed his family as a legacy to her. He was come,
-as it was supposed, to give his opinion on her case.
-I took no umbrage at this. Lady Hester and I differed
-<i>toto cœlo</i> on medical points; and she told me very often,
-after discussions of this sort, that she had invited me
-to come this time, not as her physician, but as a friend;
-one in whom she had confidence to settle her debts.</p>
-
-<p>The muleteers had been sent on the 7th of February
-to Mar Elias, to bring away the effects which had been
-lying there, rotting and spoiling, since Miss Williams’s
-death. I accompanied them to superintend the moving,
-as also to pay a visit to General Loustaunau. Heavens!
-what waste was I witness to! In one closet was a
-beautiful wax miniature of Mr. Pitt, a portrait of the
-Duke of York, some other pictures, stationery, glass,
-china, medicines, &amp;c., enough for a family. In one
-room were carpets, cushions, counterpanes, mattresses,
-pillows, all completely destroyed by mould and damp.
-In a store-room were large japan canisters with tea,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">251</span>
-preserves, sugar, wine, lamps, &amp;c. From another room,
-(the roof of which had fallen in at the time of the
-great earthquake,) had disappeared, according to Lady
-Hester’s account, 3 cwt. of copper utensils, in cauldrons,
-boilers, saucepans, kettles, round platters, called <i>sennéyah</i>,
-and many other things. A leather portmanteau
-lay with the lock cut out; a trunk had its hinges
-wrenched off; and both were emptied of their contents.
-Everywhere proofs of pillage were manifest, and the
-village of Abra was notoriously thriving by it. For
-ten years this plundering system had been going on,
-and yet what still remained would have almost filled a
-house. Among other things were papers and boxes
-of seeds, roots, dried plants, and a variety of such
-matters, which Lady Hester had collected: “for,”
-she would say, “the importance of people’s pursuits
-is judged in a different way by different individuals.
-For example, Sir Joseph <a id="chg6"></a>Banks would think I had
-done wonders if I found a spider that had two more
-joints than another in his hind-leg; and Sir Abraham
-Hume would embrace me if I had got a coin not in
-his collection; but I have hoarded up something for
-everybody. And yet, whether I have done good for
-humanity or for science, those English give me credit
-for nothing, and never even once ask how I got into
-debt.”</p>
-
-<p>February 10.—I spent four hours with Lady Hester
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">252</span>
-Stanhope this evening. She was very ill, and greatly
-convulsed during the greater part of the time:—she
-moaned a good deal—yet, in the intervals of ease that
-she got, she had two baskets of good things packed up
-as a present to an old French widow, and two for an
-infirm old man, her pensioner, residing at Sayda.</p>
-
-<p>Monday, February 13.—Lady Hester to-day dictated
-the following letter to Sir Edward Sugden:—</p>
-
-
-<p class="p2 center">
-<i>Lady Hester Stanhope to Sir Edward Sugden.</i></p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p class="right r2">
-Jôon, February 12, 1838.</p>
-
-<p class="indent5">Sir,</p>
-
-<p>Born an aristocrat (for this assurance I received
-from your father, whom it appeared to annoy as much
-as it delighted me), with these genuine feelings it will
-not be necessary for me to make any excuses for
-bringing so abruptly before you a subject, which relates
-to this cause as well as that of justice.</p>
-
-<p>I will not bore you with long details; for it will be
-sufficient for you to know that after my arrival in the
-East I was not regarded by any class of persons with
-the same eyes of suspicion as strangers generally are.
-I have had it in my power, without making use of
-intrigue or subterfuge on my part, or hurting the
-religious or political feeling of others in any way, to
-hear and investigate things which had never yet been
-investigated. This fortunate circumstance does not
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">253</span>
-relate to those who profess Islamism alone, but to all
-the curious religions (not sects) which are to be found
-in the different parts of the East. Not that I have
-learned the secrets of one religion to betray them to
-another—on the contrary, I have observed an inviolable
-silence with all; but it has served to enlighten,
-as well as consolidate my own ideas, and given me an
-opportunity of seeking corroboratory evidence of many
-wonderfully important and abstract things, which has
-been hitherto very satisfactory.</p>
-
-<p>The revolutions and public calamities, which often
-take place in what is called a semi-barbarous country,
-call for great presence of mind and energy, and a
-degree of humanity and liberality unknown in Europe.
-To have unfortunate sufferers starving at your gate
-until you have had an opportunity of inquiring into
-their private life and character, and of investigating
-how far it is likely to endanger your own life, or risk
-your property, in receiving them—these reflections are
-not made in the East. One takes one’s chance; and if
-one wishes to keep up the character of either an Eastern
-monarch or an Eastern peasant, you must treat even an
-enemy in misfortune <i lang="fr">avec les mêmes égards</i> that you
-would do a friend. Starting upon this principle (which
-is, indeed, a natural one, and was always mine), there
-were times in which I have been obliged to spend more
-money than I could well afford, and this has been the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">254</span>
-cause of my incurring debts; not that I owe a farthing
-to a poor peasant or a tradesman, but all to usurers
-and rascals, that have lent their money out at an
-exorbitant interest. You may judge of their conscience.
-In the last levy of troops, made about two
-months ago by Ibrahim Pasha, some rich peasants
-gave 100 per cent. for six months for money to buy
-off their sons who were conscripts.</p>
-
-<p>I often abuse the English; and for why? because
-they have nearly lost their national character. The
-aristocracy is a proud, morose, inactive class of men,
-having no great fundamental principles to guide them,
-and not half the power that they give to themselves—very
-little more worthy of being trusted by their Sovereign
-than by the people—full of ideas, all egotistical,
-and full of their own importance and weight in a
-country, which may differ from an ounce to a pound
-in twenty-four hours by the wavering political line of
-conduct that they may observe during that time, and
-which neither secures the confidence of the people, nor
-the friendship of their Sovereign. And these columns
-of state may be reckoned a sort of ministers without
-responsibility, but who ought to be willing at all times
-to make every possible sacrifice for the honour of the
-crown and for the good of the people in cases of
-emergency and misfortune.</p>
-
-<p>Had I been an English peer, do you suppose I
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">255</span>
-would have allowed the Duke of York’s debts to
-remain unpaid? I should have laid down a large sum,
-and have engaged my brethren to have done the same.
-If I had not succeeded, I should have broken my
-coronet, and have considered myself of neither greater
-nor smaller importance than the sign of a duke’s
-head in front of a public-house. But, ever willing to
-come forward with my life and property, I should
-expect that the Sovereign would treat me with
-respect, * * * * * *</p>
-
-<p>I have been written to by the Consul-General for
-Egypt and Syria, Colonel Campbell, that, if I do not
-pay <em>one</em> of my numerous creditors, I shall be deprived
-of my pension. I should like to see that person come
-forward who dares to threaten a Pitt! Having given
-themselves a supposed right over the pension, they
-may take it all. In the early part of my life, there
-was nothing I feared so much as plague, shipwreck,
-and debt; it has been my fate to suffer from them all.
-Respecting my debts, of course I had expectations of
-their being settled; but if I was deceived in these
-expectations, I kept in view the sale of my pension,
-as well as of an annuity of £1500 a-year, left me by
-my brother, if the worst came to the worst. The
-importance of the plan I was pursuing must, as you
-can easily imagine, have appeared most arbitrary,
-from my coolly deliberating that the moment might
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">256</span>
-arrive when I should make myself a beggar; but I
-should have done my duty. What sort of right,
-then, had the Queen to meddle with my affairs, and
-to give orders, in total ignorance of the subject,
-upon the strength of an appeal from a man whose
-claims might be half fabulous, and to offer me the
-indignity of forbidding a foreign consul to sign the
-certificate that I was among the number of the living,
-in order to get my pension into her hands? * *
-I have written a few lines on the subject, and there is
-my final determination:—“I shall give up my pension,
-and with it the name of an English subject, and
-the slavery that is entailed upon it.” I have too
-much confidence in the great Disposer of all things,
-and in the magnificent star that has hitherto borne
-me above the heads of my enemies, to feel that I have
-done a rash act. I can be anything but ignoble, or
-belie the origin from which I sprang.</p>
-
-<p>I have been assured by those not likely to deceive
-me, that a large property has been left me in Ireland,
-which has been concealed from me by my relations.
-I have put this business into the hands of Sir Francis
-Burdett; but should I in future require a law opinion
-upon the subject, <em>the little aristocratical rascal</em> (whose
-acquaintance I was about to make when a child, had
-not a democratical quirk of my father’s been the
-reason of shutting up his family for some time in the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">257</span>
-country, and preventing the execution of your father’s
-intention of presenting you to me) will not, I hope,
-take it ill that I should apply to his superior talents
-for advice.</p>
-
-<p>There is a horrible jealousy respecting the friendship
-that exists between me and Mr. Henry Guys,
-the French Consul at Beyrout. His grandfather, a
-learned old gentleman, was in constant correspondence
-with the great Lord Chesterfield. It is natural, therefore,
-that his son, the present Mr. Guys’ father, should
-feel interested about me when I first came into the
-country, and Mr. Henry Guys has always put into
-execution his father’s friendly intentions towards me.
-He is a very respectable man, and stands very high in
-the estimation of all classes of persons: and, as at
-one time there was no English consul or agent at
-Sayda, the French agent sent a certificate of my life
-four times a-year to England. At the death of this
-man, Mr. Guys sent it himself. If you honour me
-with a reply, I request you to address your letter to
-him (<i lang="fr">aux soins de <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> le Chevalier Henri Guys, Consul
-de France à Beyrout</i>), notwithstanding he has been
-named for Aleppo; as it is the only way I am likely
-to receive my letters unopened, or perhaps at all.</p>
-
-<p class="right">
-Believe me, with esteem and regard, yours,<br>
-<br>
-<span class="smcap r2">H. L. Stanhope.</span></p>
-</div><!--end blockquote-->
-
-<hr class="tb">
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">258</span>
-I was much exhausted to-day. I had written six
-hours to her dictation the preceding day, and now sat
-talking until midnight; but, from the late hour at
-which I left her, it was as usual impossible for me to
-note down even a hundredth part of what she said.
-For example, it is now nearly one o’clock in the
-morning; and much as I could wish, whilst my recollection
-is fresh, to make a few memorandums of the
-many things she has been saying, my eyelids droop,
-and I am forced to lay down my pen: yet one anecdote
-I must try to commit to paper. In reading over
-the letter to Sir Edward Sugden, she made the following
-remark: “The peers in England may be compared
-to doctors who have made their fortunes: if they continue
-to practise, they do it out of regard to some
-particular families, or from humane motives. They
-know better than those who are sick what is good for
-them, because they have had long practice; and, if
-their sons are no doctors, they have heard so much
-talk about the matter, that they sit in a corner, and
-watch the effect of the medicine.”</p>
-
-<p>I was struck with the resemblance of Lady Hester’s
-style to Junius’s in her letter to Sir Edward. This
-led me to reflect, as I had observed on many occasions,
-that Lady Hester’s language was the counterpart of
-her grandfather’s, whether Lord Chatham might not
-have been the author of Junius’s Letters; but it has
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">259</span>
-since been suggested to me that there would be an
-absurdity in such a supposition (for I had no opportunity
-of consulting books where I was), because some of
-the most eloquent passages of Junius are his panegyrics
-on Lord Chatham, and it is not likely that he would
-have been guilty of writing a eulogium on himself;
-however, I mentioned it to her. She answered, “My
-grandfather was perfectly capable and likely to write
-and do things which no human being would dream
-came from his hands. I once met with one of his
-spies,” continued she, “a woman of the common class,
-who had passed her life dressed in man’s clothes: in
-this way she went, as a sailor, to America, and used
-to write him letters as if to a sweetheart, giving an
-account of the enemy’s ships and plans in a most
-masterly way, in the description of a box of tools, or
-in something so unlike the thing in question that no
-suspicion could be had of the meaning of the contents.
-This woman by accident passed me at a watering-place,
-whilst I was sitting near the sea-side
-talking to my brother, and stopped short on hearing
-the sound of my voice, which was so much like my
-grandfather’s that it struck her—and there is nothing
-extraordinary in this: I have known a horse do the
-same thing. My father had two piebald horses: they
-were very vicious, and hated one of the grooms so,
-that, one day, whilst he was taking them out for
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">260</span>
-exercise, one threw him, and the other flew at him,
-and attempted to strike him with his fore-feet; but, as
-he could not succeed, the other, that had run off,
-turned back, seized the groom with his teeth, and bit
-him and shook him: that very horse went blind, and
-got into an innkeeper’s hands, who made a post-horse
-of him. One day, on the high road, I saw him, and
-made an exclamation to somebody who was with me.
-The horse, although blind, knew my voice, and
-stopped short, just like the woman. I too was struck
-with the woman’s manner; and, without saying anything,
-went next morning at daylight, before anybody
-was about, to the same spot, and, finding the woman
-there again, inquired who and what she was. A conversation
-ensued, and the woman was delighted, she
-said, to behold once again something that reminded
-her of her old employer. As for the ministers of the
-present day, she observed, they are good for nothing:
-when I went to prefer my claim for a pension, one
-called me Goody-two-shoes, and told me to go about
-my business.</p>
-
-<p>“A government should never employ spies of the
-description generally chosen—men of a certain appearance
-and information, who may be enabled to mix
-in genteel society: they are always known or suspected.
-My grandfather pursued quite a different
-plan. His spies were among such people as Logmagi*
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">261</span>
-*—a hardy sailor, who would get at any risk into a
-port, to see how many ships there were, and how
-many effective men—or a pedlar, to enter a camp—and
-the like. This was the way he got information as
-to the state of the armament at Toulon: and such a
-one was the woman I have just told you about, who
-knew me by the sound of my voice.</p>
-
-<p>“There were two hairdressers in London, the best
-spies Buonaparte had. A hairdresser, generally speaking,
-must be a man of talent—so must a cook; for a
-cook must know such a variety of things, about which
-no settled rules can be laid down, and he must have
-great judgment.</p>
-
-<p>“Do you think I did not immediately perceive that
-those four Germans we met at —— were spies?—directly.
-I never told B**** and Lord S**** because
-they would have let it out again: François was
-the only one who knew it besides myself. He took an
-opportunity one day of saying to me, when nobody
-was by, ‘My lady, one of those Germans....’—‘Yes,
-yes, François, I understand you,’ answered I, before
-he had said three words: ‘you need not put me on
-my guard, but I am much obliged to you.’—‘Why,
-my lady,’ said François, ‘when I was one day standing
-sentry at Buonaparte’s tent, there was one of those
-very gentlemen I have seen go in and out: I recollect
-his face perfectly.’ François was right, doctor: there
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">262</span>
-they were—there was the sick one, and the learned
-one, and the musician, and the officer—for all sorts of
-persons.</p>
-
-<p>“You recollect, when we were at Constantinople,
-one day I went to meet the Count de la Tour Maubourg
-on the banks of the Bosphorus, and he intimated
-to me that I had kept him waiting. ‘Yes,’
-said I, ‘there was a spy following my boat: I knew
-him directly, and wanted to prevent his dogging me.’
-‘Pooh! nonsense,’ replied Mr. de la T. M.: but we
-had not talked for half an hour, when, lo! there he
-was, taking a look at us. Next day, when I saw
-Mr. Canning, ‘Oh! Lady Hester,’ said he, ‘how did
-you spend your day yesterday?’—‘Why,’ answered
-I, ‘your spy did not spoil it.’—‘Ah!’ rejoined he,
-laughing—for he perceived at once it was of no use to
-make a mystery of what he had done—‘you should
-not do such things—I must write it home to government.’—‘Yes,’
-said I, ‘I’ll write a letter, too, in this
-way:—My lord, your excellent young minister, to
-show his gallantry, has begun his diplomatic career
-by watching ladies in their assignations, &amp;c., &amp;c.’ and
-then I laughed at him, and then I talked seriously
-with him, till I worked on his feelings in a way you
-can’t think!</p>
-
-<p>“Spies, as I said before, should never be what are
-called gentlemen, or have the appearance of such; for,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">263</span>
-however well they may be paid, somebody else will
-always pay them better;—unless fortune should throw
-in your way a man of integrity, who, from loyalty or
-a love of his country, will adventure everything for
-the cause he is engaged in: such a man is another
-sort of a thing!”</p>
-
-<p>February 14.—Being Wednesday, I was, as usual,
-deprived of the honour of seeing Lady Hester until
-night; I therefore remained with my family, and,
-having recovered the lost spoon, which my servant
-produced out of fear of Hamâady’s examination, pretending
-to have found it, I took the opportunity of
-settling his wages and turned him away.</p>
-
-<p>After sunset I waited on her. She was in low
-spirits. “I am very weak,” said she. “Look at my
-veins—they did not use to be so: look at my arms,
-too—mere skin and bone.” She pointed to the state
-of her room: “See how filthy it is again already,”
-she observed; “and if I say a word, those wretches
-seem not to mind me—they snub me, doctor.”</p>
-
-<p>She attempted to dictate the letter she proposed
-writing to the Duke of Wellington, but was unable.
-We drank tea. “Do you know,” she said, “when
-old Malti” (this was the name Mr. Abella, the
-English agent, was generally designated by) “came
-in such a hurry, the other day, with Colonel Campbell’s
-letter, and made such a fuss about delivering it
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">264</span>
-with his own hand, people fancied I was going to
-die, and that he was come up to seal my effects the
-moment the breath should be out of my body. But,
-if I do die, they sha’n’t seal anything of mine, I’ll
-take care of that; for I am no longer an English subject,
-and therefore they have nothing to do with me.”</p>
-
-<p>Again she asked me to take my pen and paper, and
-returned to the Duke of Wellington’s letter. “I
-can’t collect my ideas,” she said: “one while I am
-thinking of what Mr. Pitt said of him; then of the
-letter he wrote when invited down to the country ball;
-then of what he is now: so put down your paper, and
-ring for a pipe. The duke is a man self-taught, for
-he was always in dissipation. I recollect, one day,
-Mr. Pitt came into the drawing-room to me—‘Oh!’
-said he, ‘how I have been bored by Sir Sydney
-coming with his box full of papers, and keeping me
-for a couple of hours, when I had so much to do!’ I
-observed to him that heroes were generally vain:
-‘Lord Nelson is so.’ ‘So he is,’ replied Mr. Pitt;
-‘but not like Sir Sydney: and how different is
-Arthur Wellesley, who has just quitted me! He has
-given me details so clear upon affairs in India! and
-he talked of them, too, as if he had been a surgeon of
-a regiment, and had nothing to do with them; so that
-I know not which to admire most, his modesty or his
-talents: and yet the fate of India depends upon them.’
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">265</span>
-Then, doctor, when I recollect the letter he wrote to
-Edward Bouverie, in which he said that he could not
-come down to the ball which Bouverie had invited
-him to, for that his only corbeau coat was so bad he
-was ashamed to appear in it, I reflect what a rise he
-has had in the world. Bouverie said—‘You would
-like to dance with him amazingly, Lady Hester: he is
-a good fellow.’</p>
-
-<p>“He was at first, doctor, nothing but what hundreds
-of others are in a country town—a man who
-danced, and drank hard. His star has done every
-thing for him; for he is not a great general.<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> He is
-no tactician, nor has he any of those great qualities
-that make a Cæsar, or a Pompey, or even a Buonaparte.
-As for the battle of Waterloo, both French
-and English have told me that it was a lucky battle
-for him, but nothing more. I don’t think he acted
-well at Paris: nor did the soldiers like him.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">266</span>
-Thursday, February 15.—This morning, the letter
-to the Duke of Wellington was written.</p>
-
-<hr class="tb">
-
-<p class="p2 center">
-<i>Lady Hester Stanhope to the Duke of Wellington.</i></p>
-
-<div class="blockquot">
-<p class="right r2">
-Jôon, February 13, 1838.<br>
-</p>
-
-<p class="indent5">My dear Duke,</p>
-
-<p>If you merit but half the feeling and eloquent praise
-I heard bestowed upon you shortly before I saw you
-for the first time, you are the last man in the world
-either to be offended or to misconstrue my motives in
-writing to you upon the subject in question, or not to
-know how to account for the warmth of the expressions
-I may make use of, which are only characteristic
-of my disposition.</p>
-
-<p>Your Grace’s long residence in the East will have
-taught you that there is no common rate character in
-England an adequate judge what manner of living best
-answers among a semi-barbarous people, and how little
-possible it is to measure one’s expenses where frequent
-revolutions and petty wars are carried on without any
-provision for the sufferers, from its being considered
-the duty of every one to assist them as his humanity
-may dictate or as his circumstances may afford.</p>
-
-<p>Acre besieged for seven months! some days, 7,000
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">267</span>
-balls thrown in in twenty-four hours!—at last, taken
-by storm, and little more than 200 of the garrison remaining!—then
-the wretched inhabitants, who expected
-to find succour from their old friends in the
-country, finding their backs turned upon them in the
-dread and awe they stood in of Ibrahim Pasha; nay,
-it is very strange to say that the Franks likewise held
-back in a most extraordinary manner. Therefore,
-these unhappy people had no resource but in me, and
-I did the best I could for them all. Mahomet Ali,
-Ibrahim Pasha, Sheriff Pasha, all set at me at once, in
-order to make me give up certain persons, who immediately
-would have lost their heads for having fought
-well in the cause which they were engaged in. I opposed
-them all round single-handed, and said that I
-neither protected these persons in the English or
-French name, but in my own, as a poor Arab, who
-would not give up an unhappy being but with his own
-life; that there was no other chance of making me
-bend by any other means than by attempting mine.
-In this manner I saved some unfortunate beings,
-whom I got rid of by degrees, by sending them back
-to their own country, or providing for them at a distance
-in some way or another. Can you, as a soldier,
-blame me for what I have done? I should have acted
-in the same way before your eyes to the victims of
-your own sword. Then the host of orphans, and
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">268</span>
-widows, and little children, who, to feed or clothe for
-nearly two years, took away all the ready money with
-which I ought in part to have paid my debts, and
-caused new ones!—yet I am no swindler, and will not
-appear like one. Your Queen had no business to
-meddle in my affairs. In due time, please God, I
-should have known how to arrange to satisfy everybody,
-even if I left myself a beggar. If she pretends
-to have a right to stop my pension, I resign it altogether,
-as well as the name of an English subject; for
-there is no family that has served their country and
-the crown more faithfully than mine has done, and I
-am not inclined to be treated with <i lang="fr">moins d’égards</i>
-than was formerly shown to a gentleman-like highwayman.</p>
-
-<p>I have been every day in expectation of a reply from
-Sir F. Burdett respecting a large property which is
-said to have been left me in Ireland, and which has
-been concealed from me for many years. In case of
-its coming into my hands, I shall still not keep my
-pension, in order to cut off every communication with
-the English Government, from whom only proceed
-acts of folly, which any moment may rebound upon
-an individual. I chose Sir Francis Burdett to look
-into my affairs, because I believe him to be a truly
-conscientious honest man. Although we always disagreed
-upon politics, we were always the best friends,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">269</span>
-and it appears to me that he is beginning to see things
-in their proper light. * * * *
-All that I have to entreat of your Grace is to allow
-me to appear in the light in which I really stand—attached
-to humanity, and attached to royalty, and
-attached to the claims that one human being has upon
-another. Nor can I allow myself to be deemed an
-intriguer; because I have said here, in all societies,
-that persons who abet those who attempt to shake
-the throne of Sultan Mahmoud shake the throne of
-their own sovereign, and, therefore, commit high
-treason: and among that class of persons I do not
-choose to rank myself. Nor am I to be reckoned an incendiary,
-when I seek to vindicate my own character,
-that never was marked with either baseness or folly:—it
-may have been, perhaps, with too little consideration
-for what are called by the world my own interests,
-and which I, in fact, despise, or at least only
-consider in a secondary point of view. There is
-nobody more capable of making the Queen understand
-that a Pitt is a unique race than your Grace: there is
-no trifling with them.</p>
-
-<p>I have sent a duplicate of the enclosed letter to Her
-Majesty to my Lord Palmerston, through the hands
-of the English Consul, Mr. Moore. If it has not
-reached her safe, I hope that you will see that this
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">270</span>
-one does: or otherwise I shall put it in the <cite>Augsburg
-Gazette</cite>, or in an American newspaper.<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p>
-
-<p class="center">* &emsp; * &emsp; * &emsp; * &emsp; *</p>
-
-<p class="right r2">
-<span class="smcap">Hester Lucy Stanhope.</span></p>
-</div><!--end blockquote-->
-
-<hr class="tb">
-
-<p>At eleven at night I joined her at tea in her bed-room.
-She then asked me to read all the letters over,
-to see if anything wanted correction. After that,
-calling for her old parchment-covered blotting-book,
-she took them one by one, and folded them herself,
-“in order,” as she said, “to give me instructions on
-that head.” Generally speaking, she never seemed
-more happy than when she had a huge packet of
-despatches to put up: I dare say it reminded her of
-former times.</p>
-
-<p>She began—“Now, doctor, a letter to a great man
-should fold over exactly to the middle—thus. Lord!
-what counting-house paper have you got here?—this
-will never do” (it was the thin paper common in
-France as letter-paper). I told her it was the very
-best there was in the house, and added, to quiet her,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">271</span>
-that thick paper, when fumigated in quarantine, as
-this must be, generally seemed to me to suffer more
-than thin; which is the fact. “Humph—ah! well,
-it is too late now to alter it; so it must go as it is.”
-She then folded the cover with great exactitude;
-but, looking round her, she cried, “There, now,
-that black beast has not given me the seal!” (ding,
-ding). “Zezefôon, where’s the seal?” Zezefôon was
-the only servant who was permitted to touch the seal,
-and she always had orders to put it away carefully,
-so that the other maids should not know where it
-was, for fear they should lend it to some rascal, (like
-Girius Gemmel, she would say,) who would put her
-signature to some forged letter or paper: and Zezefôon,
-as is customary with uneducated persons, hid it
-very often so carefully that she could not find it herself.
-After turning books and papers upside down, at
-last she produced it.</p>
-
-<p>Whilst melting the wax in the candle, Lady
-Hester went on:—“Doctor, you never now can seal a
-letter decently: you once used to do it tolerably well,
-but now you have lost your memory and all your
-faculties, from talking nothing but rubbish and
-empty nonsense to those nasty women; and that’s
-the reason why you never listen to anything one
-says, and answer ‘yes,’ and ‘no,’ without knowing
-to what.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">272</span>
-I gave her the letters in succession to seal, until
-exhausted by the effort—for now the least thing was
-too much for her—she fell back in her bed. She
-roused herself again, and said, “Now let’s direct
-them: where is the one to the Queen? Write
-Victoria Regina—nothing else—in the middle ... that
-will do very well. Whose is that?—the
-Speaker’s: very well. I wonder if it <em>is</em> the brother
-I used to play driving horses with; for there were
-several brothers. Now, look for his address—James—ah!
-that’s him: direct ‘To the Right Hon.
-Speaker’ ... no, stop: put ‘To the Right Hon.
-James Abercrombie, with three et ceteras, Carlton
-Gardens.’”</p>
-
-<p>The next letter was the Duke of Wellington’s.
-Lady Hester said, “Let me see—he’s a field marshal—ah,
-never mind: you must begin—‘To His
-Grace the Duke of Wellington, K.G.’” I accordingly
-did so, and, not knowing how much more was coming
-to complete the superscription, I put it all, for fear of
-wanting room, into one line. Her eye was on me as
-I wrote. “What’s that?—show it me?” she cried out;
-and, taking the letter in her hands, she put on her
-spectacles. What an exclamation burst from her!
-“Good God, doctor! are you mad?—what can you
-mean?—what is this vulgar ignorance, not to know
-that ‘His Grace’ should be in one line, and ‘The
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">273</span>
-Duke of Wellington, K.G.’ in the other: what people
-will he fancy I am got among! why, the lowest clerk
-in the Foreign Office would not have made such a
-blunder: this is your fine Oxford education!” and
-then she gave a deep sigh, as if in utter despair, to
-think that a letter should go forth from her hands so
-different in paper, seal, and address, from those of
-her early days, when she reigned in Downing Street,
-co-equal with Mr. Pitt. Now it was a rickety old
-card-table, a rush-bottomed chair, a white pipe-clay
-inkstand, wax that would not be used in a counting-house
-in Cheapside; and both the Sultaness and her
-vizir (for so I shall presume to style her and myself),
-fitting their spectacles on their noses, equally blind,
-equally old, and almost equally ailing.</p>
-
-<p>I finished the address to the Duke. “How many
-et ceteras have you put?” asked Lady Hester:—“what!
-only two? I suppose you think he’s a
-nobody!” The remaining letters were directed without
-farther trouble, but, by some unaccountable
-blunder, Sir Edward Sugden was made a Sir Charles
-of. A long deliberation ensued, whether the letter to
-Her Majesty should be enclosed in a cover to Lord
-Palmerston, or whether it should be left to be seen by
-the English consul at Beyrout, to frighten him.</p>
-
-<p>It was now three o’clock in the morning. I quitted
-Lady Hester, and had Ali Hayshem, the confidential
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">274</span>
-messenger, called out of his bed. I repeated to him
-Lady Hester’s instructions as follows:—“You are to
-take this packet, and start at sunrise precisely—not
-before, and not after—and to take care you deliver
-the letters into <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys’s hands before sunset: for it
-is Friday, and Friday is an auspicious day. There
-are ten piasters for your two days’ keep, and let no
-one know where you are going, nor for what.”</p>
-
-<p>Ali was accustomed to this business—laid his hand
-on his head to signify that should answer for his
-fidelity—made a low salàam—went to the cook for his
-five bread-cakes—turned in again upon his libàd—pulled
-his counterpane over his body, face and all, and,
-I dare say, was punctual to his hour and his instructions.
-Men of this sort, who are generally chosen
-from the peasantry, are invaluable as foot-messengers.
-With a <i>naboot</i> or small bludgeon, well knobbed at
-one end, and with a few bread-cakes in their girdle,
-they will set off at any hour, in any weather, for any
-place, and go as quick as a horseman. They sleep
-anywhere and anyhow, and deliver their messages and
-letters with exceeding punctuality. Ali was a handsome
-fellow, the picture of health, fearless of danger,
-and a great favourite with Lady Hester, to whose service
-he was devoted; therefore, at every Byràm, Ali
-was sure to be seen in a new suit of clothes, the envy
-of the men, and the admiration of all the girls of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">275</span>
-Jôon: but he knew how to make a proper use of his
-money. Already he had begun to trade with some
-success in silk, advancing small sums in the winter to
-the poor women who breed silkworms, for which he
-received silk in payment: this he resold in the city;
-and those who may chance to meet with Ali ten years
-hence might find in him a warm tradesman, smoking
-his pipe in the midst of his obsequious dependants,
-and dignified with the title of Shaykh or Maalem.</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a>
- Lady Hester one day said, “I have a little angel under my command,
-the angel of my star—such a sweet little creature!—not like those
-ridiculous ones who are fiddling in Italian pictures. What fools
-painters are, to think angels are made so!”</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a>
-Mr. Joseph Green, lecturer on anatomy at the Royal Academy.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a>
-There is a passage in an interesting domestic tale recently
-published (<cite>The History of Margaret Catchpole</cite>, by the <abbr title="Reverend">Rev.</abbr> Mr.
-Cobbold), which has a strange coincidence with the superstitious belief
-of the Syrians, considering how widely the English are separated from
-them. It is as follows: “He told me he was the most venemous snake in
-the country. His bite is attended with swelling and blackness of the
-body, and, <em>when the sun goes down</em>, death ensues.”—<abbr title="Volume two, page">Vol. ii., p.</abbr>
-188.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a>
-I once showed Lady Hester Stanhope Raphael’s Madonna della
-Seggiola, to hear what she would say about it. “The face,” she
-observed, “is congruous in all the lineaments; they all belong to the
-same star; but I don’t like that style of face—that is not the star
-that pleases me;” and she returned me the engraving, with some signs
-of impatience. I imagined, as there was a maid in the room, that she
-did so, lest the girl should report that she adored the Virgin Mary. I
-then showed her a painting of the Nozze Aldobrandini. “Ah!” said she,
-after examining it, “that figure,” pointing to the one farthest on
-the spectator’s right hand, “is the star I like, only the eyes do not
-belong to that countenance: if the eyes were as they ought to be, that
-figure would be charming.” There was much truth in the observations she
-made on the blunders of artists and sculptors in giving incongruous
-features to their works. An ordinary observer has only to look at the
-statues of the ancients, and he will find that the forehead, nose,
-mouth, ears, and limbs of a Minerva, are such as he will see in grave
-and dignified women, totally different from the same features in a
-Diana or a Venus. Each temperament, each class of beings in nature, has
-its external marks, which never vary in character, but only in degree.
-But painters are accustomed to make a selection of what they suppose
-the most perfect Grecian lines, and to clap them on to a body, whether
-it be for a muse, an amazon, a nymph, or a courtezan: this is obviously
-false. “There are some women who are born courtezans,” Lady Hester
-would say, “and whatever their station in life is, they must be so.
-Thus, Lady —— was so by nature; from the time she first came out, she
-had the air of a woman of the town: Mademoiselle de ——, who married
-one of the ——, nothing could have ever altered her. There was a woman
-for great passions! it was almost indecent to be where she was.”</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a>
-This alludes to the childhood of Lady Hester Stanhope, when she
-had played at horses with Mr. Abercrombie.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a>
-Lady Hester one day showed me fourteen of these articles of
-ladies’ apparel, six or seven of which were in slits and holes, so that
-a maid-servant in England would not have accepted them as a gift: she
-said her maids had torn them by their rough handling in dressing her.
-I had them sent to my house, and they were all mended. She expressed
-herself as grateful for this little service to my daughter and the
-governess, as if she had been a pauper clothed at their door!</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a>
-I was once speaking of the great results which might be expected
-from Messrs. Beck and Moore’s successful investigation of the natural
-phenomena of the Dead Sea: but Lady Hester damped my admiration of
-those gentlemen’s hazardous undertaking, by exclaiming that all English
-travellers were a pack of fools, and that they entirely neglected the
-objects that ought to be inquired into. “There are none of them,” said
-she, “that know half as much as I do. I’ll venture to say they never
-heard of the forty doors, all opening by one key, in which are locked
-the forty wise men who expect the Murdah. Didn’t I tell you the story
-the other day?” I answered, if she had, I must have forgotten it,
-which was fortunate, as I was always reluctant to show my dissent from
-her opinions; having, by experience, learned how necessary it was to
-proceed cautiously in doing so. “Yes, so it is,” rejoined Lady Hester:
-“I talk for half a day to you, wasting my breath and lungs, and there
-you sit like a stock or a stone—no understanding, no conviction!”</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a>
-The korbàsh is a thong of the raw hide of the buffalo or
-rhinoceros, about the length of a hand-whip, and cut tapering in a
-similar form. In the hand of a powerful flagellant it becomes an
-instrument of great torture.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a>
-There is a strong resemblance between Lady Hester’s character of
-the Duke of Wellington and that of Frederick the Great of Prussia: for
-see what Lord Malmesbury says of the latter, in his <cite>Diaries and
-Correspondence</cite>, <abbr title="volume one, page">vol. i., p.</abbr> <span class="lock">8:—</span></p>
-
-<p class="footnote">“His <em>fort</em> is not so much his courage, nor what we generally
-understand by conduct; but it consists in a surprising discernment,
-in the day of battle, how to gain the most advantageous ground, where
-to place the proper sort of arms, whether horse or foot, and in the
-quickest <i lang="fr">coup d’œil</i> to distinguish the weak part of the enemy.”</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a>
- Several lines are here wanting, owing to a half sheet of paper
-having been lost in the confusion created by fumigating papers in
-quarantine. They were highly complimentary to his grace, and their
-omission is to be regretted.
-
-</div><!--end footnotes-->
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">276</span>
-<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span> <abbr title="Nine"><span class="allsmcap">IX.</span></abbr></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="small short">Lady Hester in an alcove in her garden—Lucky days observed
-by her—Consuls’ rights—Mischief caused by Sir F. B.’s
-neglect in answering Lady Hester’s Letters—Rashes common
-in Syria—Visit of an unknown Englishman—Story of Hanah
-Messâad—Lady Hester’s love of truth—Report of her death—Michael
-Tutungi—Visit from the Chevalier Guys—His
-reception at Dayr el Mkhallas—Punishment of the shepherd,
-Câasem—Holyday of the Korbàn Byràm—Fatôon’s <i lang="fr">accouchement</i>—Lady
-Hester’s aversion to consular interference—Evenings
-at Jôon—Old Pierre—Saady.</p>
-
-
-<p class="p2">Friday, February 16, 1838.—About two in the
-afternoon, on going to pay my visit to Lady Hester
-Stanhope, I proceeded to her bed-room, thinking, as
-usual, to find her there, but was told by her maids
-she was gone into the garden. The day was overcast,
-and there was every appearance of rain. I found her
-standing in one of the garden-walks, leaning on her
-stick (such as those which elderly ladies were accustomed
-formerly to use in England, and perhaps may
-now), and pale as a ghost. “Doctor,” said she, “I
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">277</span>
-have got out of my room that those beasts may clean
-it? but, if you don’t go to them, they’ll steal everything.”
-After expressing my fears that she had
-chosen a bad day to come out, I left her. I saw her
-room put into as much order as the confusion in it
-would admit of. It was crowded with bundles one
-upon another, as before, which she dared not put into
-any other part of the house, lest they should be
-stolen.</p>
-
-<p>Independent of her desire to be more clean and
-comfortable, I guessed at once why she had left her
-bed-room to go into the garden. It was the struggle
-which the sick often make—the resolution of an unsubdued
-spirit, that finds corporeal ailments weighing
-down the body, whilst the mind is yet unsubdued. It
-was Friday too, the day in all the week she held as
-most auspicious.</p>
-
-<p>When I returned into the garden, I found her
-lying on a sofa, in a beautiful alcove, one of three or
-four that embellished her garden, and an attendant
-standing with his hands folded across his breast, in an
-attitude of respect before her. At these moments, she
-always wore the air of a Sultaness. In this very
-alcove, how often had she acted the queen, issued her
-orders, summoned delinquents before her, and enjoyed
-the semblance of that absolute power, which was
-the latent ambition of her heart! Hence it was that
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">278</span>
-she at last got rid of all European servants, because
-they would not submit to arbitrary punishments, but
-would persist in raising their voices in self-justification.
-With the Turks it was not so. Accustomed, in the
-courts of governors and Pashas, to implicit obedience
-and submission, they resigned themselves to her rule
-as a matter of course. In transferring, however, their
-servility to her, as their mistress, they also transferred
-the vices and dangers which servility engenders:
-namely, lying, theft, sycophancy, intrigue, and
-treachery.</p>
-
-<p>Saturday, February 17.—During the whole of this
-day I did not see Lady Hester, and I was not sorry
-for it. Her thoughts were now constantly running
-on the inexplicable silence of Sir Francis Burdett.
-“He is a man of honour,” she would say. “I suppose
-he has to write to Ireland, and to the right and
-left about my property; or perhaps they have got
-hold of him, too;—who knows? I am sure something
-must have happened.” As each succeeding steamboat
-arrived, a messenger was sent to Beyrout, but
-still no answer. Then she reflected what she should do,
-if Sir Francis at last should furnish her with proofs
-that no property had been left her:—beggary stared
-her in the face. In the mean time she had no means
-of raising a single farthing before the first of March,
-when she could draw for £300. But of this sum £200
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">279</span>
-were due to Mr. Dromacaiti, a Greek merchant at
-Beyrout, who had lent her money at an exorbitant
-interest, but on her word, and this, therefore, she
-would pay, I knew, if possible. During all this time,
-my family remained in almost total ignorance of what
-was going on within Lady Hester’s walls as much as
-if they had been living in China. I was also, as I
-have said above, obliged to conceal, in a great measure,
-her illness from them. They rode and walked out on
-the mountains, fed their bulbuls, enjoyed the fine climate,
-and wondered what made me look so thin and
-careworn: for thought and care preyed on my spirits,
-and I wasted away almost as perceptibly as Lady
-Hester herself.</p>
-
-<p>Sunday, February 18.—To-day Lady Hester was
-sitting up in the corner of her bed-room. Her look
-was deadly pale, and her head was wrapped up in
-flannels, just like her grandfather the last day he appeared
-in the House of Lords. Without intending it,
-everything she did bore a resemblance to that great
-man.</p>
-
-<p>Ali had returned from Beyrout without a letter.
-“Did Ali Hayshem,” she asked me, “set off at sunrise
-on Friday? I am glad he did. Do you know, I
-once sent Butrus to Beyrout to fetch money; and I
-said to him, ‘If you get in on Monday night, don’t
-come away on Tuesday or Wednesday; for those are
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">280</span>
-unlucky days; loiter away those two days, and be
-here on Thursday night. However, he paid no attention
-to my instructions, and on Wednesday evening
-he made his appearance. ‘Why did you come before
-Thursday?’ I asked him. He answered, ‘That the
-bag of money having been delivered to him, he had
-brought it immediately, and you see, Mylady, here it
-is: nobody, thank God! has robbed me.’—‘That
-does not signify,’ I told him; ‘you will see there is
-no <i>bereky</i> [blessing] in it.’ Do you know, doctor, I
-paid the people’s wages immediately, and it was well
-I did; for some ten or twelve thousand piasters, chest
-and all, disappeared the next day. ‘There, look!’
-said I to him; ‘I told you that money never would
-turn to account.’”</p>
-
-<p>The conversation reverted to Colonel Campbell’s
-letter. “I have told the secretary,” said she, “to tell
-his father, that, if he dares make his appearance here
-again, I’ll send a bullet through his body. Not one
-of them shall lay their vile hands on me or mine. I
-have strength enough to strangle him, and I would
-do it, though it should cost me my life. As for Mr.
-Moore, he may perhaps have a <i lang="la">habeas corpus</i> by him;
-but it is good for twenty-four hours only, and I should
-know how to manage. Consuls have no right over
-nobility; they may have over merchants, and such
-people: but they never shall come near me, and I
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">281</span>
-would shoot the first that dared to do it. The English
-are a set of intermeddling, nasty, vulgar, odious
-people, and I hate them all. The very Turks laugh
-at them. Out of ridicule, they told one, if he was so
-clever, to straiten a dog’s tail. Yes, he might straiten
-and straiten, but it would soon bend again; and they
-may bend me and bend me, if they can, but I fancy
-they will find it a difficult matter: for you may tell
-them that, when I have made up my mind to a thing,
-no earthly being can alter my determination. If they
-want a devil, let them try me, and they shall have
-enough of it.</p>
-
-<p>“When the steamboat came, and brought no letter
-to-day from Sir Francis Burdett, you thought I
-should be ill on receiving the news: but I am not a
-fool. I suppose he is occupied with his daughter’s
-legacy, or with parliamentary business.”</p>
-
-<p>I had received a letter from a lady, which I had
-occasion to read to her. When I had done, and
-she had expressed her thanks for the flower-seeds sent
-her, she added, “What I do not like in Mrs. U.’s
-letter is that foolish way of making a preamble about
-her not liking to leave so much white paper in all its
-purity, and all those turns and phrases which people
-use. That was very well for a Swift or a Pope, who,
-having promised to write to somebody once a fortnight,
-and having nothing to say, made a great number
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">282</span>
-of points to fill up the paper; but a letter that
-has matter in it should be written with a distinct
-narration of the business, and that’s all. Do you
-think such people as Mr. Pitt or Lord Chatham, my
-grandfather, liked those nonsensical phrases? No,
-they threw the letter aside, or else cast their eyes over
-it to see if, on the other page, there was anything to
-answer about.”</p>
-
-<p>February 19.—I was riding this morning with my
-family beyond the village, which is separated by a deep
-valley from Lady Hester’s residence, when I saw two
-servants on the verge of the opposite hill, vociferating—“Come
-directly, come instantly!” and waving their
-white turbans. I reflected that, if I put my horse into
-a gallop, the people of the village would immediately
-conclude that Lady Hester was dying; and the news
-(as news always gains by distance) would be the next
-day at Sayda that she was dead: I therefore continued
-the same pace; and, although the servants redoubled
-their signs and cries, I steadily retraced my steps.
-When I had dismounted, I was told her ladyship was
-in a deplorable way, unlike any thing they had ever seen.
-I hurried to her bed-room. She was sitting on the
-side of her bed, weeping and uttering those extraordinary
-cries, which I have before compared to something
-hardly human. She clasped her hands and
-exclaimed repeatedly, “Oh God! oh, God! what
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">283</span>
-misery! what misery!” When she was a little
-calmed, and I could collect from her what was the
-matter, she told me that, having fallen into a doze,
-she awoke with a sense of suffocation from tightness
-across her chest, and, being unable to ring or call, she
-thought she should have died: “thus,” said she, “am
-I treated like a dog, with nobody to administer to my
-wants;” and so she went on in the usual strain. I
-was suffering at this time from the nettlerash, but
-treated it lightly, and thought Lady Hester would do
-so too: until, having unluckily alluded to it, a fresh
-source of uneasiness was inadvertently started. “Good
-God, doctor!” she cried, “to come out of doors with
-a nettlerash on you! go to your house immediately;
-get to bed, keep yourself warm, and remain there
-until it is cured. After four or five days, take such
-and such things; then go to the bath, then take some
-bark, &amp;c., &amp;c. How many persons have I known go
-mad and die from it! You treat it as nothing? why,
-you will drive me crazy. In God’s name, never mind
-<em>me</em>; only go and take care of yourself. You will act in
-your own usual inconsiderate manner, and I shall have
-to bury another in this house. Oh, God! oh, God!
-what am I doomed to!” and then followed fresh cries
-and fresh lamentations.</p>
-
-<p>Could Sir Francis Burdett have seen all this, and
-have known that five words of a letter, sent a month
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">284</span>
-or two sooner, in answer to her inquiries about the property
-she thought was left her, would have probably
-saved all this excitement, he would have found reason
-to reproach himself for his long silence. I knew the
-workings of her mind full well, and that her proud
-spirit, wounded by the general neglect she met with,
-vented itself in tears, seemingly, for other causes than
-the real ones. I recollected a succession of similar
-scenes about twenty years before at Mar Elias, when
-she was expecting letters from the Duke of Buckingham;
-but then she was sounder in bodily health, and
-could better bear such convulsive paroxysms of grief:
-now, she was labouring under pulmonary disease, was
-old, was in distress, and the consequences might prove
-fatal.</p>
-
-<p>I left her before dinner. “Good by, doctor!” she
-said, in a kind tone: “I cannot tell you how much I
-am obliged to you for everything you do for me; and
-send me a servant twice a day to let me know how you
-are. I shall be uneasy about you: I can’t help it:
-from my childhood I have been so. How many times
-in my life have I spent days and days in trying to
-make others comfortable! I have been the slave of
-others, and never got any thanks for it.”</p>
-
-<p>I went to my house, collected all the money that
-remained, which was about eleven pounds, and sent it
-to her to meet the current expenses of the household:
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">285</span>
-for so she wished, that I might not be annoyed, she
-said, and have the rash driven in on my brain.</p>
-
-<p>I experienced no ill effects from the nettlerash. Few
-persons, new to the climate of Syria, escape a rash of
-some description, sometimes pustular, sometimes
-miliary, but most frequently in the form called prickly
-heat, which generally attacks them in summer or
-autumn, and is truly distressing by the pricking sensation
-it produces on the skin, as if thousands of needle-points
-were penetrating the cuticle. Little is required
-in such cases but cool diet, fruit, and diluents. I
-performed my quarantine of four days, in compliance
-with Lady Hester’s wishes, and then returned to my
-customary mode of life.</p>
-
-<p>Saturday, February 24.—As I had anticipated, a
-report had become very general in Beyrout and in the
-Mountain that Lady Hester was dead, and I received
-a letter from <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys acquainting me with it. This
-report was confirmed by an English gentleman, who
-presented himself at my gate this day after breakfast.
-I was carpentering at the time, and went down the
-yard to him with my hatchet and chisel in my hand.
-He seemed not to know what to make of me, dressed
-as I was in Turkish clothes, with a beard, and with
-my sleeves turned up like a mechanic. He held out a
-letter to me, addressed in a fair hand to Lady Hester:
-I told him this was not her gate, and that a little
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">286</span>
-beyond he would find it. He said he had heard she
-was dead: I assured him that was not the case, but
-that she was greatly indisposed. I regretted to myself
-that I could not ask him in, or enter into conversation
-with him; but Lady Hester had exacted from me a
-solemn promise that I never would hold any parley
-with English travellers, until I had first conferred
-with her on the subject, and had described them, so
-that she might obtain the necessary indications to
-enable her to guess what their business was, or until
-she had read their letter of introduction, if they bore
-one. So he quitted me, first asking whether I was an
-Englishman; to which I answered that I left him to
-judge. He appeared to be about twenty-one years of
-age: he had with him for his servant a Ragusan,
-whom my servant knew, and who, he assured me, was
-a drunken reprobate. Short as the stop at the gate
-was, the Ragusan found time to tell the other that he
-had famous wages: I think it was eight dollars a
-month. Now I gave mine, who was also a European,
-four, which was considered good pay, the rate being,
-in Lady Hester’s house, from one to three. Europeans,
-however, always get more than people of the
-country, and have more wants to satisfy. How many
-travellers are obliged, on their landing in these countries,
-to take fellows into their service without a
-character, outcasts of society, and who in England
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">287</span>
-would hardly be allowed to see the outside of a
-gaol!</p>
-
-<p>Of this English gentleman Lady Hester never spoke
-to me, nor did she ever even allude to his visit: he
-did not see her, and, I presume, continued his road;
-but, if these pages ever meet his eye, he may be
-assured that he would have met with a hospitable
-reception, had she been well enough to receive him, or
-had I been at liberty to entertain him.</p>
-
-<p>Whilst at dinner, a servant came to say Lady
-Hester would be glad to see me in the evening. I
-found her weak and wan: her cheeks were sunken,
-and her voice was less distinct than usual; for never
-was there a person who spoke generally with so clear
-an enunciation. Logmagi was with her. Instead of
-receiving her welcome, and those obliging expressions
-which she usually employed even after the most
-trifling ailment, she addressed me harshly, and seemed
-to take pains to mortify me by using slighting expressions
-in Arabic that Logmagi might understand what
-she said. The theme of her conversation was the debasement
-of men who suffered themselves to be controlled
-by their wives. Although to mortify people
-was one of her constant practices through life, whether
-in action, correspondence, or conversation, yet it never
-was done to gratify any malignant feelings of her own,
-but from a fearless disregard of the conventional rules
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">288</span>
-of civilized society, where she hoped to rescue an individual
-from debasement, or counteract the machinations
-of designing and wicked men. On this principle it is
-true, likewise, that she would deliberately inflict those
-incurable insults which cover a man with a sort of
-shame for life; as may be shown, for example, by the
-case of Mr. Hanah Messâad, the son of the British
-agent at Beyrout, one of whose whiskers and eyebrows
-was shaved off before the whole village, for having
-made an assertion then supposed to be false, but which
-was afterwards, by her own confession to me, admitted
-to be true.</p>
-
-<p>Hanah, or John Messâad, a handsome young man,
-a native of Beyrout, and the son of a former English
-vice-consul, was interpreter and secretary to Lady
-Hester for some time, and her ladyship has since bestowed
-great praise, in my presence, on his capacity,
-usefulness, and knowledge of languages. There was
-in her service also Michael Tutungi, son of an Armenian,
-who had been under-dragoman, as I understood,
-to the English embassy at Constantinople. Messâad,
-it was thought, was jealous of Michael.</p>
-
-<p>It was reported in the family that Michael had
-been seen under a tree in very close conversation with
-a peasant girl, and the report was traced to Messâad.
-Now, the Emir Beshýr affected, or really felt, a great
-horror of all licentiousness, and never failed to bastinado
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">289</span>
-severely every man detected, in his principality,
-in any such conduct. Lady Hester knew what imputations
-might be cast on her establishment, if such
-things were left unnoticed; and, fearing that Messâad’s
-intrigues (of which she thought this report but
-a link) might injure Michael’s character, and destroy
-his prospects of getting a place in the English embassy
-at Constantinople, to which he had some pretensions
-from his father’s services, she resolved to save him by
-making a signal example of Messâad.</p>
-
-<p>She, therefore, ordered all the villagers from Jôon
-to be assembled on the green in front of her house,
-and sent for Mustafa, the barber, from Sayda, with
-two or three other tradesmen to be witnesses. Seating
-herself on a temporary divan, with all the assembly in
-a circle around her, not a soul dreaming what was
-going to take place, and Michael and Messâad standing
-in respectful attitudes, with their arms crossed,
-and covered, down to the fingers’ ends,<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> with their
-benyshes, by her side, she began: “That young
-man,” said she, pointing to Michael, “is accused of
-irregularities with” (here she mentioned the girl’s
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">290</span>
-name, and the place and time of the meeting). “Now,
-if any one of you knows him to have been guilty of
-similar actions, or if, from his general conduct, under
-similar circumstances, any one of you thinks the thing
-probable, speak out, for I wish to do justice. Messâad
-is his accuser: they are both my people, and
-equally entitled to impartiality.” As nobody answered,
-she appealed to them all again, and all replied
-they did not believe it.</p>
-
-<p>She then turned to Messâad, and said: “Sir, you
-have accused this young man, who is about to be
-launched into the world, and has only his good name
-to help him on, of abominable things: where are your
-witnesses?” Messâad, frightened out of his senses,
-replied, “that he had no witnesses; that he had seen,
-with his own eyes, what he had asserted, and, therefore,
-knew it to be so: but, as he was alone, it must
-rest on his own word.” Her ladyship told him his
-word would not do against the concurring testimony
-of all the servants, and of a whole village; and she
-added, in a judge-like tone, “As your mouth and
-your eye have offended, the stigma shall remain on
-them. Servants, seize and hold him; and, barber,
-shave off one side of his mustachios and one eyebrow.”</p>
-
-<p>This was done. Michael was kept about a month
-or two, in order that the protection he enjoyed might
-seal his unblemished reputation, and then was packed
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">291</span>
-off to Constantinople. “Thus,” said Lady Hester,
-“I saved a young man from destruction. Messâad
-has now a good place under the Sardinian consul at
-Beyrout; his eyebrows and mustachios are grown
-again; he has married, and has a family; and I dare
-say the Sardinian consul, if he knows anything of the
-story, thinks not a bit the worse of him.”</p>
-
-<p>The above are the words in which Lady Hester, on
-the 20th of January, 1831, related this singular
-punishment, inflicted with the best intentions on poor
-Messâad. One evening, in 1837, when writing a
-letter to the same Messâad, for certain commissions
-which he had to execute for her ladyship, who was in the
-habit of employing him to buy pipes, cloth, and sundry
-other articles found in the shops at Beyrout, she spoke
-to me as follows. “You know, doctor, all that affair
-about Michael and Messâad, and how I had one side
-of his face shaved. Well, I found out afterwards
-that what Messâad had said was every bit of it true.
-I have made it up to him since as well as I could:
-he does not want abilities, and kept my house in excellent
-order whilst he was with me.”</p>
-
-<p>But this was not the first time Lady Hester had
-resorted to this singular mode of punishment; some
-years before, a chastisement for similar frailties, not
-unlike that which Messâad underwent, as far as regarded
-the eyebrows, fell to the lot of a peasant girl
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">292</span>
-in her ladyship’s service at a village called Mushmôoshy.
-This was in the year 1813. How fallible
-are the most clearsighted persons is the only comment
-which can be made on such unintentional errors!</p>
-
-<p>For those who were not exempt from the common
-weaknesses of our nature she was a dangerous person
-to hold intercourse with. “Live at a distance from
-my lady,” General Loustaunau used to say to
-Mrs. M. (when she wanted to remove from Mar
-Elias to Dar Jôon, in order to be near me); “live
-at a distance, or you will find, to your cost, that
-her neighbourhood is a hell.” But be it said, to her
-honour, that it was from an unfeigned horror of everything
-mean, dishonest, or vicious, she so resolutely
-refused to keep terms with people who suffered themselves
-to be led into the commission of such acts; and
-her indignation descended with equal impartiality on
-friends and foes when they happened to deserve it.
-Her disposition to utter the truth, whether painful or
-disagreeable, overruled all other considerations.</p>
-
-<p>Few people conversed with her, or received a letter
-from her, without being sensible of some expression or
-innuendo, which they were obliged to treat as a joke
-at the moment, but which was sure to leave its sting
-behind. Of upwards of a hundred letters which I
-have penned for her at her dictation to correspondents
-of every rank in life, there were few which did not
-contain some touch of merited sarcasm or reproof;
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">293</span>
-except those which were expressly written to alleviate
-distress, or encourage the hopeful efforts of modest
-worth. Never was there so inflexible a judge, or one
-who would do what she thought right, come what
-would of it. <i lang="la">Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum</i>, might have
-been written on her escutcheon.</p>
-
-<p>Sunday, February 25.—Having recovered her tranquillity,
-she was to-day all kindness. I mentioned to
-her the report rife in Beyrout respecting her death,
-as <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys had written it. She observed on it, “If
-I do die, those consuls, thank God, can have nothing
-to do with me! I am no English subject, and they
-have no right to seal up my effects. Why do I keep
-some of my servants, although I know them to be
-desperate rascals, but because they have one or two
-qualities useful to me? It would not do for every one
-to run the risk, but it will for me, who know how to
-manage them. For example: I have got two that I
-can depend upon for shooting a man, or giving a
-consul a good blow, if he dares to set his foot within
-my doors, so as to prevent his ever coming again;
-and such are what I want just now.”</p>
-
-<p>She turned over in her mind how she could raise
-a little money, and bethought herself of Mr. Michael
-Tutungi, the Armenian, of Constantinople, who had
-formerly served her in the capacity of dragoman. To
-him she had written in 1836, offering him the same
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">294</span>
-situation he had held before, and, on his promise to
-come, had forwarded to him 500 dollars for the expenses
-of his journey and for some commissions: but
-he subsequently declined the engagement, neither had
-he executed the commissions. She therefore desired
-me to draw a bill on him, payable to <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys’s order,
-and to request <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys to discount it; for, during
-my nettlerash, Lady Hester had given away the
-greatest part of the 1,190 piasters to a family ruined
-by the earthquake. It was in vain to represent to
-her that she was in want of the money herself: “I
-can’t help it,” she would say; “I am not mistress of
-myself on such occasions.”</p>
-
-<p>Tuesday, February 27.—Lady Hester got up, went
-into her garden, and felt better. She had at last
-found out that repletion, arising even from what would
-be called small quantities of food and drink in health,
-was very injurious in sickness; and she had grown
-more moderate in her diet, not swallowing one liquid
-upon another, nor eating four or five times a day.
-Honey and butter mixed was now what she derived
-most benefit from, and spermaceti linctuses. The
-moment she found anything soothed her cough, she
-immediately sent off an order to Beyrout for an immense
-quantity of it, or to Europe, if at Beyrout it
-was not to be had: she was never satisfied that her
-medicine-chest was full enough. It will hardly be
-credited that of Epsom salts she had a cask full, of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">295</span>
-the size of a firkin. She masticated aniseeds as a
-remedy against dyspepsia, and smoked them sprinkled
-on the tobacco of her pipe: of course, they were very
-injurious to her, but it was idle to remonstrate.</p>
-
-<p>February 29.—Lady Hester’s first topic of conversation
-to-day was her maids. “What a <i>hywán</i>
-[beast] is that <i>Sâady</i>!” she said: “when she awakes
-in the morning, she crawls on all-fours exactly like an
-animal. I am convinced she is nothing more: her
-back is only fit to carry a pair of panniers.” I agreed
-with her ladyship, and told her what I had seen her
-do the day before. With one springing lift she raised
-from the floor to her head a circular <i>mankàl</i> or chafingdish,
-two feet in diameter, and piled up with live
-coals—and, without holding it, but merely balancing
-it on her head, she stooped perpendicularly, and
-seized with her two hands another mankàl of baked
-earth of equal size, filled with live coals also, and,
-lifting it, carried them both at once into the drawing-room
-to warm the apartment. These are the feats of
-dexterity and strength in which Syrian women excel,
-and in which they far surpass all European maids.</p>
-
-<p>March 1.—Monsieur Henry Guys, the French
-consul, having been advanced to the superior situation
-of Aleppo, and being about to quit our part of the
-country, arrived unexpectedly at Jôon to take his
-leave. It was Tuesday, and just after sunset, when
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">296</span>
-he entered the gate. Lady Hester had, about a
-quarter of an hour before, hurried me away from
-her, as the sun was going to set, and it would have
-been unlucky, had I left her a minute after the sun
-was down. “I shall not see you to-morrow,” said
-she, “as it will be Wednesday:” therefore, when she
-was told that Monsieur Guys was come, it discomposed
-her very much, and she sent word that, whatever
-his business was, she could not see him until
-after sunset next day.</p>
-
-<p>As <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys was thus transferred to me for twenty-four
-hours, I took the opportunity of letting him
-know how disquieted I felt at having such great
-responsibility on my shoulders, whilst Lady Hester
-was so ill, and surrounded by a set of servants whom
-I considered as so many cut-throats.</p>
-
-<p>My position was extremely uncomfortable. Should
-Lady Hester die, I foresaw that I should be exposed,
-alone as I was, to many difficulties and dangers. The
-Druze insurrection afforded every facility to an
-assassin or robber for putting himself beyond the
-reach of justice: since, in about five or six hours, he
-could find a sure refuge from capture. He revived
-my spirits by assuring me I need be under no alarm.
-“All of them are known,” said he, “and have their
-families and relations hereabouts: that one circumstance
-must always be a check upon them. If they
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">297</span>
-were not natives of the province, then I should say
-you were not safe among them. As for Lady Hester,
-you know her determined character—if she is resolved
-to keep them, you cannot help it. There is one,”
-added he, “whom I could wish not to be here; I
-thought him gone a year ago:” this was the one whom
-Lady Hester relied on for sending a bullet through
-the consul’s body.</p>
-
-<p>There is a large stone edifice of great extent, distant
-about three-quarters of a mile, as the crow flies, from
-the village of Jôon, more like a fortress than the
-peaceable habitation of cenobites. It is the monastery
-of <i>Dayr el Mkhallas</i>, or the Saviour, and contains about
-fifty friars of the Greek Catholic church, which repudiates
-the pope, recognizing as its spiritual head its
-own patriarch. <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys enjoyed the unlimited confidence
-of these people as the well-tried and efficient
-friend of the Catholic church throughout Syria; and it
-was no sooner known that he was in the neighbourhood,
-than the superior of the monastery gave him to
-understand that a visit from him would be received as
-a great honour by the monks. <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys devoted the
-morning to this gratifying object, and his reception
-was in the highest degree flattering. When he arrived
-at the foot of the Mount, on the summit of which the
-monastery stands, he was saluted by a merry chime of
-church-bells, and then the whole body of the friars,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">298</span>
-with the cross borne before them, came out in procession
-to meet him. The greatest ceremony was observed
-on the occasion, and sherbet, coffee, pipes,
-aspersion of rose-water, and homage, were lavished on
-him, not less in the hope of securing a continuation of
-his good offices, than as expressive of gratitude for
-past kindnesses: for no man holding official rank in
-Syria has ever enjoyed more popularity, or obtained
-more general consideration, than the Chevalier Guys.
-Descended from an ancient family of Provence, in
-which the consular rank may be almost said to have
-become hereditary, the Levant saw, at the beginning
-of the present century, the rare occurrence of three
-brothers holding consulships at the same time.</p>
-
-<p>After dinner, <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys was summoned by Lady
-Hester Stanhope, and I availed myself of the opportunity
-it afforded me of remaining at home for the
-evening. The next morning he departed before I was
-up; but, being anxious to ascertain his opinions of
-Lady Hester’s situation, I mounted my horse, and,
-by taking a short but somewhat dangerous path down
-the mountains, I overtook him. Nothing particular,
-however, had transpired in their conversation, which
-lasted for four hours; but he told me that he was
-shocked to find her so much altered, and that he had
-never heard such a hollow sepulchral cough. He
-added that, frequently during the time he was with
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">299</span>
-her, she fell back on the sofa from exhaustion. She
-spoke, too, a good deal, and in rather an odd way, of
-extraordinary sights she had seen, of two apparitions
-that had appeared to her, and of serpents near Tarsûs,
-which go in troops devouring all before them, and with
-a tone of conviction as if she believed it all. “What
-does it mean,” he asked me—“and why do you let
-her smoke so much?”</p>
-
-<p>March 2.—Lady Hester was now getting better
-slowly, but, as usual, her strength no sooner began to
-return than it brought out all the unmanageable points
-of her character in full relief. Something happened
-in the house which ruffled her, and produced a discussion
-between us, I hardly know how; but it ended by
-her calling me a crabbed old fool: upon which I observed,
-that I never heard such expressions from the
-lips of ladies before. This set her off upon her inexhaustible
-theme of fearless speaking. “If you were a
-duke,” said she, “I would use exactly the same expressions.”—“Your
-ladyship’s talents,” I ventured
-to observe again, “are inexpressibly great, but, without
-questioning that, I only lament the intemperate
-use of them.” Taking up this observation, she dwelt
-at great length upon the “sweetness of her temper,”
-and I made my peace at last, by saying that a physician
-should be the last person to complain of the
-irritability of his patients. Apophthegms of this
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">300</span>
-submissive character were never lost upon her, provided
-they were true, as well as apologetic; so pipes
-were ordered, and we entered into an armistice for the
-rest of the evening.</p>
-
-<p>A curious but characteristic incident occurred about
-this time. In the ravines of the mountains, where the
-few living creatures that are to be found may be supposed
-to be drawn into closer communion by a common
-sense of loneliness, a shepherd named Câasem, who
-was nearly fifty years old, formed a <i lang="fr">liaison</i> with a
-village girl, whose occupation consisted in leading a
-cow about in the solitary green nooks where any scanty
-herbage was to be secured. The circumstance reached
-Lady Hester’s ears before it was known to anybody
-else, and she immediately ordered the man to be flogged
-at break of day, with instructions that nobody should
-tell him why or wherefore. “He will know what it
-is for,” she exclaimed; then turning reproachfully to
-Logmagi, to whom the execution of the order was
-entrusted, she added:—“How is it you leave me to
-be the first to discover these disgraceful acts, giving
-the Emir Beshýr an excuse to say that I encourage
-depravity in my servants, when it is your duty to
-know everything that passes about my premises?”
-Logmagi went, gave the shepherd a beating, and sent
-him about his business. Lady Hester used to justify
-severities of this description on the ground that it prevented
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">301</span>
-the recurrence of similar licentiousness, and
-“kept the fellows in order.”</p>
-
-<p>March 5.—This being the vigil of the <i>Korbàn
-Byràm</i>, or the Mahometan Easter, which is their
-great holyday, Lady Hester, who had previously given
-her orders to a person who had some reputation as a
-pastrycook, despatched at twelve at night three servants,
-each with a <i>sennýah</i>, or round tray, on which
-they were to bring back from Sayda by daylight the
-<i>baklâawy</i>, <i>mamool</i>, and <i>karýby</i>, three delicious sorts of
-sweet cakes, which are scarcely exceeded in delicacy
-by the choicest pastry of Europe.</p>
-
-<p>At noon, the servants, dressed in all their new
-finery, sat down to a copious dinner composed of the
-most luxurious Eastern dishes. But there was no
-wine; for, whatever transgressions these people may
-commit in that way in private, they never touch wine
-in public. Logmagi and some others were known not
-to be much troubled with such scruples, when they
-could indulge themselves in secret: but Logmagi
-always excused himself on the score of being a Freemason,
-which is held in Turkey to be equivalent to a
-jovial fellow who does not care much what he does.
-The women, also, had their own feast, and a piece of
-gold the value of twenty piasters was presented to each
-of the servants. The day was literally abandoned to
-pleasure; but what a contrast do the sober manners of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">302</span>
-Mahometans form to those of Europeans? Gambling
-and noisy revels are out of the question in the tranquil
-and easy delights in this simple race. Dancing is
-generally confined to the boys, or to some buffoon who
-gets up and wriggles about to the music of a small
-tambourine, beaten with a single stick and producing
-a dull sound, which they consider musical, and which
-habit renders not disagreeable even to European ears.
-Every man smokes his pipe; and a good story-teller
-(for such a one is rarely wanting in a party of a dozen,)
-relates some traditionary tale, which absorbs for the
-time all the faculties of his hearers. The cook was
-one of this sort, a Christian of the village of Abra, a
-shrewd fellow, who went by the name of <i>Dyk</i>, or the
-Cock, from his rather strutting air, or from the vigorous
-exercise of his authority over his wife, whom
-he beat every now and then to keep her in proper discipline—a
-redeeming quality in the eyes of Lady
-Hester, who otherwise would have dismissed him from
-her service.</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester’s astrological powers were put to a
-practical test to-day. Fatôom, one of her maid servants,
-whose name has frequently occurred in these
-pages, required my medical services, under the following
-circumstances. About six years before, having, in
-league with Zeyneb, a black girl, and some men of the
-village, robbed her mistress of several valuable effects,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">303</span>
-she was turned away: but, upon exhibiting great
-repentance, she was taken back again. Lady Hester
-found no difficulty, as may be supposed, in extracting
-from her a confession of the system of plunder that
-had been carried on, and the names of her accomplices.
-“I could hang them all,” was her constant expression
-in speaking of them. Fatôom had been in her ladyship’s
-service ten or eleven years, and was not yet
-twenty; and, being very pretty, and decked out in the
-finery to which she was enabled to help herself by her
-share of the plunder, she had vanity enough, when she
-was turned away, to hope that she should get at least
-an aga for a husband: but she was disappointed, and
-was obliged to put up with a small farmer. She consequently
-came back a married woman, in poor plight
-as to circumstances, with the prospect of having her
-difficulties aggravated by a speedy increase to her
-cares. On this day, 5th March, Fatôom complained
-of pains. There was not a moment to be lost: the
-midwife was instantly sent for; Fatôom was hurried
-away to her mother’s in the village, and, before the
-expiration of a quarter of an hour, she gave birth to a
-boy.</p>
-
-<p>As soon as Lady Hester learned the result, she
-requested me to go and see her. I found Fatôom
-sitting on a mattress on the floor (for nobody in the
-East has a bedstead) with from fifteen to twenty
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">304</span>
-women squatted around her, the midwife supporting
-her back, and the child lying by her, covered with a
-corner of the quilt. Fatôom, very yellow, looked as
-if she had been in a great fright, and was astonished
-there was so little in it. After feeling her pulse, and
-delivering to her mother a basket of good things, such
-as lump sugar, six or eight sorts of spices, &amp;c., with
-which it is customary to make the caudle upon these
-occasions, as also a new counterpane, and two silk
-pillows, for her lying-in present, I took a glance at
-the village gossips. There they were, holding forth
-much in the same way as the peasantry in other
-countries, with this difference, that here my presence
-was no restraint, and the minutest details of the recent
-event were discussed with as little reserve as if they
-had been talking of the ordinary incidents of the day.</p>
-
-<p>Having returned to Lady Hester with an account
-of what I had seen, she immediately set about casting
-the infant’s nativity, first ascertaining accurately the
-hour at which he was born—a quarter before two.
-“He will have,” said she, “arched eyebrows, rolling
-eyes, and a nose so and so: he will be a devil, violent
-in his passions, but soon pacified: his fingers will be
-long and taper, without being skinny and bony:” and
-thus she went on, in a manner so impressed with
-faith and earnestness, that it is not to be wondered at
-how persons of good judgment have lent their ears to
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">305</span>
-astrologers, where the study has been fortified by a
-previous knowledge of man, his temperaments, and
-the innate and external characteristics of passions, of
-virtue, and of vice. She gave him the name of Selim,
-and sent word to say his star agreed with hers very
-well. This was good news for Fatôom, as it was equivalent
-to Lady Hester’s taking charge of the infant.</p>
-
-<p>The cradle had already been prepared: it was of
-wood, painted green, something like a trough, and
-perforated at the bottom, as is usual in the East. A
-tube of wood with a bowl to it, exactly of the form of a
-tobacco-pipe, is tied to the child’s waist, a rude but
-ingenious contrivance to save trouble to the nurse, the
-bowl serving as the immediate recipient, and the tube
-passing through the side of the cradle.<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p>
-
-<p>March 7.—This being Wednesday, Lady Hester,
-as usual, was invisible. What she did on these mysterious
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">306</span>
-days I never heard: for a person once away from
-her might as well divine how the man in the moon
-was employed as guess how she was passing her time.</p>
-
-<p>Thursday, March 8.—I saw Lady Hester about
-four o’clock: she was in a very irritable state: she
-complained bitterly, as usual, of her servants—of their
-neglect, ignorance, and heartlessness: she said she
-would rather be surrounded by robbers; for there is
-some principle amongst thieves. “Oh!” she exclaimed,
-“that I could find one human being who knew his
-Creator!”</p>
-
-<p>She went on:—“I have had a very bad night, and
-whether I shall live or die, I don’t know: but this I
-tell you beforehand, that, if I do die, I wish to be
-buried, like a dog, in a bit of earth just big enough to
-hold this miserable skin, or else to be burnt, or thrown
-into the sea. And, as I am no longer an English
-subject, no consuls, nor any English of any sort, shall
-approach me in my last moments; for, if they do, I
-will have them shot. Therefore, the day before I die,
-if I know it, I shall order you away, and not only
-you, but everything English; and if you don’t go, I
-warn you beforehand, you must take the consequences.
-Let me be scorched by the burning sun<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a>—frozen by the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">307</span>
-cold blast—let my ashes fly in the air—let the wolves
-and jackals devour my carcase;—let”—here the
-agitation she was in, and which had kept increasing,
-brought on a severe fit of coughing, and it was a
-quarter of an hour before she could recover strength
-enough to speak again. Her exhaustion reduced her
-to a little calm.</p>
-
-<p>After dinner I saw her again, but now her irritability
-had passed away. “Take your chair,” said she,
-“here by the bed—turn your back to the window to
-save your poor eyes from the light—never mind me:
-there—I am afraid I have overworked them by so
-much writing. But I know, if you did not write for
-me, you would be writing or reading for yourself:
-you are just like my sister Griselda.”</p>
-
-<p>She went on:—“You are angry with me, I dare
-say, because I told you I would not have you near me
-when I am dying: but I suppose I may do as I please.
-No English consul shall touch me or my effects: no:
-when I was going, sooner than that, I will call in all
-the thieves and robbers I can find, and set them to
-plunder and destroy everything. But I shall not die
-so:—I shall die as <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Elias and Isaac did; and,
-before that, I shall have to wade through blood up to
-here” (and she drew her hand across her neck), “nor
-will a spark of commiseration move me. The <i>bab el
-tobi</i> [gate of pardon] will then be shut; for neither
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">308</span>
-king, nor priest, nor peasant, shall enter when that
-hour comes. You and others will then repent of not
-having listened to my words.”</p>
-
-<p>Saturday, March 10.—Let us take this night as a
-sample of many others, to show sometimes what was
-doing in a solitary residence on Mount Lebanon, in
-which the vivid fancies of European writers had conjured
-up an imaginary mode of existence wholly
-different from the sad reality. From eight o’clock at
-night until one in the morning, Lady Hester Stanhope
-had kept the house in commotion, upon matters
-which would seem so foreign to her rank, her fortune,
-and her supposed occupations, that, when enumerated,
-they will hardly be believed. First, there was a deliberation
-of half an hour to decide whether it would
-be best to send the mules on the next day or the day
-after for wheat: then several servants were to be
-questioned, one after another, in order to compare
-their conflicting testimony, whether her fields of barley
-had come up, and how high, and what crops they promised;
-next, whether the oranges, now fit to be
-gathered, should be put under the gardener’s care, or
-into a store-room in the house. Then ensued a conversation
-with me, whether Fatôom was not playing some
-deep game in pretending to be separated from her
-husband; and so on, with a score of other topics
-equally unimportant, but with all of which she worried
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">309</span>
-herself so effectively, that it seemed as if she wilfully
-sought refuge in such petty annoyances, for the sake
-of escaping from secret heart-burnings, which she did
-not choose to betray. In this way she had the secretary
-called up twice from his bed, and the bailiff
-once, keeping the rest of the servants in continual
-motion, whilst I was obliged, in civility, to sit and
-listen to it all.</p>
-
-<p>Old Pierre had been sent for from Dayr el Kamar.
-As a person who figures occasionally in these domestic
-scenes, I must make the reader a little acquainted
-with his history. In the year 1812, when Lady
-Hester was travelling from Jerusalem along the coast
-towards Damascus, we reached Dayr el Kamar,
-where Pierre came and offered himself to me as a servant.
-I took him; but his various talents as a cook,
-a guide, and an interpreter, and most of all as an adventurer,
-who had an extraordinary fund of anecdotes
-to relate, soon brought him into notice with Lady
-Hester, and she asked him of me for her own service.
-He accompanied us to Palmyra and through different
-parts of Syria, resided with her at Latakia and Mar
-Elias, and remained in her service many years. Having
-amassed a little money, he obtained permission to
-retire to Dayr el Kamar, where he kept a cook’s-shop,
-or, if you will, a tavern.</p>
-
-<p>But Lady Hester never lost sight of him. From
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">310</span>
-time to time, when any traveller left her house to
-traverse Mount Lebanon, or to journey to Damascus
-and Aleppo, or even to Palmyra, Pierre was recommended
-as interpreter and guide, and, I understand,
-always discharged his duties to the satisfaction of his
-employers. He is known to many Englishmen,
-among the rest to the <abbr title="Reverend">Rev.</abbr> Mr. Way, who seems to
-have been very good to him; and Pierre, on his side,
-retains a most grateful remembrance of that gentleman’s
-bounty.</p>
-
-<p>Pierre springs from a good family, by the name of
-Marquis or Marquise, originally of Marseilles, and
-afterwards established as merchants in Syria. When
-he was a boy, he accompanied an uncle to France,
-who took him to Paris. The uncle wore the Levantine
-dress; and, having some business to transact connected
-with government, was on one occasion summoned
-to Versailles, where the court was. Chance or
-design threw Pierre in the way of the king, Louis XVI.,
-who talked to him about the Levant, as did also Monsieur,
-afterwards Louis XVIII. Of this conversation
-Pierre never failed to make considerable boast.</p>
-
-<p>On his return to Syria, Pierre lived with his relations,
-until Buonaparte laid siege to Acre, where his
-knowledge of the French language recommended him
-to the notice of that general. He bore a commission
-in his army; and, on the retreat of the French into
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">311</span>
-Egypt, accompanied them, and remained there until
-the final evacuation, when he obtained a pension; but
-of which, he declared, he had never touched a sou, in
-consequence of residing abroad.</p>
-
-<p>Mons. Urbain, a contributor to the <cite>Temps</cite>, happening
-to meet with Pierre when he was travelling in
-Syria, was so highly diverted with his anecdotes, that,
-on his return to France, he wrote no less than three
-<i lang="fr">feuilletons</i>, or notices on <cite lang="fr">Le Vieux Pierre</cite>; at least, so
-I was informed by Monsieur Guys.</p>
-
-<p>Pierre had been sent for by Lady Hester Stanhope,
-and she assigned him a room close to the doors of her
-own quadrangle, that he might be always within call.
-Pierre was a man exceedingly thin, with an aquiline
-nose, and a steady eye, full of gasconade to be mistaken
-for courage, wonderfully loquacious, and deeply
-imbued with all the mystic doctrines that Lady
-Hester sometimes preached about. But Pierre’s chief
-merit lay in his star, which, she assured me, was so
-propitious to her, that it could calm her convulsions,
-and lay her to sleep, when books, narcotics, and everything
-else failed.</p>
-
-<p>Glancing in these desultory memorials from one
-person to another, I may here mention, that one of
-the maids, named Sâady, incurred the particular aversion
-of Lady Hester, just as strongly as Pierre was
-favoured with her partiality. Poor Sâady never
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">312</span>
-entered her presence without being saluted by some
-epithet of disgust or opprobium: yet Sâady worked
-from morning till night, and seldom got to bed until
-three, four, or five o’clock in the morning. But Lady
-Hester insisted on the necessity of treating her servants
-in this way for the purpose of keeping them on
-the alert; and she would frequently quote her grandfather’s
-example to prove how powerful particular
-aversions were in people of exalted minds—such as
-hers and his. In this way she kept herself in a state
-of constant irritation, as if she were determined obstinately
-to oppose the inroads of disease by increased
-exertion, exactly in proportion as her physical strength
-became more and more weakened and reduced.</p>
-
-<p>Monday, March 12.—Two servant boys were
-flogged by Logmagi for having quitted the courtyard
-both at the same time, when one at least was wanted
-to carry messages from the inner to the outer courts.
-These punishments were inflicted by making the delinquent
-lie at his full length flat on the ground, his
-head being held by one servant, and his feet by another
-while the stripes were administered. My disposition
-revolted at these whippings; although perhaps they
-were necessary, as Lady Hester said. The servants
-would not have borne them, but that they had in fact no
-choice, knowing well that they must either remain and
-be flogged, or be sent to the Nizàm, where they would
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">313</span>
-be flogged twice as much, with the risk of being killed
-to boot.</p>
-
-<p>Wednesday, March 14.—Lady Hester was in very
-low spirits this evening, and, as night advanced, she
-had a paroxysm of grief, which quite terrified me.
-With a ghastly and frenzied look, she kept crying
-until my heart was rent with her wretchedness.
-When I left her for the night, although she was somewhat
-composed, her image haunted me, even when
-sleep had closed my eyes.</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a>
- No dependant stands before his superior in the East without
-covering his hands with his robe or with the hanging sleeves customary
-among Orientals. In sitting, the feet and legs are likewise hidden; at
-least, so good-breeding requires, and persons alone who are on terms of
-familiarity would thrust them out, or let them hang pendent.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a>
-In the cottages of Mount Lebanon there are many things occurring
-daily which would greatly surprise an English practitioner. A luxation
-of the shoulder-joint in an infant, real or supposed, was cured,
-they told me, by taking the child by the wrist and swinging it round
-with its feet off the ground, until the bone got into place again. I
-assisted, for the second time, at the cure of a sore throat, in a man
-thirty-six years of age, who suffered a pocket-handkerchief to be drawn
-tightly round his neck until his face turned black and he was half
-strangled. The man declared the next day he was well, and the operator
-assured me it was a never-failing remedy.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a>
-
-<div class="poetry-container">
-<div class="poetry smaller" lang="it">
-    <div class="verse indent0">“Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis</div>
-    <div class="verse indent0">Arbor æstivâ recreatur aurâ,” &amp;c.</div>
-</div>
-</div>
-
-<p class="footnote">Yet Lady Hester had never read Horace.</p>
-
-</div><!--end footnotes-->
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">314</span>
-
-<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span> <abbr title="Ten"><span class="allsmcap">X.</span></abbr></h2>
-</div>
-
-<p class="small short">Visit of Mr. Vesey Forster and Mr. Knox—Lady S. N.’s
-pension and Mr. H.—Lady Hester undeservedly censured by
-English travellers—Mr. Anson and Mr. Strangways—Mr. B.
-and Mr. C.—Captain Pechell—Captain Yorke—Colonel
-Howard Vyse—Lord B.</p>
-
-
-<p class="p2">Mr. Forster and Mr. Knox, two English gentlemen,
-came up to Jôon this morning to pay a visit to
-Lady Hester. To my great surprise, I found them
-seated at the porter’s lodge among the servants, who
-were standing around them; a situation to which they
-accommodated themselves with the good sense of men
-of the world. They had sent in a message that two
-Franks were at the gate, having a letter for the Syt
-Mylady, and were patiently awaiting the result.</p>
-
-<p>I took the liberty of inquiring their names, and
-hastened to her ladyship; whilst orders were given to
-conduct them immediately to the strangers’ room.
-Lady Hester, who had got their letter in her hand,
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">315</span>
-told me one was a relation of Sir Augustus Forster,
-our ambassador at Turin. “Go instantly to them,”
-said she, “for Sir Augustus is an old friend of mine,
-and be particularly attentive to Mr. Forster—indeed,
-to both of them. Tell them, I am very sorry I can’t
-see them; for, when I get into conversation, I become
-animated, and then I feel the effects of it afterwards;
-but assure them that they are welcome to make their
-home of their present lodging for a couple of days or
-a couple of hours, or as long as they like. Do they
-look gentlemanlike?” she asked. “Ah!” continued
-she, “what a charm good-breeding gives to mankind,
-and how odious vulgarity is after it! Only reflect!
-I, who have been all my life accustomed to the most
-refined society, what I must feel sometimes to have
-nothing to do but with beasts. But go, go! and make
-them as comfortable as you can.”</p>
-
-<p>They were in the strangers’ room, which stood in a
-small garden, ornamented with a few rose-bushes,
-pomegranate and olive-trees, and some flowering
-plants. It was a little enclosure, which had by no
-means a disagreeable aspect, surrounded by a wall
-topped with prickly thorn-bushes. Once inside this
-place, the new comer could know nothing of what was
-passing without. Such were Lady Hester’s contrivances:
-everything about her must wear an air of
-mystery.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">316</span>
-I lost no time in conveying Lady Hester’s message
-to them, and, for the short hour I enjoyed the pleasure
-of their conversation, had every reason to rejoice
-in the opportunity of making their acquaintance. As
-this visit of two travellers may serve as a specimen of
-what occurred, with slight variations, on every similar
-occasion, when Englishmen came to her house, who
-were little aware how much trouble their unexpected
-arrival sometimes caused her, I shall detail what passed
-as minutely as I can.</p>
-
-<p>I had hardly paid my compliments to them, and
-inquired whether they would take an English breakfast
-or something more solid, when a message came
-from Lady Hester to say she wanted to see me for a
-moment. This was always her way. The ruling
-passion of ordering what was to be done and what was
-to be said on all occasions made her impatient about
-things passing out of her sight.</p>
-
-<p>“Well, doctor,” cried Lady Hester, “what age do
-they appear to be, and where do they come from?”
-Having satisfied her on the first head, I told her
-they were last from the Emir’s palace at Btedýn:
-then, after some trifling observation, I added, the
-Emir complained to them that <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Lamartine, in his
-recent work on Syria, had greatly compromised him
-with Ibrahim Pasha, in having said that he, the
-Emir, had entertained the most friendly dispositions
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">317</span>
-towards Buonaparte and the French during the siege
-of Acre. This the Emir denied, and averred that
-his great friend was Sir Sydney Smith: meaning,
-probably, as I observed from myself, to compliment
-his present guests at the expense of the absent French.
-“He was very civil to the two travellers,” I added,
-“and, understanding they were going to see your
-ladyship, he sent his compliments to you.”—“Ah!”
-replied she, “that looks as if he were fishing for
-friends, in case he should shortly have to fly; for they
-say that Sherýf Pasha has been defeated in the Horàn,
-and the Emir begins to tremble; for the Druzes will
-not spare him.”</p>
-
-<p>I then told Lady Hester they had refused tea or
-coffee, but, as they were come from a distance, would
-probably like something more substantial: they had
-expressed, too, a wish for a glass of lemonade. Here
-Lady Hester, suddenly raising herself in her bed, interrupted
-me with “Good God!—lemonade! why,
-the maid said that the secretary had been to ask for
-some violet syrup for them: now, which is it they
-want? Can nobody ever take upon them to direct
-the simplest thing but they must blunder? must
-everything fall upon me?”—“Well, but,” observed I,
-“lemonade, or violet syrup, it does not much matter
-which!”—“Not matter!—there it is again: and
-then who is there can make lemonade?—not a soul
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">318</span>
-but myself in the whole house: and poor I am obliged
-to wear my little strength out in doing the most
-trivial offices. Here I am; I wanted to write another
-letter to go by the steamboat, and now all my thoughts
-are driven out of my head. Zezefôon!” (ding, ding,
-ding, went the bell) “Zezefôon! order the gardener
-to bring me four or five of the finest lemons on the
-tree next the alley of roses—you know where I
-mean—and prepare a tray with glasses.” This was
-accordingly done, and Lady Hester, sitting up in
-bed, went to work squeezing lemons and making
-lemonade.</p>
-
-<p>In my way to her ladyship’s room from the strangers’,
-I had called the cook, and directed him to dress a
-mutton-chop, to make a vermicelli soup, a dish of
-spinach and eggs, a little tunny-fish salad, and with a
-cold rice pudding (which I recollected and sent for
-from my house), and some Parmesan cheese, I trusted
-there would be enough for a hasty meal. Whilst
-making the lemonade, the following conversation went
-on. “Now, doctor, what can be got for their <i lang="fr">déjeûner
-à la fourchette</i>? for there is nothing whatever
-in the house.” I mentioned what I had ordered.
-“Ah! yes,” resumed Lady Hester, “let me see:—there
-is a stew of yesterday’s, that I did not touch,
-that may be warmed up again, and some potatoes may
-be added; and then you must taste that wine that
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">319</span>
-came yesterday from Garýfy, to see if you think they
-will like it. The spinach my maid must do. Dyk”
-(the cook) “does not know how to dress spinach, but
-I have taught Zezefôon to do it very well.” (Ding,
-ding, ding.) “Zezefôon, you know how to boil
-spinach in milk, and you must garnish it with five
-eggs, one in each corner, and one in the centre.”—“Yes,
-Sytty.”—“And, Zezefôon, send the <i>yackney</i>”
-(stew) “to Dyk, and let it be warmed up for the
-strangers. They must have some of my butter and
-some of my bread. Likewise give out the silver
-spoons and knives and forks; they are under that
-cushion on the ottoman, there; and mind you count
-them when you give them to Mohammed, or they will
-steal one, and dispute with you afterwards about the
-number:—a pack of thieves! And let the cook send
-in the dishes necessary: for I will not have any of
-mine go out.</p>
-
-<p>“You must tell the travellers, doctor, and especially
-Mr. Forster, for he is an Irishman, that I have
-a great deal of Irish and Scotch blood in me, and no
-English. Tell him I have made great investigations
-on the subject of the origin of the Scotch, and could
-prove to him that they came originally from this
-country. Tell him how beautiful the Irish women
-are, and that I, having had opportunities of seeing
-some of the finest Circassians and Georgians of the
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">320</span>
-harýms of great Turks here and at Constantinople,
-think there are none like Irish women.</p>
-
-<p>“If Mr. Forster asks you anything about the
-Druzes (as he seems to interest himself concerning the
-religion of that people), say to him that the Druzes,
-the Ansàries, the Ishmäelites—all these sects—must
-and will remain a mystery to strangers. There was
-Monsieur Reynaud, one of the forty <i lang="fr">savants</i> who wrote
-the great book on Egypt, and was afterwards consul at
-Sayda—if any body could comprehend the secret, he
-could; yet, although he had four of the Druze books
-in his possession, and five learned persons of this
-country to assist him in translating and explaining
-them through a whole winter, he could make out
-nothing: because, even if you understand the text,
-you are still not a bit the wiser. Suppose, for example,
-you open a page, and you find these words—‘Do
-you use senna leaves?’ which is one of their questions
-of recognition, like similar apparently vague questions
-in freemasonry: what do you know about that? You
-may understand the answer clearly enough, so far as
-mere words go; but it is useless unless you understand
-the thing of which the words are a symbol;
-for they are all symbolical. You must know that it
-refers to an insurgent, who, in the cause of their faith,
-raised the standard of revolt, centuries ago, in the
-land where senna grows, and that it implies, ‘Do you
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">321</span>
-adopt his tenets?’ and so of other passages. The
-chiefs of their religion cannot make any disclosures;
-for, if they did, their lives would be the forfeit. Tell
-him they are a bold, sanguinary race, who will cut a
-man in pieces themselves, or see it done by others,
-and never change colour. Why, one of them, not
-long since, killed or wounded with his own hands five
-of Ibrahim Pasha’s soldiers, who were sent to seize
-him as a refractory recruit.”</p>
-
-<p>Here Lady Hester, having finished making the
-lemonade, stopped for a moment to desire Zezefôon to
-take it out and send it to the strangers’ room. She
-then resumed, “Tell them, doctor, that no people
-will bear a flogging like the Druzes. The Spartans
-were nothing to them: isn’t it the Spartans that were
-such floggers? for I am such a dunce that I never can
-recollect some things which every schoolboy knows;
-and I always said I was a dunce in some things,
-although Mr. Pitt used to say, ‘Hester, if you would
-but keep your own counsel, nobody could detect it.’
-But it is the truth, and when you talk to me of paper
-money and the funds (although I may understand for
-the moment what you try to explain to me), I forget
-it all the next morning: yet, on subjects which my
-inclination leads me to investigate, nobody has a better
-judgment. My father, with all his mathematical
-knowledge, used to say I could split a hair. Talk to
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">322</span>
-the point, was his cry: and I could bring truth to a
-point as sharp as a needle. I divested a subject of all
-extraneous matter, and there it was—you might turn
-and twist it as you would, but you must always come
-back to that.</p>
-
-<p>“The Druzes like me, and all the Emir Beshýr’s
-hatred of me arose from my friendship for the Shaykh
-Beshýr.<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> After you left me, I went to stay with him
-at Makhtâra, where he assigned me a wing of the
-palace to live in. He was a clever man, and afterwards,
-in his troubles, came to me for advice and succour: he
-offered me a third of his treasures, but I refused them.
-When he fled, the Emir Beshýr got about a third of
-them; an equal portion they say is buried: and
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">323</span>
-the remainder was carried off by his wife, but afterwards
-lost. Poor woman! she is dead now. It was
-the attempt to relieve her, amongst other causes, that
-drew me into embarrassments. She had fled—her
-husband was a captive at Acre—and the Emir was
-pursuing her in every direction to take her life. The
-snow was thick on the ground. She had with her a
-child at the breast, one two years old, and another:
-two were with the father in prison. I despatched
-people with clothes and money to relieve her immediate
-wants; they found her in the Horàn, where she
-had taken refuge with an old servant. Her daughter
-also applied to me for assistance, but I was penniless,
-and could do nothing for her. Poor girl! she was
-afterwards married, but Ibrahim Pasha cut off her
-husband’s head, and she went raving mad. To complete
-the tragedy, Hanah Abôod, one of those I sent
-to look after her, fell asleep out of weariness, after
-having returned home on foot through the snow, and
-got an inflammation in his eyes, which ended in total
-blindness. The journey back occupied I think forty
-hours. I have been obliged partially to maintain the
-poor fellow and Werdy, his wife, ever since.</p>
-
-<p>“Perhaps, doctor, Mr. Forster and Mr. Knox may
-have heard of the extraordinary conduct of the English
-government towards me; so let them know that I am
-not low-spirited about it; and, although the Queen may
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">324</span>
-think herself justified in taking away my pension, I
-would not, even if I were a beggar, change places with
-her. As for the Queen’s interfering in my affairs,
-she might just as well go and stop Sir Augustus
-Forster’s salary, on the plea that he had left his tailor’s
-bill unpaid. My debts were incurred very often for
-things I did not care about for myself. For example,
-what are books to me, who never look into them? If
-I had been like you doctors, who tell your patients to
-take turtle soup, and then contrive to be asked to
-dinner, it were another thing: but my researches were
-for the good of others, and for no advantage of my
-own.</p>
-
-<p>“When I think what I have done, and what I could
-have done if I had had more money! There was a
-book came into my hands, which the owner, not
-knowing its value, offered for my acceptance as you
-would offer an old brass candlestick. I consulted several
-persons about it; and, when all assured me it was a
-valuable manuscript, I scorned to take advantage of
-the man’s ignorance, and returned it to him, telling
-him when I was rich enough I would buy it of him.
-Ought not a person to act so?” “Undoubtedly,” I
-replied, “a person of principle would not act otherwise.”
-“Principle!” she exclaimed; “what do you
-mean by principle?—I am a Pitt.”</p>
-
-<p>As I did not understand precisely why a Pitt should
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">325</span>
-be above principle, although it would seem there is a
-species of integrity higher than principle itself, I held
-my tongue, and Lady Hester went on. “I know
-where to find a book that contains the language spoken
-by Adam and Eve:<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> the letters are a span high.
-Such things have fallen into my hands as have fallen
-into nobody’s else. I know where the serpent is that
-has the head of a man, like the one that tempted Eve.
-The cave still exists not far from Tarsûs; and the
-villages all about are exempted from the <i>miri</i> in consideration
-of feeding the serpents. Everybody in that
-neighbourhood knows it: isn’t it extraordinary? why
-don’t you answer? is it, or is it not? Good God! I
-should go mad if I were obliged to remain three whole
-days together in your society—I’m sure I should. Such
-a cold man I never saw; there is no getting an answer
-from you: however, think as you like. These serpents
-will march through the country to fight for the
-Messiah, and will devour everything before them.”
-Here she paused for about a minute, and then added,
-“I think you had better not tell them anything about
-the serpents; perhaps their minds are not prepared for
-matters of this sort.”</p>
-
-<p>I have already observed that Monsieur Guys had
-mentioned, with some surprise, the serious manner in
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">326</span>
-which Lady Hester spoke of these serpents; and, although
-he did not express it, yet he half intimated
-that he thought her intellects a little disordered: we
-shall see hereafter if they were so.</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester resumed: “But now, doctor, if you
-can spare a minute, you must write a line by the
-messenger to Monsieur Guys, and tell him I had
-begun a letter to him, but that the arrival of two
-English travellers, one of whom revived a number of
-recollections, had obliged me to stop short, and I could
-write no more. Doctor, this Mr. Forster must be
-one of the children of the Irish Speaker. He was left
-with ten; and I remember very well one day that
-H******** was standing before me at a party, making
-a number of bows and scrapes, turning up his eyes,
-and cringing before me so, that when we got home,
-Mr. Pitt said to me, ‘Hester, if I am not too curious,
-what could H******** have to say that animated him
-so much: what could he be making such fine speeches
-about: what could call forth such an exuberance of
-eloquence in him?’—‘Oh! it was nothing,’ answered
-I; ‘he was telling me that all the power of the Treasury
-was at my service—that he would take care that
-Lady S**** N*****’s pension should be got through
-the different offices immediately—that he had nothing
-so much at heart as to execute my orders—that he
-would see all that was necessary should be done according
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">327</span>
-to my wishes, and so on; but, as I despise
-the man, I only laughed at him and turned my back
-on him; for I drink at the fountain head.’</p>
-
-<p>“‘Now, this is really too good a thing,’ interrupted
-Mr. Pitt, lifting up his eyes in astonishment. ‘It
-was but this very day, at three o’clock, that he was
-urging me not to let this very pension be given, or at
-least to prolong the business for a year, if it were possible;
-till, by tiring her patience, the thing might be
-dropped, or something turn up to set it aside; adding,
-that it would be opening the door to abuses, and, if I
-granted this too readily, I should have Forster’s ten
-children to provide for.’”</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester went on: “From that day, I knew
-my man. I then said to Mr. Pitt, ‘Let me show
-him who he has to deal with; do give your orders
-that the thing may be done immediately.’—‘Oh! but
-it is too late to-night,’ said Mr. Pitt. ‘No, it is not,’
-I cried; ‘for I see a light in the Treasury.’ So I
-rang, and sent for” (here her ladyship mentioned a
-name which I could not catch, but I think it was
-Mr. Chinnery)—. When he came, I said to him,
-‘Will you be so good, sir, the first thing in the morning,
-to see that all the signatures are put to Lady
-S. N.’s paper: there is Mr. Pitt; ask him if it is so
-or not.’ Mr. Pitt of course assented, and there the
-matter ended. Doctor, I had a great deal of trouble
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">328</span>
-with those sort of people, like H——. Now, if
-Mr. Forster is about thirty-five years old, he must be
-one of that family.<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p>
-
-<p>“Do tell Mr. Forster what a pack of beasts those
-servants are. Ask him if he ever heard of women
-throwing themselves down to sleep in the middle of a
-courtyard, or on the floor of a kitchen, dragging their
-quilt after them from place to place: tell him that is
-what mine do, and that I am obliged to wait a quarter
-of an hour for a glass of water.</p>
-
-<p>“You may talk to them a little about stars, but I
-dare say you will commit some horrible blunder, as
-you always do, and that is what makes me so afraid
-of your having to say anything that concerns me.
-Tell Mr. Forster that in people’s stars lie their abilities,
-and that you may bring up a hundred men to
-be generals and another hundred to be lawyers, but
-out of these perhaps four or five only will turn out
-good for anything. When a grand Llama is to be
-chosen, why do they go about until they have found
-a particular boy with certain marks, known to the
-learned of that country—a child born under a certain
-star? It is because, when they have found such a
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">329</span>
-one, he has no occasion for instruction; he is born the
-man for their purpose.</p>
-
-<p>“Thus, the Duke of Wellington is not a general
-by trade—I mean by instruction; for, if examined
-before a court-martial on all the branches of military
-tactics, perhaps he would be found deficient. Hundreds
-may know more of them than he does: but he
-is a general by his star. He acts under a certain
-impulse, which makes him hit on the stratagem he
-ought to practise, and, without the help of previous
-study or even the suggestions of experience, he knows
-that his manœuvre is right. It was thus with me
-when I was young. People might preach and talk;
-but, when I saw them doing things or reasoning about
-them, I could at once distinguish the things that were
-right from the things that were wrong; but I could
-not say why or wherefore. My father said I was the
-best logician he ever saw—I could split a hair. The
-last time he saw me, he repeated the same words, and
-said I had but one fault, which was being too fond of
-royalty.”</p>
-
-<p>I observed here to Lady Hester, that in many
-things she reminded me of the ancient philosophers,
-to whom she bore a strong resemblance on most
-points; but that in this one particular she differed
-from them widely, as most of them were strenuously
-opposed to royalty and monarchical power. “My
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">330</span>
-liking for royalty,” she answered, “is not, indiscriminate,
-but I believe in the divine right of kings;
-for I have found it out. And you may ask Mr. Forster
-also why the bottle of oil came from India to anoint
-the kings of France. I dare say they never heard of
-Melek es Sayf, a hero whose exploits and name are
-hardly inferior in the East to those of Solomon. Is it
-not extraordinary, that in Europe they know nothing
-of those people—of him and his forty sons, all of whom
-were men of note in their time? This must be so;
-for some of the gates of Cairo are named after them.</p>
-
-<p>“If you happen to speak about the Albanians and
-the other soldiers that I had here, tell them I did not
-see them all; I only saw the most desperate, and
-those whose violence was to be kept under. When I
-admitted them to my presence, I was always alone,
-and they always wore their arms; but I never feared
-them.”</p>
-
-<p>Thus Lady Hester went on talking: the dish of
-potatoes, the dessert, and several other things were
-forgotten. So, reminding her that Mr. Forster and
-Mr. Knox must be all this time marvelling what
-could have detained me, I at last made my escape.
-In the mean while, the breakfast had been served up
-as well as the resources of the place would admit.
-The scene must have been highly curious to her ladyship’s
-guests, who could not fail to be amused as well
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">331</span>
-as surprised at the sight of a deal table, rush-bottomed
-chairs, cheese put on first and a pudding in a copper
-dish after it, with other anomalies that would have
-made even a third-rate Brummell shudder. But the
-occasions for eating in the European way in Lady
-Hester’s house occurred very rarely, and the servants,
-who were habituated to Turkish usages or to the
-mongrel service of some Levantine dragoman, had no
-notions of the regulations of an English table. In my
-own house, I had two tolerably well-trained boys;
-but there was an interdict against their ever crossing
-the threshold of Lady Hester’s gate, in order that no
-information of what was going on within her walls
-should be carried out to the female part of my family.
-In the most common concerns, Lady Hester’s servants
-made much bustle and did little. They ran in different
-directions, jostled and crossed each other half a
-dozen at a time for the same thing, entirely reversing
-one of her favourite maxims, that everything in a
-great person’s house should be done as if by magic,
-and nobody should know who it was set it a going.
-These servants had but one spring of action, and that
-was the <i>bakshysh</i>, or present, which they all looked
-for on the departure of a stranger. It was a painful
-thought to me, as these gentlemen left the gate, that,
-when they were about to mount their horses, the mercenary
-spirit of such a set of varlets might be charged
-to the connivance of the mistress.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">332</span></p>
-
-<p>The two travellers made a miserable repast, and,
-when it was over, signified their desire to take leave.
-It seems they had taken Lady Hester’s invitation “to
-make the place their home for two hours or two days”
-in its literal acceptation; and it is scarcely necessary to
-say that there was no time for me to enter into an explanation
-on the subject, nor, indeed, to deliver a tenth
-part of the discursive matter with which Lady Hester
-had charged me. It was from these gentlemen I
-learned, for the first time, that a committee had been
-appointed, on the motion of Mr. D. W. Harvey, for
-inquiring into the pensions on the civil list. It had so
-happened that no newspapers had reached us for a
-long time, and, consequently, this was the first intimation
-her ladyship had received of a measure in which
-it might be supposed she felt no inconsiderable
-interest, although in reality she did not.</p>
-
-<p>As Mr. Forster and his friend had to cross a deep
-valley and mount a steep ascent before they could take
-the road to Beyrout, to which town they were now
-going, I sent Ali Hayshem, the messenger, to put them
-on their way. He returned in the course of an hour
-or two, and was despatched the same evening on foot,
-with letters to Beyrout, where he arrived next day
-before Messieurs Knox and Forster. He told me, on
-his return, that their surprise was very great on finding
-him at the inn, knowing that they had left him
-behind them, the morning before, up the mountain.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">333</span>
-Ali’s account of Mr. Forster’s regimentals, in which
-he saw him dressed at Beyrout, was very flaming: and
-from that day, in speaking of the two, he always distinguished
-him from Mr. Knox by the title of ‘the
-general.’</p>
-
-<p>Lady Hester deeply regretted that she was not able
-to see these gentlemen. “Ah!” said she, “how
-many times have I been abused by the English when
-I did not deserve it, and for nothing so much as for
-not seeing people, when perhaps it was quite out of
-my power! There was Mr. Anson and Mr. Strangways,
-who, because I refused to see them, sat down
-under a tree, and wrote me such a note! Little did
-they know that I had not a bit of barley in the house
-for their horses, and nothing for their dinner. I could
-not tell them so; but they might have had feeling
-enough to suppose it was not without some good reason
-that I declined their visit. Many a pang has
-their ill-nature given me, as well as that of others. I
-have got the note<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> still somewhere.</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">334</span>
-“Among the visitors I have had was the duchess
-of Gontaut’s brother, she that brought up the Duke
-of Bordeaux. I supposed she must have talked of me
-to her brother, whom I never recollect: however, he
-came with his two sons; but I would not see him.
-It was that time when Monsieur Guys, after sitting
-and staring at me some minutes, exclaimed—‘Madam,
-when I see you dressed in that abah’ (the Bedouin
-cloak), ‘in that <i>keffiah</i>’ (the Bedouin vizor), ‘and
-when I think you are that Lady Hester Stanhope, <i lang="fr">qui
-faisoit la pluie et le beau temps à Londres</i>, I am lost in
-wonder how you could have come and fixed yourself
-in these desolate mountains.’</p>
-
-<p>“Another of Charles the Tenth’s courtiers came
-here, but a higher personage, whom I also refused to
-see: he was dreadfully savage about it too. I fancy
-Charles the Tenth had a secret intention of resigning
-the crown, and of coming to this country to finish his
-days in the Holy Land like another <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Louis? and I
-think this man had something to ask me about it:
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">335</span>
-however, I refused to see him. But it was not
-caprice, nor, as this proves, was it Englishmen alone
-I denied myself to. Sometimes I was not well enough
-to sustain a conversation—sometimes I had no provisions
-in the house, perhaps no servant who knew how
-to set a table; but travellers never fancied that there
-could be any other reason for my refusal, but the determination
-to affront them. God knows, when I
-could, I was willing to receive anybody.</p>
-
-<p>“Once I had a visit from two persons whom we
-will call Mr. A. and Mr. B., or Mr. B. and Mr. C.—what
-letter you like. I thought Mr. B. very stupid,
-but, good God! doctor, there never was anything so
-vulgar as Mr. C. When I got his note to ask leave
-to come, the name deceived me; I thought he might
-be a son of Admiral C. But when he came into the
-room with his great thighs and pantaloons so tight
-that he could hardly sit down, I thought he was more
-like a butcher than anything else. He was a man
-entirely without breeding, with his Ma’ams and ladyships.
-I asked him a few questions, as—‘Pray, sir,
-will you allow me to ask if you are a relation of
-Admiral C’s.?’—‘No, ma’am, I am no relation at all.’—‘Will
-you permit me to inquire what is the motive
-of your visit to me?’—‘Only to see your ladyship,
-ma’am.’—‘Do you come to this country with any
-particular object?’—‘To be a merchant.’—‘You are
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">336</span>
-probably conversant in mercantile affairs?’—‘No,
-ma’am, I am come to learn,’—and so on. After
-some time, I told them that I never saw people in the
-morning, and would take my leave of them, as they
-probably would wish to set off early; and I desired
-them to order what they liked for their breakfast.
-Next morning, when I thought, as a matter of course,
-they were gone, in came a note from them to say,
-they were not going till next day, and then another
-to say they did not know, and then a third to say
-that, as they expected ships, and God knows what,
-they must go.—Good God! they might go to the
-devil for me: I had taken my leave of them, and
-there was an end of it. Mr. C. was a downright
-vulgar merchant’s clerk, come to Syria, I suppose, to
-set up for himself. Lord <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Asaph said to me—‘Lady
-Hester, you really should consider who you
-are, and not allow people of that description to pay
-visits to you.’</p>
-
-<p>“There was a man who bore a great resemblance to
-the Duke of Cambridge and the Duke of Clarence,
-but something between both, who passed two or three
-years in this neighbourhood and sometimes came to
-see me; he was good-natured, and I liked him. He
-went about with a sort of pedlar’s box, full of trinkets
-and gewgaws to show to the peasant woman, thus
-bringing the whole population of the village out of
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">337</span>
-their houses: and then giving away beads and earrings
-to get the young girls around him.</p>
-
-<p>“Of the English, who have visited me here, I liked
-Captain Pechell and Captain Yorke very much, and
-thought them both clever men.</p>
-
-<p>“Colonel Howard Vyse one day came up to the
-village and wrote me a note, and did everything he
-could to see me. He was an old Coldstream:—it
-broke my heart not to see him; but it would have
-revived too many melancholy reflections. Poor man!
-I believe he was very much hurt; but I could not
-help it.</p>
-
-<p>“A man came here—I believe the only one who
-was saved out of a party that was killed going across
-the Desert—and asked me for a letter to the Arabs.
-I sent him away, telling him that he might just as well
-come and ask me for a pot of beer. What had I to
-do with their schemes and their navigation of the
-Euphrates? Yet, for this, this officer wrote verses
-upon the wall of the room against me.</p>
-
-<p>“Then Mr. Croix de la Barre came, but I could
-not see him. He said he wanted to talk politics
-with me, and learn the customs and manners of the
-natives. I should tire you, doctor, if I were to tell
-you how many have come. I saw Lord B******,
-when he was travelling, at the baths of Tiberias,
-where Abdallah Pasha happened to be. Lord B.
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">338</span>
-proposed calling on the pasha, and equipped himself
-for that purpose with a pair of pistols and a <i>yatagàn</i>
-in his girdle, after the fashion of a Turkish subaltern;
-for the Franks, who surrounded him as dragomans and
-menials, had taught him to adopt what accorded with
-their ideas of finery, and not what was suitable to his
-rank. Luckily, he mentioned his intention the day
-before to me, and I told him that there was a full
-dress of ceremony in Turkey as well as in Europe,
-and I lent him the most essential part of it, a <i>benýsh</i>,<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a>
-with which he presented himself. At first there was
-some hesitation, on his entering the room with his
-people, as to which was the great Mylord; for his
-lordship’s doctor, who sat down close by him, and
-poked his head forward with an air of great attention
-to what the pasha said, made him doubt whether the
-doctor was not the chief personage; it being a part
-of Oriental etiquette that no dependant should obtrude
-himself into the least notice in his superior’s presence:
-nay, generally speaking, it is required that doctors,
-secretaries, dragomans, and the like, should remain
-standing during such interviews. This difficulty being
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">339</span>
-got over, the pasha, after some questions about Lord
-B.’s health, asked him what brought him to Tiberias,
-a part of his province the least beautiful and most
-barren. The question would have led most persons
-to say that, knowing the pasha was there, he seized
-the opportunity of paying his respects to him, or
-some such complimentary speech. But Lord B., with
-a <i lang="fr">naïveté</i> somewhat plebeian, replied, that he came to
-see the baths. The pasha coldly desired that proper
-persons should show them to him, and soon after broke
-up the interview. The very attendants of his Highness
-were struck with the incivility and want of tact
-which Lord B. showed, and it was one of them who
-told me the story. But this was not all: the pasha,
-who is fond of consulting European doctors, requested
-Lord B., who was to depart next day, to leave his
-doctor behind for twenty-four hours; which request
-Lord B. refused. After he was gone, the pasha
-sent me a pelisse of considerable value, with a request
-that I should present it in his name to Lord B., but
-I returned it, saying Lord B. was gone; for I did not
-think his incivility deserved it. So much for English
-breeding! and then let them go and call the Turks
-barbarians.</p>
-
-<p>“Mr. Elliot came to see me from Constantinople, in
-order to make the pashas and governors of the neighbouring
-provinces treat me well. He fell ill, and I
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">340</span>
-sent for the doctor of a frigate that was on the coast
-for him—a man who could kick his forehead with his
-toe. I quizzed Mr. Elliot a great deal.</p>
-
-<p>“But now, doctor, what did Mr. Forster say about
-the Scotch? If he agrees with me that they sprang
-from hereabouts, I might have given him some useful
-hints on that subject: but we will write him a letter<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a>
-about it.”</p>
-
-<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">341</span>
-When I told her that Mr. Forster had spoken of
-a work of Sir Jonah Barrington’s on Ireland, in which
-it was said that Mr. Pitt got up the Irish rebellion
-in order to make the necessity of the Union more
-palatable to parliament, she observed that, if she met
-him, she would settle his business for him. “Mr.
-Pitt liked the Irish,” said she. “There were some
-fools who thought to pay their court by abusing them,
-and would talk of men’s legs like Irish porters, or
-some such stuff: but I always answered, they would
-be very much pleased to have their own so, which was
-much better than having them like a pair of tongs:
-and I was certain to observe a little smile of approbation
-in Mr. Pitt’s eyes, at what I had said.”</p>
-
-<p>In this way her ladyship would run on from topic
-to topic—with a rapidity and fluency which frequently
-rendered it difficult to preserve notes of even the heads
-of her discourse. Her health was slightly improved:
-she attended a little more closely to my advice, but
-still would never allow me to see her until her coughing
-fit was over, which usually lasted for about a
-<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">342</span>
-couple of hours. Notwithstanding this, her pulse
-maintained a degree of vigour which was very extraordinary,
-considering the state of attenuation to which
-she was reduced. She had a great reluctance in touching
-on her bad symptoms, but dwelt readily on such as
-were favourable. “I certainly have got small abscesses,”
-she answered to me, “but it is not consumption:
-because there are hours in the day when my lungs are
-perfectly free, as there are others when I can hardly
-breathe. Sometimes, doctor, my pulse is entirely
-gone, or so thin—so thin!—as to be but just perceptible,
-and no more. You pretend to find it very readily
-and tell me it is not bad: but Zezefôon can’t feel it,
-and Sàada can’t feel it, and old Pierre has tried, and
-says the same. I think, too,” continued she, “I was
-a little delirious this morning; for, when I awoke, I
-asked where Zezefôon had gone, although there she
-was, sitting up on her mattress by my bedside before
-my eyes.”</p>
-
-
-<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a>
- The reader ought to be informed that, a few years before this
-time, Beshýr Jumbalàt, a man of the first family of the Druzes, had
-risen by his possessions and influence to such power in Mount Lebanon
-as to excite the jealousy of the Emir Beshýr, the recognized prince
-of the Druzes, by right of investiture from the Porte. The Emir (who
-is a Mussulman) entertained such fears of being supplanted by a chief
-of his power and popularity, that, after a variety of intrigues and
-plots, he at last succeeded in effectually awakening the distrust of
-Abdallah, the Pasha of Acre, who finally united with the Emir in a plan
-for his destruction. The person of the unfortunate Beshýr Jumbalàt was
-accordingly seized, his palace razed to the ground, and his possessions
-confiscated; nor was their jealousy set at rest until they ultimately
-got rid of him by strangulation.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a>
-Ben Jonson, in his “Alchemist,” alludes to such a book, “Ay, and a
-treatise penned by Adam.”</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a>
-It may be right to mention that Mr. Forster, as I believe, is not
-one of the family alluded to in this anecdote: but, as Lady Hester’s
-remarks hinged on his name, I thought it best to retain it.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a>
-This note I afterwards read and copied. These two gentlemen
-presented themselves at the gate, and Lady Hester dictated the
-following message to them, which Miss Williams wrote:—“Lady Hester
-Stanhope presents her compliments to Mr. Anson and Mr. Strangways,
-and acquaints them that she is little in the habit of seeing European
-travellers, therefore declines the honour of their visit.” To this was
-returned following answer:—“Mr. Anson presents his compliments to
-Lady Hester Stanhope, and begs to assure her he has not the slightest
-wish to intrude where his visit is accounted disagreeable: but having,
-during a three months’ residence among the Arabs, met with universal
-hospitality, he took for granted that he would not have met with the
-first refusal in an English house.”</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">[41]</a>
-The benýsh is a large mantle, reaching to the ground, ample, and
-folding over, with bagging sleeves hanging considerably below the tips
-of the fingers. When worn, it leaves nothing seen but the head and
-face. This is synonymous with a dress coat.</p>
-
-<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">[42]</a>
-A long letter was subsequently written, in which she explained
-her theory of the origin of the Scotch; and, having learned by a
-note from Mr. Forster that they would return from Beyrout to Sayda
-in their way to <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Jean d’Acre, I rode down to Sayda in the hope of
-meeting him. Circumstances, however, made them set off a day sooner
-than they intended and I missed them. The letter Lady Hester took back
-into her own possession, and seemed to set so much value on it that
-she would not even give me a copy. At the time I could have repeated
-the substance of it with tolerable accuracy from memory; but, as she
-strictly regarded it in the light of a private communication, I did not
-consider myself justified in making any use of it without her sanction.
-It will be sufficient to say that she found a great resemblance between
-the names of the Scotch nobility and certain terms in the Arabic
-language, indicating patronymics, dignities, offices, &amp;c. Her general
-notion was that Scotland had been peopled by the flight of some tribes
-of Arabs in the middle ages. She once had an intention of writing to
-Sir Walter Scott, to urge him to make some researches on that head,
-and she showed me a list of Scotch names apparently of Arabic origin.
-Thus she would say Gower meant Gaôor, or infidel; and by a stretch of
-deduction, commonly indulged in even to still greater excess by people
-who have a favourite theory to sustain, she would argue that, as Mr.
-Pitt used to say that Lord Granville was the counterpart of the statue
-of Antinous, with the same face and the same <em>pose</em> when he stood
-talking unconcernedly, therefore the race of Antinous, which was also
-Eastern, was continued in him.</p>
-
-</div><!--end footnotes-->
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-
-
-<p class="p4 center">END OF <abbr title="Volume Two">VOL. II.</abbr></p>
-
-<p class="p4 center">
-<span class="ls">FREDERICK SHOBERL, JUNIOR,</span><br>
-PRINTER TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT,<br>
-<span class="smaller">51, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET, LONDON.</span></p>
-
-<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
-
-<div class="chapter">
-<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Note">Transcriber’s Note</h2>
-</div>
-
-<p>This book was written in a period when many words had not become
-standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling
-variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been
-left unchanged unless indicated below. Obsolete and alternative
-spellings were left unchanged.</p>
-
-<p>Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the end of
-the chapter. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down,
-or partially printed letters and punctuation, were corrected. Final
-stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were added.
-Punctuation was adjusted to standard usage. Duplicate letters and
-words at line endings or page breaks were removed.
-</p>
-
-<p>Footnotes <a href="#Footnote_3">[3]</a> and <a href="#Footnote_22">[22]</a> were missing anchors in the text. Anchors were
-added where they may have belonged.</p>
-
-<p>The following items were changed:</p>
-<ul>
-  <li>that to <a href="#chg1">than</a></li>
-  <li>Pourcignac to Pourceaugnac, <a href="#Footnote_17">Footnote [17]</a></li>
-  <li>Dairies to Diaries, <a href="#Footnote_22">Footnote [22]</a></li>
-  <li>he to <a href="#chg2">she</a></li>
-  <li>crew to <a href="#chg3">grew</a></li>
-  <li>venemous to <a href="#chg4">venomous</a></li>
-  <li>espistle to <a href="#chg5">epistle</a></li>
-  <li>Bankes to <a href="#chg6">Banks</a></li>
-</ul>
-
-</div><!--end Transcriber Note-->
-<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF THE LADY HESTER STANHOPE, AS RELATED BY HERSELF IN CONVERSATIONS WITH HER PHYSICIAN, VOL. 2 (OF 3) ***</div>
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+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF THE LADY HESTER STANHOPE, AS RELATED BY HERSELF IN CONVERSATIONS WITH HER PHYSICIAN, VOL. 2 (OF 3) ***</div>
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<div class="figcenter">
+ <br>
+ <img src="images/frontispiece.jpg"
+ alt="frontispiece">
+ <p class="caption">LADY HESTER STANHOPE IN HER SALOON<br>
+ London, Henry Colburn, 1845</p>
+</div><!--end figcenter-->
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+</div><!--end chapter-->
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h1>
+<span class="ls">MEMOIRS</span><br>
+<span class="muchsmaller allsmcap">OF THE</span><br>
+<span class="larger">LADY HESTER STANHOPE,</span></h1>
+
+<p class="center tall">
+<span class="smaller">AS RELATED BY HERSELF</span><br>
+IN CONVERSATIONS WITH HER<br>
+PHYSICIAN;<br>
+<br>
+<span class="smaller">COMPRISING</span><br>
+HER OPINIONS AND ANECDOTES OF<br>
+SOME OF THE MOST REMARKABLE PERSONS<br>
+OF HER TIME.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="muchsmaller">All such writings and discourses as touch no man will mend no
+man.—<span class="smcap">Tyers</span>’s <cite>Rhapsody on Pope</cite>.</p>
+
+<p class="p2 center">
+<span class="strong">Second Edition.</span><br>
+<br>
+IN THREE VOLUMES.<br>
+<br>
+<span class="larger"><abbr title="Volume Two">VOL. II.</abbr></span></p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="center tall"><span class="ls">LONDON:</span><br>
+HENRY COLBURN, PUBLISHER,<br>
+<span class="smaller">GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.</span></p>
+<hr class="short">
+<p class="center">1846.</p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center">
+<span class="ls">FREDERICK SHOBERL, JUNIOR,</span><br>
+PRINTER TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT,<br>
+<span class="muchsmaller">51, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET, LONDON.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center">
+CONTENTS<br>
+<br>
+<span class="smaller">OF</span><br>
+<br>
+<span class="ls">THE SECOND VOLUME.</span>
+</p>
+</div>
+<table>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="One">I.</abbr></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Lady Hester Stanhope’s descent—The Author’s first introduction
+to her—Her reasons for quitting England—Anecdotes of
+her childhood and womanhood—Her motives for going to live
+with Mr. Pitt—Mr. Pitt’s opinion of Tom Paine—Lady Hester
+noticed by George III.—Anecdote of Sir A. H.—Of Lord G.—Of
+Lord A.—Impertinent questioners—Anecdote of the Marquis
+* * *—Mr. Pitt’s confidence in Lady Hester’s discretion—and
+in her devotion to him—His opinion of her cleverness,
+and of her military and diplomatic abilities—Her tirade against
+doctors—Her reflections on prudery—Anecdote of General
+Moore—Of the Duc de Blacas, &amp;c. </td>
+    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_1">1</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Two">II.</abbr></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s Memoirs—The three duchesses—Anecdote
+of Mr. Rice—How Prime Ministers are employed on
+first taking office—The Grenville make—P—— of W——
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_iv">iv</span>
+at Stowe—Mr. Pitt and Mr. Sheridan—Duke of H—— —Mr.
+Pitt’s disinterestedness exemplified—His life wasted in
+the service of his country—Mr. Rose—Mr. Long—Mr.—— —Grounds
+at Walmer laid out by Lady Hester—Mr. Pitt’s
+deportment in retirement—His physiognomy—How he got
+into debt—Lord Carrington; why made a peer—Extent of
+Mr. Dundas’s influence over Mr. Pitt—Mr. Pitt averse to
+ceremony—Mr. Pitt and his sister Harriet—His dislike to
+the Bourbons—Lady Hester’s activity at Walmer—Lord
+Chatham’s indolence—Mr. Pitt’s opinion of Sir Arthur
+Wellesley </td>
+    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_45">45</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Three">III.</abbr></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Duchess of Gontaut—Duc de Berry—Anecdotes of Lord H.—Sir
+Gore Ouseley—Prince of Wales—The other princes—The
+Queen’s severity—Men and women of George the Third’s
+time—The Herveys—Lady Liverpool’s high breeding—Lady
+Hester’s declining health </td>
+    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_76">76</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Four">IV.</abbr></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Conscription in Syria—Inviolability of consular houses—Panic
+and flight of the people of Sayda—Protection afforded
+by Lady Hester—Story of a boy—Mustafa the barber—Cruelty
+to mothers of Conscripts—Conscription in the villages—Lady
+Hester’s dream—Inhabitants of Sayda mulcted—Lady
+Hester’s opinion of negresses—Severity necessary in
+Turkey—Case of Monsieur Danna—Captain Y.—Mustafa
+Pasha’s cruelty </td>
+    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_101">101</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Five">V.</abbr></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Rainy season—Lady Hester’s despondency—Her Turkish
+costume—Turkish servants—Terror inspired by Lady Hester
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_v">v</span>
+in her servants—Visit of Messieurs Poujolat and Boutés—Lady
+Hester’s inability to entertain strangers—Her dejected
+spirits and bad health </td>
+    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_127">127</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Six">VI.</abbr></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">The Delphic priestess—Abdallah Pasha’s ingratitude—His
+cowardice—Lady Hester’s spies—Her emaciation—History
+of General Loustaunau </td>
+    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_154">154</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Seven">VII.</abbr></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Lady Hester like the first Lord Chatham—Her recollections
+of Chevening—Her definition of insults—Her deliberate
+affronts—Her warlike propensities—Earl C—— Marquis of
+Abercorn—Logmagi—Osman Chaôosh—Letter from Colonel
+Campbell—George the Third’s flattering compliment to Lady
+Hester—Her Majesty Queen Victoria—Lord M.—Prophecy
+of a <i>welly</i>—Lady Hester’s poignant affliction—Her intractability—Her
+noble and disinterested benevolence </td>
+    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_181">181</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Eight">VIII.</abbr></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Lady Hester’s system of astrology—Sympathies and antipathies—People’s
+<i>nijems</i> or stars—Mesmerism explained—Lord
+Suffolk—Lady Hester’s own star—Letter to the Queen—Letter
+to Mr. Speaker Abercrombie—Messieurs Beck and
+Moore—Letter to Colonel Campbell—The Ides of March—Lady
+Hester’s reflections on the Queen’s conduct to her—Letter
+to Sir Edward Sugden—What peers are—Junius’s
+Letters—Spies employed by the first Lord Chatham—Mr.
+Pitt’s opinion of the Duke of Wellington—Lady Hester’s
+letter to his Grace, &amp;c.</td>
+    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_223">223</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Nine">IX.</abbr>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_vi">vi</span></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Lady Hester in an alcove in her garden—Lucky days observed
+by her—Consuls’ rights—Mischief caused by Sir F. B.’s
+neglect in answering Lady Hester’s Letters—Rashes common
+in Syria—Visit of an unknown Englishman—Story of Hanah
+Messâad—Lady Hester’s love of truth—Report of her death—Michael
+Tutungi—Visit from the Chevalier Guys—His
+reception at Dayr el Mkhallas—Punishment of the shepherd,
+Câasem—Holyday of the Korbàn Byràm—Fatôom’s <i lang="fr">accouchement</i>—Lady
+Hester’s aversion to consular interference—Evenings
+at Jôon—Old Pierre—Saady </td>
+    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_276">276</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdc" colspan="2">CHAPTER <abbr title="Ten">X.</abbr></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td class="tdl">Visit of Mr. Vesey Forster and Mr. Knox—Lady S. N.’s
+pension and Mr. H.—Lady Hester undeservedly censured by
+English travellers—Mr. Anson and Mr. Strangways—Mr. B.
+and Mr. C.—Captain Pechell—Captain Yorke—Colonel
+Howard Vyse—Lord B.</td>
+    <td class="tdr vlb"><a href="#Page_314">314</a></td></tr>
+
+</table>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">1</span>
+<h2>
+<span class="smaller ls">MEMOIRS</span><br>
+<br>
+<span class="muchsmaller">OF</span><br>
+<br>
+<span class="ls">LADY HESTER STANHOPE.</span></h2>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<h2 class="no-break"><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span> <abbr title="One"><span class="allsmcap">I.</span></abbr></h2>
+
+
+<p class="small short">Lady Hester Stanhope’s descent—The Author’s first introduction
+to her—Her reasons for quitting England—Anecdotes of
+her childhood and womanhood—Her motives for going to live
+with Mr. Pitt—Mr. Pitt’s opinion of Tom Paine—Lady Hester
+noticed by George III.—Anecdote of Sir A. H.—Of Lord G.—Of
+Lord A.—Impertinent questioners—Anecdote of the Marquis
+* * *—Mr. Pitt’s confidence in Lady Hester’s discretion—and
+in her devotion to him—His opinion of her cleverness,
+and of her military and diplomatic abilities—Her tirade against
+doctors—Her reflections on prudery—Anecdote of General
+Moore—Of the Duc de Blacas, &amp;c.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2">It probably will be known to most readers that
+Lady Hester Stanhope was the daughter of Charles
+Earl of Stanhope by Hester, his first wife, sister to
+Mr. William Pitt, and daughter of the first Earl of
+Chatham. He had issue by this first wife three
+daughters—Hester, Griselda, and Lucy. The earl
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">2</span>
+married a second wife, by whom he had three sons:
+the present earl; Charles, killed at Corunna; and
+James, who died at Caen Wood, the villa of his
+father-in-law, the Earl of Mansfield.</p>
+
+<p>I became acquainted with Lady Hester Stanhope
+by accident. The chance that introduced me to her
+was as follows:—I was going to Oxford to take my
+degree; and, having missed the coach at the inn, I
+was obliged to hurry after it on foot, for the want of a
+hackney-coach, as far as Oxford-road turnpike, where
+I overtook it, and mounted the box in a violent perspiration.
+The day was bitterly cold, and, before
+night, I found myself attacked with a very severe
+catarrh. The merriment of a college life left me little
+time to pay attention to it; and, after about fifteen
+days, I returned with a troublesome cough, to London,
+where I took to my bed.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. H. Cline, jun., (the son of the celebrated
+surgeon) being my friend, and hearing of my indisposition,
+came to inquire after my health very
+frequently. One day, sitting by my bedside, he
+asked me if I should like to go abroad. I told him
+it had been the earliest wish of my life. He said,
+Lady Hester Stanhope (the niece of Mr. Pitt) had
+applied to his father for a doctor, and that, if I liked,
+he would propose me, giving me to understand from
+his father that, although the salary would be small, I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">3</span>
+should, if my services proved agreeable to Lady
+Hester, be ultimately provided for. I thanked him,
+and said, that to travel with such a distinguished
+woman would please me exceedingly. The following
+day he intimated that his father had already spoken
+about me, and that her ladyship would see me. In
+about four days I was introduced to her, and she
+closed with me immediately, inviting me to dine with
+her that evening. Afterwards, I saw her several
+times, and subsequently joined her at Portsmouth,
+whence, after waiting a fortnight, we sailed in the
+Jason, the Hon. Captain King, for Gibraltar.</p>
+
+<p>The reasons which Lady Hester assigned for leaving
+England were grounded chiefly on the narrowness of
+her income. Mr. Pitt’s written request, on his deathbed,
+that she might have £1500 a year, had been
+complied with only in part, owing to the ill offices of
+certain persons at that time in the privy-council, and
+she received clear, after deductions for the property-tax
+were made, no more that £1200. At first, after
+Mr. Pitt’s death, she established herself in Montague
+Square, with her two brothers, and she there continued
+to see much company. “But,” she would say,
+“a poor gentlewoman, doctor, is the worst thing in
+the world. Not being able to keep a carriage, how
+was I to go out? If I used a hackney-coach, some
+spiteful person would be sure to mention it:—‘Who
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">4</span>
+do you think I saw yesterday in a hackney-coach?
+I wonder where she could be driving alone down those
+narrow streets?’ If I walked with a footman behind
+me, there are so many women of the town now who
+flaunt about with a smart footman, that I ran the
+hazard of being taken for one of them; and, if I went
+alone, either there would be some good-natured friend
+who would hint that Lady Hester did not walk out
+alone for nothing; or else I should be met in the
+street by some gentleman of my acquaintance, who
+would say, ‘God bless me, Lady Hester! where are
+you going alone?—do let me accompany you:’ and
+then it would be said, ‘Did you see Lady Hester
+crossing Hanover Square with such a one? he looked
+monstrous foolish: I wonder where they had been.’
+So that, from one thing to another, I was obliged to
+stop at home entirely: and this it was that hurt my
+health so much, until Lord Temple, at last, remarked
+it. For he said to me one day, ‘How comes it that
+a person like you, who used to be always on horseback,
+never rides out?’—‘Because I have no horse.’—‘Oh!
+if that is all, you shall have one to-morrow.’—‘Thank
+you, my lord; but, if I have a horse, I must have
+two; and, if I have two, I must have a groom; and,
+as I do not choose to borrow, if you please, we will
+say no more about it.’—‘Oh! but I will send my
+horses, and come and ride out with you every day.’
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">5</span>
+However, I told him no: for how could a man who
+goes to the House every day, and attends committees
+in a morning, be able to be riding every day with me?
+And I know what it is to lend and borrow horses and
+carriages. When I used to desire my carriage to go
+and fetch any friend, my coachman was sure to say,
+‘My lady, the horses want shoeing;’ or the footman
+would come in with a long face, ‘My lady, John would
+like to go and see his sister to-day, if you please:’
+there was always some excuse. All this considered, I
+made up my mind to remain at home.”</p>
+
+<p>For some time did Lady Hester remain in Montague
+Square: but her brother and General Moore, having
+fallen at the battle of Corunna, I believe she grew
+entirely disgusted with London; and, breaking up her
+little establishment, she went down into Wales, and
+resided in a small cottage at Builth, somewhere near
+Brecon, in a room not more than a dozen feet square.
+Here she amused herself in curing the poor, in her
+dairy, and in other rustic occupations: until, not
+finding herself so far removed from her English
+acquaintances but that they were always coming
+across her and breaking-in upon her solitude, she
+resolved on going abroad, up the Mediterranean.</p>
+
+<p>Arrived at Gibraltar, she was lodged at the governor’s,
+in the convent, where she remained some
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">6</span>
+time; and then embarked for Malta in the Cerberus,
+Captain Whitby, who afterwards distinguished himself
+in Captain Hoste’s victory up the Adriatic. At
+Malta, she lived, at first, in the house of Mr. Fernandez:
+afterwards, General Oakes offered Lady
+Hester the palace of <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Antonio, where we resided
+during the remainder of her stay.</p>
+
+<p>We departed for Zante in the month of June or
+July, 1810. From Zante, we passed over to Patras,
+where she bade adieu to English customs for the rest
+of our pilgrimage. Traversing Greece, we visited
+Constantinople, and, from Constantinople, sailed for
+Egypt. At Rhodes we were shipwrecked, and I there
+lost my journals, among which were many curious
+anecdotes that would have thrown much light on her
+ladyship’s life. I shall relate what I have since
+gathered, without observing any order, but always, as
+far as I could recollect, using her very expressions;
+and, in many instances, there will be found whole
+conversations, where her manner would be recognized
+by those who were acquainted with it. I shall sometimes
+preface them with observations of my own.</p>
+
+<p>Speaking of her sisters, Lady Hester would say:
+“My sister Lucy was prettier than I was, and
+Griselda more clever; but I had, from childhood, a
+cheerfulness and sense of feeling that always made me
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">7</span>
+a favourite with my father. She exemplified this by
+an anecdote of the second Lady Stanhope, her stepmother,
+referring to the time when her father, in one
+of his republican fits, put down his carriages and
+horses.</p>
+
+<p>“Poor Lady Stanhope,” she said, “was quite unhappy
+about it; but, when the whole family was
+looking glum and sulky, I thought of a way to set all
+right again. I got myself a pair of stilts, and out I
+stumped down a dirty lane, where my father, who was
+always spying about through his glass, could see me.
+So, when I came home, he said to me, ‘Why, little
+girl, what have you been about? Where was it I saw
+you going upon a pair of—the devil knows what?—eh,
+girl?’—‘Oh! papa, I thought, as you had laid down
+your horses, I would take a walk through the mud on
+stilts; for you know, papa, I don’t mind mud or anything—’tis
+poor Lady Stanhope who feels these things;
+for she has always been accustomed to her carriage,
+and her health is not very good.’—‘What’s that you
+say, little girl?’ said my father, turning his eyes away
+from me; and, after a pause, ‘Well, little girl, what
+would you say if I bought a carriage again for Lady
+Stanhope?’—‘Why, papa, I would say it was very
+kind of you.’—‘Well, well,’ he observed, ‘we will
+see; but, damn it! no armorial bearings.’ So, some
+time afterwards, down came a new carriage and new
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">8</span>
+horses from London; and thus, by a little innocent
+frolic, I made all parties happy again?”<a id="FNanchor_1" href="#Footnote_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a></p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester continued. “Lucy’s disposition was
+sweet, and her temper excellent: she was like a
+Madonna. Griselda was otherwise, and always for
+making her authority felt. But I, even when I was
+only a girl, obtained and exercised, I can’t tell how,
+a sort of command over them. They never came to
+me, when I was in my room, without sending first to
+know whether I would see them.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Pitt never liked Griselda; and, when he
+found she was jealous of me, he disliked her still more.
+She stood no better in the opinion of my father, who
+bore with Lucy—ah! just in this way—he would say
+to her, to get rid of her, ‘Now papa is going to
+study, so you may go to your room:’ then, when the
+door was shut, he would turn to me, ‘Now, we must
+talk a little philosophy;’ and then, with his two legs
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">9</span>
+stuck upon the sides of the grate, he would begin—‘Well,
+well,’ he would cry, after I had talked a little,
+‘that is not bad reasoning, but the basis is bad.’</p>
+
+<p>“My father always checked any propensity to finery
+in dress. If any of us happened to look better than
+usual in a particular hat or frock, he was sure to have
+it put away the next day, and to have something coarse
+substituted in its place.</p>
+
+<p>“When I was young, I was always the first to promote
+my sister’s enjoyments. Whether in dancing,
+or in riding on horseback, or at a feast, or in anything
+that was to make them happy, I always had
+something to do or propose that increased their pleasure.
+In like manner, afterwards, in guiding them in
+politics, in giving them advice for their conduct in
+private life, in forwarding them in the world, I was
+a means of much good to them. It was always Hester,
+and Hester, and Hester; in short, I appeared to be
+the favourite of them all; and yet now, see how they
+treat me!</p>
+
+<p>“I was always, as I am now, full of activity, from
+my infancy. At two years old, I made a little hat.
+You know there was a kind of straw hat with the
+crown taken out, and in its stead a piece of satin was
+put in, all puffed up. Well! I made myself a hat
+like that; and it was thought such a thing for a
+child of two years old to do, that my grandpapa had a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">10</span>
+little paper box made for it, and had it ticketed with
+the day of the month and my age.</p>
+
+<p>“Just before the French revolution broke out, the
+ambassador from Paris to the English Court was the
+Comte d’Adhémar. That nobleman had some influence
+on my fate as far as regarded my wish to go abroad,
+which, however, I was not able to gratify until many
+years afterwards. I was but seven or eight years old
+when I saw him; and when he came by invitation to
+pay a visit to my papa at Chevening, there was such a
+fuss with the fine footmen with feathers in their hats,
+and the count’s bows and French manners, and I
+know not what, that, a short time afterwards, when I
+was sent to Hastings with the governess and my
+sisters, nothing would satisfy me but I must go and
+see what sort of a place France was. So I got into a
+boat one day unobserved, that was floating close to the
+beach, let loose the rope myself, and off I went. Yes,
+doctor, I literally pushed a boat off, and meant to go,
+as I thought, to France. Did you ever hear of such
+a mad scheme?</p>
+
+<p>“But I was tired of all those around me, who, to all
+my questions, invariably answered, ‘My dear, that is
+not proper for you to know,—or, you must not talk
+about such things until you get older; and the like.
+So I held my tongue, but I made up for it, by treasuring
+up everything I heard and saw. Isn’t it extraordinary
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">11</span>
+that I should have such a memory? I can recall
+every circumstance that ever occurred to me during
+my life—everything worth retaining, that I wished to
+remember. I could tell what people said, how they
+sat, the colour of their hair, of their eyes, and all about
+them, at any time, for the last forty years and more.
+At Hastings, for example, I can tell the name of the
+two smugglers, Tate and Everett, who attended at
+the bathing-machine, and the name of the apothecary,
+Dr. Satterly, although I have never heard a word
+about those persons from that day to this.</p>
+
+<p>“How well I recollect what I was made to suffer
+when I was young! and that’s the reason why I have
+sworn eternal warfare against Swiss and French governesses.
+Nature forms us in a certain manner, both
+inwardly and outwardly, and it is in vain to attempt
+to alter it. One governess at Chevening had our
+backs pinched in by boards, that were drawn tight
+with all the force the maid could use; and, as for me,
+they would have squeezed me to the size of a puny miss—a
+thing impossible! My instep, by nature so high,
+that a little kitten could walk under the sole of my foot,
+they used to bend down in order to flatten it, although
+that is one of the things that shows my high breeding.</p>
+
+<p>“Nature, doctor, makes us one way, and man is
+always trying to fashion us another. Why, there was
+Mahon, when he was eight or nine years old, that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">12</span>
+never could be taught to understand how two and two
+make four. If he was asked, he would say, four and
+four make three, or ten, or something: he was shown
+with money, and with beans, and in every possible
+way, but all to no purpose. The fact was, that that
+particular faculty was not yet developed: but now,
+there is no better calculator anywhere. The most
+difficult sums he will do on his fingers; and he is
+besides a very great mathematician. There was a son
+of Lord Darnley’s, a little boy, who was only big
+enough to lie under the table, or play on the sofa,
+and yet he could make calculations with I don’t know
+how many figures—things that they have to do in the
+Treasury. Now, if that boy had gone on in the same
+way, he would by this time have been Chancellor of
+the Exchequer. But I hear nothing of him, and I
+don’t know what has become of him; so I suppose he
+has not turned out anything extraordinary.</p>
+
+<p>“But nature was entirely out of the question with
+us: we were left to the governesses. Lady Stanhope
+got up at ten o’clock, went out, and then returned to
+be dressed, if in London, by the hair-dresser; and
+there were only two in London, both of them Frenchmen,
+who could dress her. Then she went out to
+dinner, and from dinner to the Opera, and from the
+Opera to parties, seldom returning until just before
+daylight. Lord Stanhope was engaged in his philosophical
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">13</span>
+pursuits: and thus we children saw neither the
+one nor the other. Lucy used to say that, if she had
+met her step-mother in the streets, she should not have
+known her. Why, my father once followed to our own
+door in London a woman who happened to drop her
+glove, which he picked up. It was our governess; but,
+as he had never seen her in the house, he did not know
+her in the street.</p>
+
+<p>“He slept with twelve blankets on his bed, with no
+nightcap, and his window open: how you would have
+laughed had you seen him! He used to get out of
+bed, and put on a thin dressing-gown, with a pair of
+silk breeches that he had worn overnight, with slippers,
+and no stockings: and then he would sit in a
+part of the room which had no carpet, and take his
+tea with a bit of brown bread.</p>
+
+<p>“He married two wives; the first a Pitt, the second
+a Grenville; so that I am in two ways related to the
+Grenvilles.”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester continued: “As I grew up, Lady
+Stanhope used to chuck me under the chin, and cry,
+‘Why the kurl (girl) is like a soap ball; one can’t
+pinch her cheek:’ and I really used to think there was
+something very strange about me. Soon after Horne
+Tooke took notice of me, and pronounced flatteringly
+on my talents. And when Mr. Pitt followed, and
+kindly said, ‘Why I believe there is nothing to find
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_14">14</span>
+fault with, either in her looks or her understanding,’
+I began to know myself. Mr. Elliott, (who married
+Miss Pitt) used to say to me, dear man! in his <i lang="fr">bontonné</i>
+manner, ‘You must not be surprised, my love,
+if you make a great noise in the world.’</p>
+
+<p>“Sir Sydney Smith said of me, after he had known
+me fifteen years, and when my looks were much
+changed by illness, ‘When I see you now, I recall
+to my recollection what you were when you first <em>came
+out</em>. You entered the room in your pale shirt, exciting
+our admiration by your magnificent and majestic
+figure. The roses and lilies were blended in your face,
+and the ineffable smiles of your countenance diffused
+happiness around you.’</p>
+
+<p>“The Duke of Cumberland used to say to me—‘You
+and Amelia (Princess Amelia) are two of the
+most spanking wenches I ever saw; but, if (alluding
+to my ill-health) you go on in this way, I do not
+know what the devil you will make of it.’”</p>
+
+<p>When mentioning this, her ladyship added:
+“Doctor, at twenty, my complexion was like alabaster;
+and, at five paces’ distance, the sharpest eye could
+not discover my pearl necklace from my skin: my lips
+were of such a beautiful carnation, that, without
+vanity, I can assure you very few women had the like.
+A dark blue shade under the eyes, and the blue veins
+that were observable through the transparent skin,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_15">15</span>
+heightened the brilliancy of my features. Nor were
+the roses wanting in my cheeks; and to all this was
+added a permanency in my looks that fatigue of no
+sort could impair.”</p>
+
+<p>I am now writing when disappointments and sickness
+have undermined her health, and when she has
+reached her 54th year. Her complexion had now
+assumed a yellow tint, but her hands were still exceedingly
+fair, and she had the very common though
+pardonable fault of often contriving to show them.
+There were moments when her countenance had still
+something very beautiful about it. Her mouth manifested
+an extraordinary degree of sweetness, and her
+eyes much mildness.</p>
+
+<p>She never would have her likeness taken, when in
+the bloom of her beauty, and it is not probable it can
+be ever done now. There is a sort of resemblance
+between her and Mr. Pitt, (if I may judge from his
+portraits.) She has told me also, that she was like
+the late Duchess of Cumberland. Her head, seen in
+front, presented a perfect oval, of which the eyes
+would cover a line drawn through the centre. Her
+eyebrows were arched and fine, I mean slender; her
+eyes blue, approaching to gray; her nose, somewhat
+large, and the distance from the mouth to the chin
+rather too long. Her cheeks had a remarkably fine
+contour, as they rounded off towards the neck; so that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">16</span>
+Mr. Brummell, as has been related, once said to her
+in a party, “For God’s sake, do take off those earrings,
+and let us see what is beneath them.” Her
+figure was tall (I think not far from six feet), rather
+largely proportioned, and was once very plump, as I
+have heard her say. Her mien was majestic; her
+address eminently graceful; in her conversation, when
+she pleased, she was enchanting; when she meant it,
+dignified; at all times, eloquent. She was excellent
+at mimickry, and upon all ranks of life. She had more
+wit and repartee, perhaps, than falls to the lot of most
+women. Her knowledge of human nature was most
+profound, and she could turn that knowledge to
+account to its utmost extent, and in the minutest
+trifles. She was courageous, morally and physically
+so; undaunted, and proud as Lucifer.</p>
+
+<p>She never read in any book more than a few pages,
+and there were few works that she praised when she
+looked them over. History she despised, considering
+it all a farce: because, she said, she had seen so many
+histories of her time, which she found to be lies from
+beginning to end, that she could not believe in one.
+She had a great facility of expression, and, on some
+occasions, introduced old proverbs with wonderful appositeness.
+Conversation never flagged in her company.
+But to return to Lady Hester’s own account
+of herself.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">17</span>
+“I can recollect, when I was ten or twelve years old,
+going to Hastings’s trial. My garter, somehow, came
+off, and was picked up by Lord Grey, then a young
+man. At this hour, as if it were before me in a picture,
+I can see his handsome but very pale face, his
+broad forehead; his corbeau coat, with cut-steel buttons;
+his white satin waistcoat and breeches, and
+the buckles in his shoes. He saw from whom the
+garter fell, but, observing my confusion, did not
+wish to increase it, and with infinite delicacy gave
+the garter to the person who sat there to serve tea
+and coffee.</p>
+
+<p>“The first person I ever danced with was Sir Gilbert
+Heathcote.</p>
+
+<p>“When I was young, I was never what you call
+handsome, but brilliant. My teeth were brilliant, my
+complexion brilliant, my language—ah! there it was—something
+striking and original, that caught everybody’s
+attention. I remember, when I was living with
+Mr. Pitt, that, one morning after a party, he said to
+me, ‘Really, Hester, Lord Hertford’ (the father of
+the late lord, and a man of high pretensions for his
+courtly manners) ‘paid you so many compliments
+about your looks last night, that you might well be
+proud of them.’—‘Not at all,’ answered I: ‘he is
+deceived, if he thinks I am handsome, for I know I
+am not. If you were to take every feature in my
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">18</span>
+face, and put them, one by one, on the table, there is
+not a single one would bear examination. The only
+thing is that, put together and lighted up, they look
+well enough. It is homogeneous ugliness, and nothing
+more.’</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Pitt used to say to me, ‘Hester, what sort
+of a being are you? We shall see, some day, wings
+spring out of your shoulders; for there are moments
+when you hardly seem to walk the earth.’ There
+was a man who had known me well for fifteen years,
+and he told me, one day, that he had tried a long
+time to make me out, but he did not know whether I
+was a devil or an angel. There have been men who
+have been intimate with me, and to whom, in point of
+passion, I was no more than that milk-jug” (pointing
+to one on the table); “and there have been others
+who would go through fire for me. But all this depends
+on the star of a person.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Pitt declared that it was impossible for him to
+say whether I was most happy in the vortex of pleasure,
+in absolute solitude, or in the midst of politics; for he
+had seen me in all three; and, with all his penetration,
+he did not know where I seemed most at home. Bouverie
+used to say to me, when I lived at Chevening, ‘I know
+you like this kind of life; it seems to suit you.’ And
+so it did: but why did I quit home? Because of my
+brothers and sisters, and for my father’s sake. I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">19</span>
+foresaw that my sisters would be reduced to poverty if
+I did not assist them; and, though people said to me,
+‘Let their husbands get on by themselves; they are
+capable of making their own way,’ I saw they could
+not, and I set about providing for them. As for my
+father, he thought that, in joining those democrats, he
+always kept aloof from treason. But he did not know
+how many desperate characters there were, who, like
+C——, for example, only waited for a revolution, and
+were always plotting mischief. I thought, therefore,
+it was better to be where I should have Mr. Pitt by
+my side to help me, should he get into great difficulty.
+Why, they almost took Joyce out of bed in my
+father’s house; and when my father went to town,
+there were those who watched him; and the mob
+attacked his house, so that he was obliged to make his
+escape by the leads, and slip out the back way. Joyce
+was getting up in the morning, and was just blowing
+his nose, as people do the moment before they come
+down to breakfast, when a single knock came to the
+door, and in bolted two officers with a warrant, and
+took him off without even my father’s knowledge.
+Then, were not Lord Thanet, Ferguson, and some
+more of them thrown into gaol? and I said, ‘If my
+father has not a prop somewhere, he will share the
+same fate;’ and this was one of the reasons why I
+went to live with Mr. Pitt. Mr. Pitt used to say
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">20</span>
+that Tom Paine was quite in the right; but then he
+would add, ‘What am I to do? If the country is
+overrun with all these men, full of vice and folly, I
+cannot exterminate them. It would be very well, to
+be sure, if everybody had sense enough to act as they
+ought; but, as things are, if I were to encourage Tom
+Paine’s opinions, we should have a bloody revolution;
+and, after all, matters would return pretty much as
+they were.’ But I always asked, ‘What do these
+men want? They will destroy what we have got,
+without giving us anything else in its place. Let
+them give us something good before they rob us of
+what we have. As for systems of equality, everybody
+is not a Tom Paine. Tom Paine was a clever man,
+and not one of your hugger-mugger people, who have
+one day one set of ideas, and another set the next, and
+never know what they mean.’</p>
+
+<p>“I am an aristocrat, and I make a boast of it. We
+shall see what will come of people’s conundrums about
+equality. I hate a pack of dirty Jacobins, that only
+want to get people out of a good place to get into it
+themselves. Horne Tooke always liked me, with all
+my aristocratical principles, because he said he knew
+what I meant.</p>
+
+<p>“No, doctor, Bouverie was right: I liked the country.
+At the back of the inn, on Sevenoaks common, stood
+a house, which, for a residence for myself, I should
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">21</span>
+prefer to any one I have ever yet seen. It was a perfectly
+elegant, light, and commodious building, with
+an oval drawing-room, and two boudoirs in the corners,
+with a window to each on the conservatory.
+When I visited there, it was inhabited by three old
+maids, one of whom was my friend. What good ale
+and nice luncheons I have had there many a time!
+What good cheese, what excellent apples and pears,
+and what rounds of boiled beef?”</p>
+
+<p>The next day these personal recollections were renewed.</p>
+
+<p>“I remember, when Colonel Shadwell commanded
+the district, that, one day, in a pelting shower of rain,
+he was riding up Madamscourt Hill, as I was crossing
+at the bottom, going home towards Chevening with
+my handsome groom, Tom, a boy who was the natural
+son of a baronet. I saw Colonel Shadwell’s groom’s
+horse about a couple of hundred yards from me, and,
+struck with its beauty, I turned up the hill, resolving
+to pass them, and get a look at it. I accordingly
+quickened my pace, and, in going by, gave a good look
+at the horse, then at the groom, then at the master,
+who was on a sorry nag. The colonel eyed me as I
+passed; and I, taking advantage of a low part in the
+hedge, put my horse to it, leaped over, and disappeared
+in an instant. The colonel found out who I
+was, and afterwards made such a fuss at the mess about
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">22</span>
+my equestrian powers, that nothing could be like it.
+I was the toast there every day.</p>
+
+<p>“Nobody ever saw much of me until Lord Romney’s
+review. I was obliged to play a trick on my
+father to get there. I pretended, the day before, that
+I wanted to pay a visit to the Miss Crumps” (or some
+such name), “and then went from their house to
+Lord Romney’s. Though all the gentry of Kent were
+there, my father never knew, or was supposed not to
+have known, that I had been there. The king took
+great notice of me. I dined with him—that is, what
+was called dining with him, but at an adjoining table.
+Lord and Lady Romney served the king and queen,
+and gentlemen waited on us: Upton changed my
+plate, and he did it very well. Doctor, dining with
+royalty, as Lord Melbourne does now, was not so
+common formerly; I never dined with the king but
+twice—once at Lord Romney’s at an adjoining table,
+and once afterwards at his own table: oh! what wry
+faces there were among some of the courtiers! Mr.
+Pitt was very much pleased at the reception I met
+with: the king took great notice of me, and, I believe,
+always after liked me personally. Whenever I
+was talking to the dukes, he was sure to come towards
+us. ‘Where is she?’ he would cry; ‘where is she?
+I hear them laugh, and where they are laughing I
+must go too:’ then, as he came nearer, he would
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">23</span>
+observe, ‘if you have anything to finish, I won’t come
+yet—I’ll come in a quarter of an hour.’ When he
+was going away from Lord Romney’s, he wanted to
+put me bodkin between himself and the queen; and
+when the queen had got into the carriage, he said to
+her, ‘My dear, Lady Hester is going to ride bodkin
+with us; I am going to take her away from Democracy
+Hall:’ but the old queen observed, in rather a prim
+manner, that I ‘had not got my maid with me, and
+that it would be inconvenient for me to go at such a
+short notice:’ so I remained.</p>
+
+<p>“It was at that review that I was talking to some
+officers, and something led to my saying, ‘I can’t
+bear men who are governed by their wives, as Sir
+A. H*** is; a woman of sense, even if she did govern
+her husband, would not let it be seen: it is odious, in
+my opinion:’ and I went on in this strain, whilst
+poor Sir A. himself, whom I did not know, but had
+only heard spoken of, was standing by all the time. I
+saw a dreadful consternation in the bystanders, but I
+went on. At last some one—taking commiseration
+on him, I suppose—said, ‘Lady Hester, will you
+allow me to introduce Sir A. H*** to you, who is
+desirous of making your acquaintance.’ Sir A. very
+politely thanked me for the advice I had given him;
+and I answered something about the regard my
+brother had for him, and there the matter ended.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">24</span>
+“When first I went to live with Mr. Pitt, one day
+he and I were taking a walk in the park, when we
+were met by Lord Guildford, having Lady —— and
+Lady ——, two old demireps, under his arm. Mr.
+Pitt and I passed them, and Mr. Pitt pulled off his
+hat: Lord G. turned his head away, without acknowledging
+his bow. The fact was, he thought Mr. Pitt
+was escorting some mistress he had got. ‘Well,’ said
+I, ‘there goes Falstaff with the merry wives of Windsor.’
+‘Yes,’ rejoined Mr. Pitt, ‘and I think, whatever
+he may take you to be, he need not be so prim,
+with those two painted and patched ladies under his
+arm.’</p>
+
+<p>“The same thing happened with Lord A.; and,
+when Mr. Pitt soon after came into office, Lord A.
+called on Mr. Pitt, who, being busy, sent him to me.
+Lord A. began with a vast variety of compliments
+about ancient attachments, and his recollection, when
+a boy, of having played with me: so I cut him short
+by telling him his memory then must have sadly failed
+him the other day, when he passed me and Mr. Pitt in
+his curricle with Lady ——. After many, ‘Really,
+I supposed,’ and ‘Upon my honours,—Sense of
+propriety on account of Lady ——, and not knowing
+who I was’—I laughed heartily at him, and he went
+away. When he was gone, Mr. Pitt came to me, and
+said, ‘I don’t often ask questions about your visitors,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_25">25</span>
+but I should really like to know what excuse Lord A.
+could offer for his primosity<a id="FNanchor_2" href="#Footnote_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> to us, when he was
+riding with such a Jezebel as Lady ——.’</p>
+
+<p>“Yet it might have been very natural for Mr. Pitt
+to do so.<a id="FNanchor_3" href="#Footnote_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a> How many people used to come and
+ask me impertinent questions, in order to get out
+his state secrets: but I very soon set them down.
+‘What, you are come to give me a lesson of impertinence,’
+I used to say, laughing in their faces.
+One day, one of them, of rather a first-rate class, began
+with—‘Now, my dear Lady Hester, you know our
+long friendship, and the esteem I have for you—now
+do just tell me, who is to go out ambassador to
+Russia?’ So I was resolved to try him; and, with a
+very serious air, I said, ‘Why, if I had to choose,
+there are only three persons whom I think fit for the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_26">26</span>
+situation—Mr. Tom Grenville, Lord Malmesbury,’ and
+I forget who was the third: ‘but you know,’ I added,
+‘Lord Malmesbury’s health will not allow him to go to
+so cold a climate, and Mr., the other, is something
+and something, so that he is out of the question.’
+Next morning, doctor, there appeared in ‘The
+Oracle,’ a paper, observe, that Mr. Pitt never read—‘We
+understand that Lord M. and Mr. T. G.
+are selected as the two persons best qualified for
+the embassy to Russia: but, owing to his lordship’s
+ill health, the choice will most likely fall on
+Mr. T. G.’</p>
+
+<p>“I was highly amused the following days, to hear
+the congratulations that were paid to Mr. Grenville:
+but, when the real choice came to be known, which
+was neither one nor the other, oh! how black the inquisitive
+friend of mine looked; and what reproaches
+he made me for having, as he called it, deceived him!
+But I did not deceive him: I only told him what was
+true, that, if I had the choice, I should choose such and
+such persons.</p>
+
+<p>“There are, necessarily, hundreds of reasons for
+ministers’ actions, that people in general know nothing
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_27">27</span>
+about. When the Marquis —— was sent to India
+it was on condition that he did not take —— ——
+with him: for Mr. Pitt said, ‘It is all very well if
+he chooses to go alone, but he shan’t take —— ——
+with him; for—who knows?—she may be, all the
+time, carrying on intrigues with the French government,
+and that would not suit my purpose.’</p>
+
+<p>“There might be some apparent levity in my
+manner, both as regarded affairs of the cabinet and
+my own; but I always knew what I was doing.
+When Mr. Pitt was reproached for allowing me such
+unreserved liberty of action in state matters and in
+affairs where his friends advised him to question me
+on the motives of my conduct, he always answered—‘I
+let her do as she pleases; for, if she were resolved
+to cheat the devil, she could do it.’ And so I could,
+doctor; and that is the reason why thick-headed
+people, who could never dive into the motives of what
+I did, have often misinterpreted my conduct, when it
+has proceeded from the purest intentions. And, in the
+same way, when some persons said to Lady Suffolk,
+‘Look at Lady Hester, talking and riding with
+Bouverie and the Prince’s friends; she must mind
+what she is about’—Lady Suffolk remarked, ‘There is
+nothing to fear in that quarter; she never will let any
+body do a bit more <a id="chg1"></a>than she intends: what she does
+is with <i lang="fr">connoissance de cause</i>.’ And she was right;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">28</span>
+nobody could ever accuse me of folly: even those
+actions which might seem folly to a common observer,
+were wisdom. Everything with me, through life,
+has been premeditatedly done.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Pitt paid me the greatest compliment I ever
+received from any living being. He was speaking of
+C******, and lamenting he was so false, and so little
+to be trusted; and I said, ‘But perhaps he is only
+so in appearance, and is sacrificing ostensibly his own
+opinions, in order to support your reputation?’—‘I
+have lived,’ replied Mr. Pitt, ‘twenty-five years in the
+midst of men of all sorts, and I never yet found but
+one human being capable of such a sacrifice.’—‘Who
+can that be?’ said I. ‘Is it the Duke of Richmond?
+is it such a one?’ and I named two others, when he
+interrupted me—‘No,—it is <em>you</em>.’</p>
+
+<p>“I was not insensible to praise from such a man;
+and when, before Horne Tooke and some other clever
+people, he told me I was fit to sit between Augustus
+and Mæcenas, I suppose I must believe it. And he
+did not think so lightly of my lectures as you do: for
+one day he said to me, ‘We are going to establish a
+new hospital, and you, Hester, are to have the management
+of it: it is to be an hospital for the diseases
+of the mind; for nobody knows so well as you how to
+cure them.’ I should never have done if I were to
+repeat the many attestations of his good opinion of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">29</span>
+me: but it was no merit of mine if I deserved it:
+I was born so. There was a man one day at table
+with Mr. Pitt, an old friend of his—Canning told me
+the story—who, speaking of me, observed that he supposed
+I should soon marry, and, after some conversation
+on the subject, concluded by saying, ‘I suppose
+she waits till she can get a man as clever as herself.’
+‘Then,’ answered Mr. Pitt, ‘she will never marry
+at all.’</p>
+
+<p>“In like manner, in the troublesome times of his
+political career, Mr. Pitt would say, ‘I have plenty of
+good diplomatists, but they are none of them military
+men: and I have plenty of good officers, but not one
+of them is worth sixpence in the cabinet. If you
+were a man, Hester, I would send you on the Continent
+with 60,000 men, and give you <i lang="fr">carte blanche</i>;
+and I am sure that not one of my plans would fail,
+and not one soldier would go with his shoes unblacked;
+meaning, that my attention would embrace
+every duty that belongs to a general and a corporal—and
+so it would, doctor.”</p>
+
+<p>After musing a little while, Lady Hester Stanhope
+went on. “Did you ever read the life of General Moore
+that I have seen advertised, written by his brother?
+I wonder which brother it was. If it was the surgeon,
+he was hard-headed, with great knowledge of men, but
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">30</span>
+dry, and with nothing pleasing about him. His wife
+was a charming woman, brought up by some great
+person, and with very good manners.</p>
+
+<p>“As for tutors, and doctors, and such people, if,
+now-a-days, mylords and myladies walk arm-in-arm
+with them, they did not do so in my time. I recollect
+an old dowager, to whom I used sometimes to be
+taken to spend the morning. She was left with a
+large jointure, and a fine house for the time being,
+and used to invite the boys and the girls of my age, I
+mean the age I was then, with their tutors and governesses,
+to come and see her. ‘How do you do, Dr.
+Mackenzie? Lord John, I see, is all the better for
+his medicine: the duchess is happy in having found
+a man of such excellent talents, which are almost too
+great to be confined to the sphere of one family.’—‘Such
+is the nature of our compact, my Lady, nor
+could I on any account violate the regulations which
+so good a family has imposed upon me.’—‘It’s very
+cold, Dr. Mackenzie: I think I increased my
+rheumatic pains at the Opera on Saturday night.’—‘Did
+you ever try Dover’s Powders, my lady?’
+He does not, you see, tell her to use Dover’s
+Powders; he only says, did you ever try them?
+‘Lord John—Lord John, you must take care, and
+not eat too much of that strawberry preserve.’</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">31</span>
+“‘How do you do, Mr. K.?—how do you do, Lord
+Henry? I hope the marchioness is well? She looked
+divinely last night. Did you see her when she was
+dressed, Mr. K.?’—‘You will pardon me, my lady,’
+answers the tutor, ‘I did indeed see her; but it would
+be presumptuous in me to speak of such matters. I
+happened to take her a map,’ (mind, doctor, he does
+not say a map of what) ‘and, certainly, I did cast my
+eyes on her dress, which was, no doubt, in the best
+taste, as everything the Marchioness does is.’ Observe,
+here is no mention of her looks or person.
+Doctors and tutors never presumed formerly to talk
+about the complexion, and skin, and beauty, of those
+in whose families they lived or found practice. Why,
+haven’t I told you, over and over again, how Dr. W——
+lost his practice from having said that a patient of his,
+who died, was one of the most beautiful corpses he had
+ever seen, and that he had stood contemplating her for
+a quarter of an hour: she was a person of rank, and it
+ruined him. Even his son, who was a doctor too,
+and had nothing to do with it, never could get on
+afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>“Then would come in some young lady with her
+governess, and then another; and the old dowager
+would take us all off to some show, and make the
+person who exhibited it stare again with the number
+of young nobility she brought with her. From the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">32</span>
+exhibition, which was some monster, or some giant, or
+some something, she would take us to eat ices, and
+then we were all sent home, with the tutors and
+governesses in a stew, lest we should be too late for a
+master, or for a God knows what.</p>
+
+<p>“I have known many apothecaries cleverer than
+doctors themselves. There was Chilvers, and Hewson,
+and half-a-dozen names that I forget: and there was
+an apothecary at Bath that Mr. Pitt thought more of
+than of his physician. Why, I have seen Sir H——
+obliged to give way to an apothecary in a very high
+family. ‘We will just call him in, and see what he
+says:’ and the moment he had written his prescription
+and was gone out of the house, the family would
+consult the apothecary, who perhaps knew twice as
+much of the constitution of the patient. ‘You know,
+my lord, it is not the liver that is affected, whatever
+Sir H—— pretends to think: it is the spleen; for,
+did not we try the very same medicine that he has
+prescribed for above a week? and it did your lordship
+no good. You may just as well, and better, throw
+his draught away:’ and sure enough it was done.
+Sir Richard Jebb the same.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you think,” continued she, “that the first
+physician in London is on terms of intimacy with the
+mylords he prescribes for? he prescribes, takes his
+guinea, and is off: or, if he is asked to sit down a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">33</span>
+little, it is only to pick his brains about whether somebody
+is likely to live or not: but I am not, and never
+was, so mean: I always liked people should know
+their relative situations. Ah! Dr. Turton, or some
+such man as that, would be perhaps asked now and
+then to dinner, or to take a walk round the grounds.
+A doctor’s business is to examine the <i lang="fr">grandes affaires</i>,
+talk to the nurse, and see that his blister has been
+well dressed, and not to talk politics, say such a
+woman is handsome, and chatter about what does not
+concern him.”</p>
+
+<p>Whilst Lady Hester was going on with her strictures
+on the poor doctors, a favourite theme with her,
+I produced from the back of a cupboard a miniature
+print of General Moore, which had been lying at Abra,
+neglected for some years. She took it from my hand,
+and, looking at it a little time, she observed that it was
+an excellent likeness of what he was when he became
+a weather-beaten soldier: “Before that,” said she,
+“those cheeks were filled out and ruddy, like Mr.
+Close’s at Malta.”</p>
+
+<p>After a pause, Lady Hester Stanhope continued:
+“Poor Charles! My brother Charles one day was
+disputing with James about his handsome Colonel,
+and James, on his side, was talking of somebody’s leg
+being handsome, saying he was right, for it had been
+modelled, and nobody’s could be equal to it; when
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">34</span>
+Charles turned to me, and asked with great earnestness
+if I did not think General Moore was the better
+made man of the two, I answered, ‘He is certainly
+very handsome.’—‘Oh! but,’ said Charles, ‘Hester,
+if you were only to see him when he is bathing, his
+body is as perfect as his face.’ I never even smiled,
+although inwardly I could not help smiling at his
+naïveté.</p>
+
+<p>“I consider it a mark of vulgarity and of the association
+of bad ideas in people’s minds when they make
+a handle of such equivoques in an ill-natured way, as
+you recollect Mr. T. did when he was at Alexandria.
+People of good breeding do not even smile, when, perhaps,
+low persons would suppose they might show a
+great deal of affected primosity. Only imagine the
+Duc de Blacas to be announced;—what would my old
+servant, poor William Wiggins, have done? He would
+never have got out the word.” Here Lady Hester set
+up laughing most heartily, and then she laughed, and
+laughed again. I think I never saw anything make her
+relax from her composure so much.</p>
+
+<p>“As for what people in England say or have said
+about me, I don’t care that for them,” (snapping her
+fingers); “and whatever vulgar-minded people say or
+think of me has no more effect than if they were to spit
+at the sun. It only falls on their own nose, and all
+the harm they do is to themselves. They may spit
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">35</span>
+at a marble wall as they may at me, but it will not
+hang. They are like the flies upon an artillery-horse’s
+tail—there they ride, and ride, and buz about, and
+then there comes a great explosion; bom! and off
+they fly. I hate affectation of all kinds. I never could
+bear those ridiculous women who cannot step over a
+straw without expecting the man who is walking with
+them to offer his hand. I always said to the men,
+when they offered me their hand, ‘No, no; I have
+got legs of my own, don’t trouble yourselves.’ Nobody
+pays so little attention to what are called punctilios as
+I do; but if any one piques me on my rank, and what
+is due to me, that’s another thing: I can then show
+them who I am.”</p>
+
+<p>October 16.—These conversations filled up the
+mornings and evenings until the 16th of October, when
+I went to Mar Elias for a day. Whilst there, a
+peasant arrived with an ass-load of musk grapes and
+<i>mukseysy</i> grapes that Lady Hester had sent. An ass-load
+in those happy countries is but a proof of the
+abundance that reigns there. A bushel-basket of
+oranges or lemons, a bunch of fifty or sixty bananas,
+ten or twelve melons at a time, were presents of frequent
+occurrence.</p>
+
+<p>October 18.—I returned to Jôon, and employed
+myself busily in fitting up the cottage intended for our
+dwelling. The nearer the time approached for bringing
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">36</span>
+my family close to her premises, the more Lady Hester
+seemed to regret having consented to the arrangement.
+Petty jealousies, inconsistent with a great mind, were
+always tormenting her. Of this a remarkable and
+somewhat ludicrous instance occurred during the latter
+part of the month of September. Most persons are
+probably aware that Mahometans have a religious
+horror of bells, and, in countries under their domination,
+have never allowed of their introduction even
+into Christian churches. It is not uncommon, by way
+of contempt, to designate Europe as the land of bells.
+This pious abhorrence penetrates the arcana of private
+life; and, in a Turkish house, no such thing as a bell
+for calling the servants is ever to be seen. A clap of
+the hands, repeated three times, is the usual summons;
+and, as the doors are seldom shut, the sound
+can be easily heard throughout every part of the
+dwelling.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester, however, retained her European
+habits in this one particular; and perhaps there never
+existed a more vehement or constant bell-ringer. The
+bells hung for her use were of great size; so that the
+words <i>Gerass el Syt</i>, or my lady’s bell, echoing from
+one mouth to another when she rang, made the most
+indolent start on their legs; until, at last, as nobody
+but herself in the whole territory possessed house-bells,
+the peasantry and menials imagined that the use of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">37</span>
+them was some special privilege granted to her by the
+Sublime Porte on account of her exalted rank, and
+she probably found it to her advantage not to disturb
+this very convenient supposition.</p>
+
+<p>On taking up our residence at Mar Elias, there
+were two bells put by in a closet, which were replaced
+for the use of my family, with bell-ropes to the saloon
+and dining-room, none of us ever suspecting that they
+could, by any human ingenuity, be considered otherwise
+than as most necessary appendages to a room:
+but we calculated without our host. This assumption
+of the dignity of bells was held to be an act of <i lang="la">læsa
+majestas</i>; and the report of our proceedings was carried
+from one person to another, until, at last, it
+reached Lady Hester’s ears, endorsed with much
+wonder on the part of her maids how a doctor’s wife
+could presume to set herself on an equality with a
+<i>meleky</i> (queen). Lady Hester, however, saw the
+absurdity of affecting any claim to distinction in such
+a matter, and, therefore, vexed and mortified although
+it appears she was, she never said a word to me on
+the subject. But, one morning in September, when
+we were all assembled at breakfast, on pulling the
+bell-rope no sound responded, and, examining into the
+cause, we discovered that the strings had been cut by
+a knife, and the bells forcibly wrenched from their
+places. Much conjecture was formed as to who could
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">38</span>
+have done all this mischief. The maids were questioned;
+the porter, the milkman, the errand-boy, the
+man-servant, every body, in short, in and about the
+place, but nobody knew anything of the matter. Understanding
+Arabic, I soon found there was some mystery
+in the business; and answers, more and more
+evasive, from the porter, the harder he was pressed,
+led to a presumption, amounting almost to a certainty,
+that her ladyship’s grand emissary, Osman Chaôosh,
+had arrived late at night, armed with pincers, hammer,
+etcetera, and, before daylight, had carried off the bells
+to Lady Hester’s residence. I concealed my conjecture
+from my family, wishing to cause no fresh
+source of irritation; and, having occasion to write
+that day to Lady Hester, I merely added, as a postscript,
+“The two bells have been stolen during the
+night, and I can find no certain clue to the thief. For,
+although I have discovered that Osman el Chaôosh
+has been here secretly, I cannot think it likely that
+any one of your servants would presume to do such a
+thing without your orders; nor can I believe that
+your ladyship would instruct any one to do that clandestinely
+which a message from yourself to me would
+have effected so easily.”</p>
+
+<p>When I saw Lady Hester a day or two afterwards,
+she never alluded to the bells, nor did I; and nothing
+was ever mentioned about them for two or three months,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">39</span>
+until, one day, she, being in a good humour, said,
+“Doctor, it was I who ordered Osman to take away
+the bells. The people in this country must never
+suppose there is any one connected with my establishment
+who puts himself on an equality with
+me, no matter in what. The Turks know of only one
+Pasha in a district; the person next to him is a nobody
+in his presence, not daring even to sit down or
+to speak, unless told to do so. If I had let those
+bells hang much longer, the sound of my own would
+not have been attended to. As it is, half of my servants
+have become disobedient from seeing how my
+will is disputed by you and your family, who have
+always a hundred reasons for not doing what I wish
+to be done; and, as I said in my letter to Eugenia,
+I can’t submit to render an account of my actions;
+for, if I was not called upon to do so by Mr. Pitt, I
+am sure I shan’t by other people; so let us say no
+more about it.” Of course, I complied with her
+whims; or rather, I should say, admitted the good
+sense of her observations: for I knew very well that
+she never did anything without a kind or substantial
+motive. So, after that, the exclamation of <i>Gerass el
+Syt</i> recovered its magical effect.</p>
+
+<p>October 23.—I escorted my family to their new
+residence, which was called the Tamarisk Pavilion,
+from a tamarisk-tree that grew from the terrace.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">40</span>
+They were all delighted with it, and happiness seemed
+restored to its inmates.</p>
+
+<p>October 25.—The very day on which my family
+came up, Lady Hester took to her bed from illness,
+and never quitted it until March in the following
+year. She had now laboured under pulmonary catarrh
+for six or seven years, which, subsiding in the summer
+months, returned every winter, with increased violence,
+and at this time presented some very formidable
+symptoms.</p>
+
+<p>November 9.—About six o’clock, just as I had
+dined, a servant came to say that her ladyship wished
+to see me. On going into her bed-room, which, as
+usual, was but faintly lighted, I ran my head against
+a long packthread, which crossed from the wall,
+where it was tied, to her bed, and was held in her
+hand. “Take care, doctor,” said she; “these stupid
+beasts can’t understand what I want: but you must
+help me. I want to pull out a tooth. I have tied a
+string to it and to the wall: and you, with a stick or
+something, must give it a good blow, so as to jerk my
+tooth out.”</p>
+
+<p>Knowing her disposition, I said, “Very well, and
+that I would do as she wished. But, if you like,”
+added I, “to have it extracted <i lang="la">secundem artem</i>, I
+fancy I can do it for you.”—“Oh! doctor, have you
+nerve enough? and, besides, I don’t like those crooked
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_41">41</span>
+instruments: but, however, go and get them.” I had
+seen in the medicine-chest a dentist’s instrument, and,
+returning with it, I performed the operation; with
+the result of which she was so much pleased, that she
+insisted upon having another tooth out. The relief
+was so instantaneous, that the second tooth was no
+sooner gone than she commenced talking as usual.</p>
+
+<p>The cough with which Lady Hester had been so
+long indisposed occasionally assumed symptoms of
+water in the chest. Sudden starts from a lying
+posture, with a sense of suffocation, which, for a
+moment, as she described it, was like the gripe of
+a hand across her throat, made me very uneasy about
+her. Her strong propensity to bleeding, to which she
+had resorted four or five times a year for the last
+twenty years, had brought on a state of complete
+emaciation, and what little blood was left in her
+body seemed to have no circulation in the extremities,
+where her veins, on a deadly white skin, showed themselves
+tumefied and knotty.</p>
+
+<p>It was difficult to reason with her on medical subjects,
+especially in her own case. She had peculiar
+systems, drawn from the doctrine of people’s stars.
+She designated her own cough as an asthma, and had,
+for some time, doctored herself much in her own way.
+Such is the balmy state of the air in Syria, that, had
+she trusted to its efficacy alone, and lived with habits of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_42">42</span>
+life like other people, nothing serious was to be
+dreaded from her illness. But she never breathed
+the external air, except what she got by opening
+the windows, and took no exercise but for about
+ten minutes or a quarter of an hour daily, when,
+on quitting her bed-room to go to the saloon, she made
+two or three turns in the garden to see her flowers
+and shrubs, which seemed to be the greatest enjoyment
+she had.</p>
+
+<p>She prescribed almost entirely for herself, and only
+left me the duties of an apothecary; or, if she adopted
+any of my suggestions, it was never at the moment,
+but always some days afterwards, when it seemed to
+her that she was acting, not on my advice, but on the
+suggestions of her own judgment. She was accustomed
+to say, if any doubts were expressed of the
+propriety of what she was going to do, “I suppose I
+am grown a fool in my old age. When princes and
+statesmen have relied on my judgment, I am not going
+to give it up at this time of life.”</p>
+
+<p>But it was not for herself alone that she thus obstinately
+prescribed; she insisted also upon doing the
+same for everybody else, morally as well as medically.
+One of the prominent features in her character was the
+inclination she had to give advice to all persons indiscriminately
+about their conduct, their interests, and
+their complaints: and, in this latter respect, she prescribed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_43">43</span>
+for everybody. I was not exempt, and I
+dreaded her knowing anything about the most trifling
+indisposition that affected me. Greatly addicted to
+empiricism, she would propose the most strange remedies;
+and, fond of the use of medicine herself, she
+would be out of humour if others showed an aversion
+to it. There was no surer way of securing her good
+graces than to put one’s self under her management
+for some feigned complaint, and then to attribute the
+cure to her skill. Hundreds of knaves have got presents
+out of her in this way. For they had but to
+say that, during their illness, they had lost an employment,
+or spent their ready money, no matter
+what—they were sure to be remunerated tenfold above
+their pretended losses. Let it however be said to her
+honour, that, among the number she succoured in real
+sickness, many owned with gratitude the good she had
+done: and no surer proof of this can be given than
+the universal sorrow that pervaded half the population
+of Sayda, when, in the course of this her illness, she
+was reported to be past recovery.</p>
+
+<p>It was in compliance with this foible of hers that,
+when I returned to Dar Jôon, after being laid up with
+a bad leg, she would insist on my wearing a laced
+cloth boot, which she ordered to be made, unknown to
+me; on my washing the œdematous leg in wine with
+laurel leaves steeped in it; and on sitting always,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">44</span>
+when with her, with my leg resting on a cushion
+placed on a stool. Her tyranny in such matters was
+very irksome; for it was clothed in terms of so much
+feeling and regard, and of such commiseration for
+one’s overrated sufferings, that, to escape the accusation
+of ingratitude and bad breeding, it was impossible
+to avoid entire acquiescence in every one of her
+kind commands.</p>
+
+<p>She was ever complaining that she could get nothing
+to eat, nothing to support a great frame like
+hers: yet she seldom remained one half hour, from
+sunrise to sunset, or from sunset to sunrise (except
+during sleep), without taking nourishment of some
+kind. I never knew any human being who took food
+so frequently: but, from that very frequency, it might
+be doubted whether she had a relish for anything.
+And may not this, in some measure, account for her
+frequent ill-humour? for nothing sours people’s temper
+more than an overloaded stomach, and nothing promotes
+cheerfulness more than a light one.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_1" href="#FNanchor_1" class="label">[1]</a>
+In accordance with his republican principles, Lord Stanhope caused
+his armorial bearings to be defaced from his plate, carriages, &amp;c.
+Nothing was spared but the iron gate before the entrance to the house.
+Even the tapestry given to the great Lord Stanhope by the king of
+Spain, with which one of the rooms in Chevening was ornamented, he
+caused to be taken down and put into a corner, calling it all damned
+aristocratical. He likewise sold all the Spanish plate, which Lady
+Hester said weighed (if I recollect rightly) six hundred weight.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_2" href="#FNanchor_2" class="label">[2]</a>
+A friend has suggested that <i>primosity</i> is not in Johnson’s
+Dictionary; it was however a word of frequent recurrence in Lady
+Hester’s vocabulary; and it scarcely, I think, need be said, that it
+means prudery:</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry small">
+  <div class="verse indent0">“What is prudery? ’Tis a beldam,</div>
+  <div class="verse indent0">Seen with wit and beauty seldom.”</div>
+  <div class="author"><span class="smcap">Pope.</span></div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_3" href="#FNanchor_3" class="label">[3]</a>
+ “In 1800, Mr. Pitt, for the third time, contemplated renewing his
+attempts to make peace with France, and he offered the mission again
+to Lord Malmesbury. Lord Grenville wished to appoint his brother, Mr.
+Thomas Grenville; and Lord Malmesbury, whose deafness and infirmity had
+much increased, readily consented.”—<cite>Diaries and Correspondence of
+the Earl of Malmesbury.</cite></p>
+
+</div><!--end footnotes-->
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">45</span>
+
+<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span> <abbr title="Two"><span class="allsmcap">II.</span></abbr></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="small short">Sir Nathaniel Wraxall’s Memoirs—The three duchesses—Anecdote
+of Mr. Rice—How Prime Ministers are employed on
+first taking office—The Grenville make—P—— of W——
+at Stowe—Mr. Pitt and Mr. Sheridan—Duke of H——
+—Mr. Pitt’s disinterestedness exemplified—His life wasted in
+the service of his country—Mr. Rose—Mr. Long—Mr.——
+—Grounds at Walmer laid out by Lady Hester—Mr. Pitt’s
+deportment in retirement—His physiognomy—How he got
+into debt—Lord Carrington; why made a peer—Extent of
+Mr. Dundas’s influence over Mr. Pitt—Mr. Pitt averse to
+ceremony—Mr. Pitt and his sister Harriet—His dislike to
+the Bourbons—Lady Hester’s activity at Walmer—Lord
+Chatham’s indolence—Mr. Pitt’s opinion of Sir Arthur
+Wellesley.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2">On leaving Marseilles, in 1837, I ordered Sir
+Nathaniel Wraxall’s Memoirs to be sent after me
+to Syria, thinking that, as relating to Mr. Pitt’s
+times, and to people and politics with whom and in
+which both he and she had mixed so largely, these
+memoirs could not fail to amuse her. I received them
+soon after my arrival at Jôon, and many rainy days
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">46</span>
+were passed in reading them. They served to beguile
+the melancholy hours of her sickness, and recalled the
+agreeable recollections of her more splendid, if not
+more happy, hours. She would say on such occasions,
+“Doctor, read a little of your book to me.” This was
+always her expression, when I had brought any publication
+to her: and, ordering a pipe, lying at her
+length in bed, and smoking whilst I read, she would
+make her comments as I went on.</p>
+
+<p>“Let me hear about the duchesses,” she would say.
+After a page or two she interrupted me. “See what
+the Duchess of Rutland and the Duchess of Gordon
+were: look at the difference. I acknowledge it proceeds
+all from temperament, just as your dull disposition
+does, which to me is as bad as a heavy weight
+or a nightmare. I never knew, among the whole of
+my acquaintance in England, any one like you but
+Mr. Polhill of Crofton” (or some such place): “he
+was always mopish, just as you are. I remember too
+what a heavy, dull business the Duchess of R.’s parties
+were—the room so stuffed with people that one could
+not move, and all so heavy—a great deal of high
+breeding and <i lang="fr">bon ton</i>; but there was, somehow, nothing
+to enliven you. Now and then some incident
+would turn up to break the spell. One evening, I
+recollect very well, everybody was suffering with the
+heat: there we were, with nothing but heads to be
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">47</span>
+seen like bottles in a basket. I got out of the room,
+upon the landing-place. There I found Lady Sefton,
+Lady Heathcote, and some of your high-flyers, and
+somebody was saying to me, ‘Lady Hester something,’
+when, half way up the staircase, the Duke of Cumberland
+was trying to make his way. He cried out,
+‘Where’s Lady Hester? where’s my aide-de-camp?
+Come and help me; for I am so blind I can’t get on
+alone. Why, this is h—l and d——n!’—‘Here I
+am, sir.’—‘Give me your hand, there’s a good little
+soul. Do help me into this h—l; for it’s quite as
+hot.’ Then came Bradford; and, whilst he was
+speaking to me, and complaining of the intolerable
+heat and crush, out roared the Duke of Cumberland,
+‘Where is she gone to?’—and up went his glass, peeping
+about to the right and left—‘where is she gone to?’
+There was some life in him, doctor.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, at the Duchess of Gordon’s, there were
+people of the same fashion, and the crowd was just as
+great; but then she was so lively, and everybody was
+so animated, and seemed to know so well what they
+were about—quite another thing.</p>
+
+<p>“As for the Duchess of D.’s, there they were—all
+that set—all yawning, and wanting the evening to be
+spent, that they might be getting to the business they
+were after.”</p>
+
+<p>It may be mentioned that Lady Hester was always
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">48</span>
+very severe on the Duchess of D. and her friends,
+whenever her name or theirs was mentioned. She
+said she was full of affected sensibility, but that there
+was always a great deal of wickedness about her
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>The mention of the Duchess of Rutland’s name
+also led to an amusing anecdote. Lady Hester was
+speaking of the grand <i lang="fr">fête</i> given by the duchess when
+her son came of age. The arrangements were entrusted
+to a person named Rice, and to some great confectioner.
+Mr. Rice had been <i lang="fr">maître d’hôtel</i>, or in
+some such capacity, in Mr. Pitt’s family.</p>
+
+<p>“Rice told me,” said Lady Hester, “that when he
+and the other man were preparing for the <i lang="fr">fête</i>, he never
+lay down for ten nights, but got what sleep he could
+in an arm-chair. The duchess gave him three hundred
+guineas. One day she looked at him over her
+shoulder; and when one of the beaux about her said,
+‘What are you looking after, duchess? You have
+forgotten something in the drawing-room?’—‘No, no,’
+said she, pointing to Rice, ‘I was only thinking that
+those eyes are too good for a kitchen.’ And then one
+talked of the eyes, and the eyes, and another of the
+eyes and the eyes, until poor Rice quite blushed. He
+had very pretty eyes, doctor.”</p>
+
+<p>But the anecdote I was going to relate was this.
+Most simple persons, like myself, imagine that prime
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">49</span>
+ministers of such a country as England, when promoted
+to so elevated a station, are only moved by the
+noble ambition of their country’s good, and, from the
+first moment to the last, are ever pondering on the
+important measures that may best promote it. No
+such thing. Let us hear what Lady Hester Stanhope
+herself had to say on this subject.</p>
+
+<p>“The very first thing Mr. Pitt did,” said she,
+“after coming into office the second time, was to provide
+for Mr. Rice. We were just got to Downing
+Street, and everything was in disorder. I was in the
+drawing-room: Mr. Pitt, I believe, had dined out.
+When he came home, ‘Hester,’ said he, ‘we must
+think of our dear, good friend Rice. I have desired
+the list to be brought to me to-morrow morning, and
+we will see what suits him.’—‘I think we had better
+see now,’ I replied. ‘Oh, no! it is too late now.’—‘Not
+at all,’ I rejoined; and I rang the bell, and desired
+the servant to go to the Treasury, and bring me
+the list.</p>
+
+<p>“On examining it, I found three places for which
+he was eligible. I then sent for Rice. ‘Rice,’ said
+I, ‘here are three places to be filled up. One is a
+place in the Treasury, where you may fag on, and, by
+the time you are forty-five or fifty, you may be
+master of twenty or twenty-five thousand pounds.
+There is another will bring you into contact with poor
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">50</span>
+younger sons of nobility: you will be invited out,
+get tickets for the Opera, and may make yourself a
+fine gentleman. The third is in the Customs: there
+you must fag a great deal, but you will make a great
+deal of money: it is a searcher’s place.’</p>
+
+<p>“Rice, after considering awhile, said—‘As for the
+Treasury, that will not suit me, my lady; for I must
+go on plodding to the end of my life. The second
+place your ladyship mentioned will throw me out of
+my sphere: I am not fit for fine folks; and, if you
+please, I had rather take the third.’ So, the very
+next morning, I got all his papers signed by everybody
+except Mr. Long, and they made some excuses
+that he was not come, or was gone, or something; but
+I would hear of no delay, and desired them to find him.</p>
+
+<p>“Rice went on swimmingly, doctor, for a long time,
+and made one morning a seizure that brought for his
+share £500. But I had given him some very long
+instructions, and he was not like you, for he listened
+to my advice. Sometimes, when I was teaching him
+how he was to act, he would say, ‘My lady, I believe
+that is enough for this time: I don’t think my poor
+head will contain more; but I’ll come again.’ I told
+him he was to learn the specific gravity of bodies, that
+when they told him (for example) it was pepper, he
+might know by the volume that it was not gunpowder
+or cochineal.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">51</span>
+“When the Grenville administration wanted to
+introduce new regulations into the Customs, and
+diminish their profits, I wrote such a petition for
+them, that Lord Grenville read it over and over, and
+cried out—‘There is only one person could write this,
+and we must give up the point.’ He sent the Duke
+of Buckingham to me to find out if it was I, and the
+duke said, to smooth the matter—‘Lady Hester, you
+know, if you want any favour, you have only to ask
+for it.’—‘Indeed,’ said I, ‘I shall ask no favour of
+your <em>broad-bottomed</em> gentry; what I want I shall take
+by force.’—‘Now, Hester,’ cried the duke, ‘you are
+too bad; you are almost indelicate.’</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I made a man laugh so once when speaking of
+an officer, who, I said, would not do for an hussar,
+as he wanted a little more of the Grenville make
+about him.”</p>
+
+<p>After a pause, as if reflecting, Lady Hester resumed—“Is
+there nothing in the book about the
+G********’s getting the Prince down to Stowe?
+They received him with extraordinary magnificence,
+and the most noble treatment possible: they fancied
+they were going to do wonders. But I said to
+them—‘Do you think all this makes the impression
+you wish in the Prince’s breast? You suppose, no
+doubt, that you gratify him highly with such a splendid
+reception: you are much mistaken. From this
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_52">52</span>
+time forward he will be jealous of you, and will hate
+you as long as he thinks you can rival him.’ The
+event proved how justly I knew his character.</p>
+
+<p>“There they were, shut up: and when they told me
+they had got their conditions in black and white, I
+told them how it would be. I said he would take
+them in; for what was a paper to a man like him?
+I wrote them such a letter, doctor, that they all
+thought it was Mr. Pitt’s—Mr. Pitt’s best style, too—until
+I swore he never knew a word about it. They
+fancied they had got all the loaves and fishes. One
+was to be Prime Minister, one First Lord of the Admiralty,
+and so on: but their ambition destroyed
+them. What have they been since Mr. Pitt’s death?
+Nothing at all. Who ever hears now of the Duke of
+B*********?”<a id="FNanchor_4" href="#Footnote_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<p>I turned over the pages, and next read Wraxall’s
+account of Mr. Sheridan, which Lady Hester said was
+very much to the purpose. “Mr. Pitt,” she added,
+“always thought well of him, and never disliked my
+talking with him. Oh! how Sheridan used to make
+me laugh, when he pretended to marry Mr. Pitt to
+different women!”</p>
+
+<p>I came to the passage where Sir Nathaniel finds
+fault with Mr. Pitt’s having refused Sheridan’s generous
+offer of co-operating with him in suppressing the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_53">53</span>
+mutiny at the Nore. “Why,” interrupted Lady
+Hester, “what could Mr. Pitt do? He was afraid,
+doctor; he did not know how sincere such people
+might be in their offers: they might be only coming
+over to his side to get the secrets of the cabinet, and
+then turn king’s evidence. It required a great deal
+of caution to know how to deal with such clever men.”</p>
+
+<p>Where Sir Nathaniel relates the history of the
+Burrell family, she spoke highly of all the daughters,
+but especially of Mrs. Bennett, and considered that
+the author was wrong in saying that all but Mrs. Bennett
+were not handsome.</p>
+
+<p>Of the D. of H. she observed, that he never lived
+with the duchess. He was in love with Lady ——,
+and used to disguise himself as a one-legged soldier—as
+a beggar—assuming a hundred masquerades, sleeping
+in outhouses, &amp;c. He would have married her,
+but he could not, for he had got one wife already.
+That was the woman F. M**** married. “Oh, doctor,
+there was a man!” (meaning the Duke of H——)
+“perfect from top to toe, with not a single flaw in his
+person.”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester was so delighted with Sir Nathaniel’s
+Memoirs that she said, more than once, “How I wish
+I had known that man! I would have made him a
+duke. What an excellent judgment he has, and how
+well he knew everybody! But how was I to find out
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">54</span>
+all those people, when the stupid and interested set
+that surrounded Mr. Pitt kept them all in the background.”</p>
+
+<p>November 11.—This evening I remained with Lady
+Hester about three hours. She was better, but complained
+of great pain in the left hypochondrium, and
+could not lie easy on either side, or on her back.
+Yet, notwithstanding her ailments, talking was necessary
+for her; and from the incidental mention of Mr.
+Pitt’s name, she went on about him for some time.</p>
+
+<p>“Nobody ever knew or estimated Mr. Pitt’s character
+rightly. His views were abused and confounded
+with the narrow projects of men who never could comprehend
+them; his fidelity to his master was never
+understood. Never was there such a disinterested
+man; he invariably refused every bribe, and declined
+every present that was offered to him. Those which
+came to him from abroad he left to rot in the Custom
+House; and some of his servants, after quitting his
+service, knowing he never inquired about them any
+more, went and claimed things of this sort: for Mr.
+Pitt would read the letter, and think no more about it.
+I could name those, who have pictures hanging in their
+rooms—pictures by Flemish masters, of great value—procured
+in this way.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Pitt used to say of Lord Carrington, when he
+saw him unable to eat his dinner in comfort, because he
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">55</span>
+had a letter to write to his steward about some estate
+or another—‘<i lang="fr">voilà l’embarras de richesses</i>:’ but when
+he heard of some generous action done by a wealthy
+man—‘There’s the pleasure of being rich,’ he would
+cry. He did not pretend to despise wealth, but he
+was not a slave to it, as will be seen by the following
+anecdotes:—</p>
+
+<p>“At one time a person was empowered by his city
+friends to settle on him £10,000 a year, in order to
+render him independent of the favour of the king
+and of everybody, upon condition (as they expressed
+it) that he would stand forth to save his country.
+The offer was made through me, and I said I would
+deliver the message, but was afraid the answer would
+not be such as they wished. Mr. Pitt in fact refused
+it, saying he was much flattered by their approval of
+his conduct, but that he could accept nothing of the sort.</p>
+
+<p>“Yet these people,” added Lady Hester, “were
+not, as you might at first suppose, disinterested in
+their offer: I judged them to be otherwise. For if it
+had been to the man, and not to some hopes of gain
+they had by him, would they not, after his death,
+have searched out those he esteemed as angels, and
+have honoured his memory by enriching those he loved
+so much? (alluding to herself and brothers.) But no—they
+thought if Mr. Pitt retired from public affairs,
+the country and its commerce would go to ruin, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">56</span>
+they, as great city men, would be the losers; whereas,
+by a few thousand pounds given away handsomely, if
+they got him to take an active part in the government,
+they would in turn put vast riches into their
+own purses, and make a handsome profit out of their
+patriotism.” She added, “There are no public philanthropists
+in the city.”</p>
+
+<p>“I recollect once a hackney-coach drawing up to
+the door, out of which got four men: doctor, they
+had a gold box with them as big as that” (and she held
+her hands nearly a foot apart to show the size of it),
+“containing £100,000 in bank-notes. They had
+found out the time when he was alone, and made him
+an offer of it. It was all interest that guided them,
+but they pretended it was patriotism:—rich merchants,
+who were to get a pretty penny by the job. He
+very politely thanked them, and returned the present.</p>
+
+<p>“I was once in the city at an Irish linen warehouse—very
+rich people, but such a nasty place—so
+dark! You know those narrow streets. They offered
+to buy Hollwood for him, pay his debts, and make him
+independent of the king, if he would contrive to take
+office; for he was out at the time. I mentioned it to
+him, as I thought it my duty to do so; but he would
+not listen to any such proposal.</p>
+
+<p>“When I think of the ingratitude of the English
+nation to Mr. Pitt, for all his personal sacrifices and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">57</span>
+disinterestedness, for his life wasted in the service of
+his country!”—Here Lady Hester’s emotions got the
+better of her, and she burst into tears: she sobbed as
+she spoke. “People little knew what he had to do.
+Up at eight in the morning, with people enough to see
+for a week, obliged to talk all the time he was at
+breakfast, and receiving first one, then another, until
+four o’clock; then eating a mutton-chop, hurrying off
+to the House, and there badgered and compelled to
+speak and waste his lungs until two or three in the
+morning!—who could stand it? After this, heated
+as he was, and having eaten nothing, in a manner of
+speaking, all day, he would sup with Dundas, Huskisson,
+Rose, Mr. Long, and such persons, and then
+go to bed to get three or four hours’ sleep, and to
+renew the same thing the next day, and the next, and
+the next.</p>
+
+<p>“Poor old Rose! he had a good heart. I am
+afraid he took it ill that I did not write to him. Mr.
+Long used to slide in and slide out, and slide here and
+slide there—nobody knew when he went or when he
+came—so quiet.”</p>
+
+<p>I here interrupted Lady Hester: “It was a lamentable
+end, that of Mr. ——,” said I.<a id="FNanchor_5" href="#Footnote_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> “So much the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">58</span>
+better,” answered Lady Hester. I thought she had
+not heard me well. “It was a lamentable end, that
+of Mr. ——,” I repeated with a louder tone. “So
+much the better,” said she again; “it could not be too
+bad for him. He died in bodily torment, and C——
+had the torment of a bad conscience for his falsehoods,
+and W—— lived in mental torment. They all three
+deserved it.”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester resumed. “When Mr. Pitt was at
+Walmer, he recovered his health prodigiously. He
+used to go to a farm near Walmer, where hay and corn
+were kept for the horses. He had a room fitted up
+there with a table and two or three chairs, where he
+used to write sometimes, and a tidy woman to dress
+him something to eat. Oh! what slices of bread and
+butter I have seen him eat there, and hunches of
+bread and cheese big enough for a ploughman! He
+used to say that, whenever he could retire from public
+life, he would have a good English woman cook.
+Sometimes, after a grand dinner, he would say, ‘I
+want something—I am hungry:’ and when I remarked,
+‘Well, but you are just got up from dinner,’
+he would add, ‘Yes; but I looked round the table,
+and there was nothing I could eat—all the dishes were
+so made up, and so unnatural.’ Ah, doctor! in town,
+during the sitting of parliament, what a life was his!
+Roused from his sleep (for he was a good sleeper) with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">59</span>
+a despatch from Lord Melville;—then down to Windsor;
+then, if he had half an hour to spare, trying
+to swallow something:—Mr. Adams with a paper,
+Mr. Long with another; then Mr. Rose: then, with
+a little bottle of cordial confection in his pocket, off to
+the House until three or four in the morning; then
+home to a hot supper for two or three hours more, to
+talk over what was to be done next day:—and wine,
+and wine!—Scarcely up next morning, when tat-tat-tat—twenty
+or thirty people, one after another, and the
+horses walking before the door from two till sunset,
+waiting for him. It was enough to kill a man—it was
+murder!”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester reverted to Walmer, and went on,
+after musing a little thus—“I remember once what an
+improvement I made at Walmer, which arose from a
+conversation with some friends, in which Mr. Pitt
+agreed with them that Walmer was not certainly a
+beautiful residence, but that it only wanted trees to
+make it so. I was present, but did not seem to hear
+what was passing.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Pitt soon after went to town. Mindful of
+what he had let drop, I immediately resolved to set
+about executing the improvements which he seemed
+to imply as wanting. I got (I know not how) all the
+regiments that were in quarters at Dover, and employed
+them in levelling, fetching turf, transplanting
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">60</span>
+shrubs, flowers, &amp;c. As I possess, in some degree,
+the art of ingratiating myself where I want to do it, I
+would go out of an evening among the workmen, and
+say to one, ‘You are a Warwickshire man, I know
+by your face’ (although I had known it by his brogue).
+‘How much I esteem Lord Warwick; he is my best
+friend.’—‘Were you in Holland, my good fellow?’ to
+another. ‘Yes, my lady, in the Blues.’—‘A fine
+regiment; there is not a better soldier in the army
+than colonel so-and-so.’—‘He was my colonel, my
+lady.’ Thus a few civil words, and occasionally a
+present, made the work go on rapidly, and it was
+finished before Mr. Pitt’s return.</p>
+
+<p>“When Mr. Pitt came down, he dismounted from
+his horse, and, ascending the staircase, saw through a
+window, which commanded a view of the grounds, the
+improvements that had been made. ‘Dear me, Hester,
+why, this is a miracle! I know ’tis you, so do not deny
+it: well, I declare, it is quite admirable; I could
+not have done it half so well myself.’ And, though it
+was just dinner-time, he would go out, and examine
+it all over, and then was so profuse in his praises!—which
+were the more delightful, because they applauded
+the correctness of my taste. Above all, he was charmed
+that I had not fallen into an error (which most persons
+would have done) of making what is called an English
+garden, but rather had kept to the old manner of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">61</span>
+avenues, alleys, and the like, as being more adapted to
+an ancient castle. Such was the amiable politeness of
+Mr. Pitt.</p>
+
+<p>“When Mr. Pitt retired from office, and sold
+Hollwood, his favourite child, he laid down his carriages
+and horses, diminished his equipage, and paid
+off as many debts as he could. Yet, notwithstanding
+this complete revolution, his noble manners, his agreeable,
+condescending air, never forsook him for a
+moment. To see him at table with vulgar sea captains,
+and ignorant militia colonels, with two or three
+servants in attendance—he, who had been accustomed
+to a servant behind each chair, to all that was great
+and distinguished in Europe—one might have supposed
+disgust would have worked some change in him.
+But in either case it was the same—always the admiration
+of all around him. He was ever careful to cheer
+the modest and diffident; but if some forward young
+fellow exhibited any pertness, by a short speech, or
+by asking some puzzling question, he would give him
+such a set down that he could not get over it all the
+evening.”</p>
+
+<p>In answer to a question I put, “By whom and how
+ministers effected their purposes in the city,” she told
+me that they got hold of one of the great squads, as
+Lloyd’s, the Angersteins, the Merchant Tailors, and
+so on; and by means of one body set the rest to work.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">62</span>
+Lady Hester was saying of herself that she was
+very fit for a diplomatic character. “Nobody can ever
+observe in me any changes in my countenance; and
+when I am sitting still under a tree, nobody that
+passes and sees me, I will venture to say, would ever
+suppose what was in me, or say that’s a person of
+talent. Mr. Pitt’s face was somewhat the same. In
+regarding him, I should have said that he had a sort
+of slovenly or negligent look: and the same when he
+was in a passion. His passion did not show itself by
+knitting his brows or pouting his mouth, nor were his
+words very sharp: but his eyes lighted up in a manner
+quite surprising. It was something that seemed to
+dart from within his head, and you might see sparks
+coming from them. At another time, his eyes had no
+colour at all.</p>
+
+<p>“That Mr. Pitt got into debt is no wonder. How
+could a man, so circumstanced, find time to look into
+his affairs? And of course there were many things I
+could not attend to, whatever disposition I might have
+had to do so. The bills that were given in by the
+cook, by the valet, and such people, I looked over.
+Merely the post-chaises and four were enough to run
+away with a moderate income. Every now and then
+I fixed on some glaring overcharge, and made some
+inquiry about it, just to put a check upon them; and
+on such occasions I would say, ‘Take care that does
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">63</span>
+not happen again:’ but, what with great dinners, and
+one thing and another, it was impossible to do any
+good. As for your talking about English servants
+being more honest than those of other countries, I
+don’t know what to say about it.</p>
+
+<p>“Where Wraxall, in his book, insinuates that
+Mr. Pitt gave Mr. Smith a title, and made him Lord
+Carrington, merely to discharge a debt for money
+supplied in his emergencies, he is wrong, doctor. Mr.
+Pitt once borrowed a sum of money of six persons,
+but Lord Carrington was not of the number, and the
+title bestowed on him was for quite another reason:
+it was to recompense the zeal he had shown in raising
+a volunteer corps at his own expense at Nottingham,
+and in furnishing government with a sufficient sum to
+raise another. Mr. Pitt had also found Mr. Smith a
+useful man in affording him information about bankers’
+business, which he often stood in need of, and in
+making dinner parties, to enable Mr. Pitt to get rid
+of troublesome people, whom he otherwise would have
+been obliged to entertain at his own table. But Mr.
+Pitt never knew what I heard after his death, by mere
+accident, that the principal part of the loan, which
+Mr. S. presented to government in his own name, was
+in reality the gift of an old miser at Nottingham;
+who, being unable or unwilling to go to town to see
+the Chancellor of the Exchequer in person, and to be
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">64</span>
+put to the trouble of addressing the crown, got Mr. S.,
+who was an active man, to do it for him. It suited
+Mr. Pitt very well, in making Lord Carrington governor
+of Deal castle, to have somebody near at hand
+who could take off the bore, and the expense too, of
+entertaining people from London.”</p>
+
+<p>“Sir Nathaniel Wraxall speaks of Mr. Pitt’s supposed
+inclination for one of the Duke of Richmond’s
+daughters, and goes on to say that he showed one of
+them great attention.” Lady Hester Stanhope interrupted
+me at that passage, and said, “So he did
+to all.”</p>
+
+<p>She denied that Mr. Dundas had any direct influence
+over Mr. Pitt, as Wraxall avers. Her words
+were, “Because Mr. Dundas was a man of sense, and
+Mr. Pitt approved of his ideas on many subjects,
+it does not follow, therefore, that he was influenced
+by him.” With the exception of Mr. Dundas,
+Lord —— and another that she named, “all the
+rest,” said Lady Hester, “were a rabble—a rabble.
+It was necessary to have some one at their head to
+lead them, or else they were always going out of
+the right road, just as, you know, a mule with a good
+star must go before a caravan of mules, to show them
+the way. Look at a flight of geese in the air: there
+must always be one to lead them, or else they would
+not know in what direction to fly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_65">65</span>
+“Mr. Pitt’s consideration for age was very marked.
+He had, exclusive of Walmer, a house in the village,
+for the reception of those whom the castle could not
+hold. If a respectable commoner, advanced in years,
+and a young duke arrived at the same time, and there
+happened to be but one room vacant in the Castle, he
+would be sure to assign it to the senior; for it is
+better (he would say) that these young lords should
+walk home on a rainy night, than old men: they can
+bear it more easily.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Pitt was accustomed to say that he always
+conceived more favourably of that man’s understanding
+who talked agreeable nonsense, than of his who
+talked sensibly only; for the latter might come from
+books and study, while the former could only be the
+natural fruit of imagination.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Pitt was never inattentive to what was passing
+around him, though he often thought proper to
+appear so. On one occasion, Sir Ed. K. took him to
+the Ashford ball to show him off to the yeomen
+and their wives. Though sitting in the room in all
+his senatorial seriousness, he contrived to observe
+everything; and nobody” (Lady Hester said) “could
+give a more lively account of a ball than he. He
+told who was rather fond of a certain captain; how
+Mrs. K. was dressed; how Miss Jones, Miss Johnson,
+or Miss Anybody, danced; and had all the minutiæ
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_66">66</span>
+of the night as if he had been no more than an
+idle looker-on.</p>
+
+<p>“He was not fond of the applause of a mob. One
+day, in going down to Weymouth, he was recognized
+in some town, and, whilst the carriage stopped to
+change horses, a vast number of people gathered
+round us: they insisted on dragging the carriage,
+and would do so for some time, all he could say.
+Oh, doctor! what a fright I was in!</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Pitt bore with ceremony as a thing necessary.
+On some occasions, I was obliged to pinch
+his arm to make him not appear uncivil to people:
+‘There’s a baronet,’ I would say; or, ‘that’s Mr.
+So-and-so.’</p>
+
+<p>“I never saw Mr. Pitt shed tears but twice. I
+never heard him speak of his sister Har-yet” (so Lady
+Hester pronounced it) “but once. One day his niece,
+Harriet Elliott, dined with us, and, after she was
+gone, Mr. Pitt said, ‘Well, I am glad Harriet fell
+to my brother’s lot, and you to mine, for I never
+should have agreed with her.’—‘But,’ observed I,
+‘she is a good girl, and handsome.’—‘She ought to
+be so,’ said Mr. Pitt, ‘for her mother was so.’”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester said, that those who asserted that Mr.
+Pitt wanted to put the Bourbons on the throne, and
+that they followed his principles, lied; and, if she
+had been in parliament, she would have told them so.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_67">67</span>
+“I once heard a great person,” added she, “in conversation
+with him on the subject, and Mr. Pitt’s
+reply was, ‘Whenever I can make peace,<a id="FNanchor_6" href="#Footnote_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a> whether
+with a consul, or with whosoever it is at the head of
+the French government, provided I can have any dependance
+on him, I will do it.’ Mr. Pitt had a
+sovereign contempt for the Bourbons, and the only
+merit that he allowed to any one of them was to him
+who was afterwards Charles X., whose gentlemanly
+manners and mild demeanour he could not be otherwise
+than pleased with. Mr. Pitt never would consent
+to their going to court, because it would have been
+a recognition of Louis XVIII.</p>
+
+<p>“Latterly, Mr. Pitt used to suffer a great deal
+from the cold in the House of Commons; for he complained
+that the wind cut through his silk stockings.
+I remember, one day, I had on a large tippet and
+muff of very fine fur: the tippet covered my shoulders,
+and came down in a point behind. ‘What is
+this, Hester?’ said Mr. Pitt; ‘something Siberian?
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">68</span>
+Can’t you command some of your slaves—for you
+must recollect, Griselda, Hester has slaves without
+number, who implicitly obey her orders’ (this was
+addressed to Griselda and Mr. Tickell, who were present)—‘can’t
+you command some of your slaves to
+introduce the fashion of wearing muffs and tippets
+into the House of Commons? I could then put my
+feet on the muff, and throw the tippet over my knees
+and round my legs.’</p>
+
+<p>“When we were at Walmer, it is incredible what
+a deal I got through in the day. Mr. Pitt was
+pleased to have somebody who would take trouble
+off his hands. Every week he had to review the
+volunteers, and would ride home in such showers of
+rain—I have been so drenched, that, as I stood,
+my boots made two spouting fountains above my
+knees. Then there was dinner; and, if I happened
+to be alone, when I went to the drawing-room, I had
+to give the secret word for spies, to see the sergeant
+of the guard, and then the gentlemen would come in
+from the dining-room. But, if they were late, oh,
+how sleepy I got, and would have given the world to
+go to bed!</p>
+
+<p>“One day, Lord Chatham had to review the artillery,
+and he kept them under arms from daylight
+until three o’clock. Bradford went to him several
+times to know if he was ready. ‘I shall come in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">69</span>
+about half an hour,’ was the constant reply; until,
+at last, seeing no chance of his appearance, I agreed
+with the aide-de-camps to go off together and settle
+matters as well as we could: so, getting Lord Chatham’s
+leave, off we went. Colonel Ford, the commanding-officer,
+was a cross man; and that day he
+had enough to make him so. But I managed it all
+very well: I told him that pressing business detained
+Lord C.; that he had commissioned us to apologize;
+and that I should have pleasure in saying the men
+looked admirably: then I added that Mr. Pitt
+hoped to see him in the course of a few days at the
+Castle, and so on. The colonel looked dreadfully out
+of temper, however, and Bradford and I rode back
+at a furious rate. It was one of those dark, wet days
+that are so peculiar to England. A day or two after,
+the colonel and some of the officers were invited to
+Walmer, and I behaved very civilly to them; so that
+Lord Chatham’s laziness was forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>“Lord Chatham never travelled without a mistress.
+He was a man of no merit, but of great <i>sâad</i> (luck):
+he used to keep people waiting and waiting whilst he
+was talking and breakfasting with her. He would
+keep his aide-de-camps till two or three in the morning.
+How often would the servant come in, and
+say supper was ready, and he would answer, ‘Ah!
+well, in half an hour.’ Then the servant would
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">70</span>
+say, ‘Supper is on the table;’ and then it would
+be, ‘Ah? well, in a quarter of an hour.’ An aide-de-camp
+would come in with a paper to sign, and
+perhaps Lord Chatham would say—‘Oh, dear! that’s
+too long: I can’t possibly look at it now: you must
+bring it to-morrow.’ The aide-de-camp would present
+it next day, and he would cry, ‘Good God! how can
+you think of bringing it now? don’t you know there’s
+a review to-day?’ Then, the day after, he was going
+to Woolwich. ‘Well, never mind,’ he would say;
+‘have you got a short one?—well, bring that.’</p>
+
+<p>“Doctor, I once changed the dress of a whole regiment—the
+Berkshire militia. Somebody asked me,
+before a great many officers, what I thought of them,
+and I said they looked like so many tinned harlequins.
+One day, soon after, I was riding through Walmer
+village, when who should pop out upon me but the
+colonel, dressed in entirely new regimentals, with
+different facings, and more like a regiment of the line.
+‘Pray, pardon me, Lady Hester’—so I stopped, as
+he addressed me—‘pray, pardon me,’ said the colonel,
+‘but I wish to know if you approve of our new uniform.’
+Of course I made him turn about, till I inspected
+him round and round—pointed with my whip,
+as I sat on horseback, first here and then there—told
+him the waist was too short, and wanted half a button
+more—the collar was a little too high—and so on;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">71</span>
+and, in a short time, the whole regiment turned out
+with new clothes. The Duke of York was very generous,
+and not at all stingy in useful things.</p>
+
+<p>“I recollect once at Ramsgate, five of the Blues,
+half drunk, not knowing who I was, walked after me,
+and pursued me to my door. They had the impertinence
+to follow me up-stairs, and one of them took
+hold of my gown. The maid came out, frightened
+out of her senses; but, just at the moment, with my
+arm I gave the foremost of them such a push, that I
+sent him rolling over the others down stairs, with
+their swords rattling against the balusters. Next
+day, he appeared with a black patch as big as a
+saucer over his face; and, when I went out, there
+were the glasses looking at me, and the footmen
+pointing me out—quite a sensation!”</p>
+
+<p>During these conversations respecting Mr. Pitt’s
+times, Sir Nathaniel’s Memoirs were generally in my
+hand, and when there was a pause I resumed my
+reading. In giving Sir Walter Farquhar’s private
+conversation respecting Mr. Pitt’s death, the author
+says—“Mr. Pitt mounted the staircase with alacrity.”
+Here Lady Hester stopped me, with the exclamation
+of—“What a falsehood, doctor! Just hear how it
+was. You know, when the carriage came to the door,
+he was announced, and I went up to the top of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">72</span>
+stairs to receive him. The first thing I heard was a
+voice so changed, that I said to myself, ‘It is all over
+with him.’ He was supported by the arms of two
+people, and had a stick, or two sticks, in his hands,
+and as he came up, panting for breath—ugh! ugh!
+I retreated little by little, not to put him to the pain
+of making a bow to me, or of speaking:—so much for
+his alacrity!</p>
+
+<p>“After Mr. Pitt’s death, I could not cry for a
+whole month and more. I never shed a tear, until
+one day Lord Melville came to see me; and the sight
+of his eyebrows turned grey, and his changed face,
+made me burst into tears. I felt much better for it
+after it was over.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Pitt’s bust was taken after his death by an
+Italian, named, I think, Tomino—an obscure artist,
+whom I had rummaged out. This man had offered
+me at one time a bust worth a hundred guineas, and
+prayed me to accept it, in order, as he said, to make
+his name known: I refused it, but recollected him
+afterwards. The bust turned out a very indifferent
+resemblance: so, with my own hand, I corrected the
+defects, and it eventually proved a strong likeness.
+The D. of C. happening to call when the artist was at
+work in my room, was so pleased, that he ordered one
+of a hundred guineas for himself, and another to be
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">73</span>
+sent to Windsor. There was one by this Tomino
+put into the Exhibition.</p>
+
+<p>“A fine picture in Mr. Pitt’s possession represented
+Diogenes with a lantern searching by day for an honest
+man. A person cut out a part of the blank canvas,
+and put in Mr. Pitt’s portrait.</p>
+
+<p>“When Mr. Pitt was going to Bath, previous to his
+last illness, I told him I insisted on his taking my
+eider-down quilt with him. ‘You will go about,’
+said I, ‘much more comfortably; and, instead of
+being too hot one day under a thick counterpane, and
+the next day shivering under a thin one, you will
+have an equable warmth, always leaving one blanket
+with this quilt. Charles and James were present,
+and could not help ridiculing the idea of a man’s carrying
+about with him such a bundling, effeminate
+thing. ‘Why,’ interrupted I, ‘it is much more convenient
+than you all imagine: big as it looks, you may
+put it into a pocket-handkerchief.’—‘I can’t believe
+that,’ cried Charles and James. ‘Do you doubt my
+word?’ said I, in a passion: ‘nobody shall doubt it
+with impunity:’ and my face assumed that picture
+of anger, which you can’t deny, doctor, is in me pretty
+formidable; so I desired the quilt to be brought.
+‘Why, my dear Lady Hester,’ said Mr. Pitt, ‘I am
+sure the boys do not mean to say you tell falsehoods:
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">74</span>
+they suppose you said it would go into a handkerchief
+merely as a <i lang="fr">façon de parler</i>.’”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester, when she told me this story, here
+interrupted herself—“And upon my word, doctor, if
+you had seen the footman bringing it over his shoulder,
+he himself almost covered up by it, you would have
+thought indeed it was only a <i lang="fr">façon de parler</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>She continued. “I turned myself to James. ‘Now,
+sir, take and tie it up directly in this pocket-handkerchief.
+There! does it, or does it not go into it!’</p>
+
+<p>“This,” concluded Lady Hester, “was the only
+quarrel I ever had with Charles and James. James
+often used to look very black, but he never said anything.</p>
+
+<p>“When Mr. Pitt was going to Bath, in his last illness,
+he told me he had just seen Arthur Wellesley.
+He spoke of him with the greatest commendation, and
+said the more he saw of him, the more he admired
+him. ‘Yes,’ he added, ‘the more I hear of his exploits
+in India, the more I admire the modesty with
+which he receives the praises he merits from them.
+He is the only man I ever saw that was not vain of
+what he had done, and had so much reason to be so.’</p>
+
+<p>“This eulogium,” Lady Hester said, “Mr. Pitt
+pronounced in his fine mellow tone of voice, and this
+was the last speech I heard him make in that voice;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">75</span>
+for, on his return from Bath, it was cracked for
+ever.” Then she observed, “My own opinion of the
+duke is, that he is a blunt soldier, who pleases women
+because he is gallant and has some remains of beauty:
+but,” she added, “he has none of the dignity of courts
+about him.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_4" href="#FNanchor_4" class="label">[4]</a>
+This of course refers to the late Duke.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_5" href="#FNanchor_5" class="label">[5]</a>
+“I dislike ——, both as to his principles and the turn of his
+understanding: he wants to make money by this peace.”—<cite>Diaries and
+Correspondence</cite>, &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_6" href="#FNanchor_6" class="label">[6]</a>
+“Mr. Pitt has always been held up to the present generation as
+fond of war; but the Harris papers could furnish the most continued
+and certain evidence of the contrary, and that he often suffered all
+the agony of a pious man who is forced to fight a duel. The cold and
+haughty temper of Lord Grenville was less sensitive. Our overtures to
+France were synonymous with degradation, and he could not brook the
+delays of the directory.”—<cite>Diaries and Correspondence</cite>, <abbr title="volume three page">v. iii.,
+p.</abbr> 516.</p>
+
+</div><!--end footnotes-->
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">76</span>
+
+<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER </span> <abbr title="Three"><span class="allsmcap">III.</span></abbr></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="small short">Duchess of Gontaut—Duc de Berry—Anecdotes of Lord H.—Sir
+Gore Ouseley—Prince of Wales—The other princes—The
+Queen’s severity—Men and women of George the Third’s
+time—The Herveys—Lady Liverpool’s high breeding—Lady
+Hester’s declining health.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2">“One of Mr. Pitt’s last conversations, whilst on his
+death-bed, was about Charles and James. Mr. Pitt
+had called me in, and told me, in a low, feeble voice—‘You
+must not talk to me to-day on any business:
+when I get down to Lord Camden’s, and am better, it
+will be time enough then.’ He seemed to know he
+was dying, but only said this to console me. ‘But
+now, my dear Hester,’ he continued, ‘I wish to say
+a few words about James and Charles. As for Charles,
+he is such an excellent young man that one cannot
+wish him to be otherwise than he is; and Moore is
+such a perfect officer, that he will give him every information
+in his profession that he can possibly require.
+The only apprehension I have is on the score
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">77</span>
+of women, who will perhaps think differently of him
+from what he thinks of himself: but with James the
+case is otherwise. He is a young man you must keep
+under; else you will always see him trying to be a
+<i lang="fr">joli garçon</i>. For Charles’s steadiness, I do not fear;
+but the little one will one day or other fall into the
+hands of men who will gain him over and unsettle his
+political principles. You can guide him, and, so long
+as he is under your care, he is safe:’ and,” added
+Lady Hester, “Mr. Pitt was right, doctor; for the
+moment I quitted England he fell into the snares of
+Lord B. and his party, and instead of being in
+Mr. Canning’s place, which he might have been, he
+became nothing.”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester went on: “When Charles and James
+left Chevening,<a id="FNanchor_7" href="#Footnote_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Mr. Pitt said to Mahon (the present
+Earl Stanhope), ‘You know that, when your father
+dies, you will be heir to a large property—whether
+£15,000 a-year or £25,000 it does not much signify.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">78</span>
+Now, as far as a house goes and having a table where
+your brothers may dine, I have got that to offer. But
+young men in the army have a number of wants, for
+their equipment, regimentals, &amp;c., and for all this I
+have not the means. You, therefore, Mahon, must
+do that for them; and, if you have not money, you
+can always let their bills be charged to you with
+interest, as is very common among noblemen until
+they come to their fortune. You ought to raise a
+sum of money for them, and see to their wants a little:
+your two brothers should not be left to starve.’</p>
+
+<p>“Mahon said he would. Charles one day told me
+that, as a poor captain of the army, the baggage warehouse
+and his tailor were rather shy of trusting him;
+and if Mahon would only go and say to them—‘Do
+you let my brothers have what they want, and I will
+be answerable for them;’ then I could get on. Mahon
+did that too; and, in reliance on this arrangement,
+they had clothes and other things, considering him as
+responsible for them. After Mr. Pitt’s death, several
+tradesmen applied for their bills.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>So, recollecting an old peer, who had been one of
+Mr. Pitt’s particular friends, I sent off James to him
+to his country-seat with a letter, relating the whole
+business: this person immediately gave James a draft
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">79</span>
+for £2,000, with which he returned, and paid his own
+and Charles’s debts.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, it was agreed between Charles, James, and
+me, that whoever had the first windfall should pay the
+£2,000. Charles died: James was not rich enough
+at any time to do it; and it fell to my lot to pay it
+since I have been in this country. And that was the
+reason of my selling the Burton Pynsent reversion,
+which, you know, I did in 1820 or thereabouts; and
+when Mr. Murray found fault with me for my
+extravagance, and said he would have no hand in the
+business, neither he nor anybody else knew then why
+I sold it.</p>
+
+<p>“When Coutts wrote me word that my brother
+James had been very good to me in having given me
+£1,000, he did not know that the civility was not so
+disinterested as he imagined. James might think he
+did a great deal for me: but, let me ask you—did I
+not make a pretty great sacrifice for Lord Mahon and
+him? I sold a pretty round sum out of the American
+funds, and James took possession of about five hundred
+pounds’ worth of plate of mine, and of my
+jewels, and of Tippoo Saib’s gold powder-flask, worth
+£200, and of the cardinal of York’s present, which,
+to some persons who wanted a relic of the Stuarts,
+was invaluable. Then there was a portfolio, full of
+fine engravings of Morghen and others, that the Duke
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">80</span>
+of Buckingham bought of him: so there was at least
+as much as he sent me.</p>
+
+<p>“If I had not been thwarted and opposed by them
+all, as I have been, and obliged to raise money from
+time to time to get on, I should have been a very rich
+woman. There was the money I sold out of the
+American funds; then there was the Burton Pynsent
+money, £7,000; my father’s legacy, £10,000; the
+(I did not distinctly hear what) legacy, £1,000:” and
+thus her ladyship reckoned up on her fingers an amount
+of £40,000.</p>
+
+<p>“Is it not very odd that General G. and Lord G.
+could not leave me a few thousand pounds out of their
+vast fortunes when they died? They knew that I was
+in debt, and that a few thousands would have set me
+up; and yet in their wills, not to speak of their lifetime,
+they never gave me a single sixpence, but left
+their money to people already in the enjoyment of
+incomes far exceeding their wants, and very little
+more nearly related to them than I am. Well, all
+their injustice does not put me out of spirits. The
+time will soon come when I shall want none of their
+assistance, if I get the other property that ought to
+come to me. Oh! how vexed Lady Chatham always
+was, when Lady Louisa V. used to point at me, and
+say—‘There she is—that’s my heir.’ Lady L. was
+deformed, and never thought of marrying; but
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">81</span>
+Lord G. did marry her nevertheless, and she had a
+child that died.</p>
+
+<p>“Then there is the reversion of my grandfather’s
+pension of £4,000 a-year, secured for four lives by
+the patent: the first Lord Chatham one, the late
+Lord Chatham the next, and I, of course, the
+third.”<a id="FNanchor_8" href="#Footnote_8" class="fnanchor">[8]</a></p>
+
+<p>Nov. 14.—I saw that Lady Hester grew weaker
+every day, and I felt alarmed about her. Still, whenever
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">82</span>
+I had to write to the person she, about this time,
+most honoured with her confidence, Mons. Guys, the
+French consul at Beyrout, she would not allow me to
+make any further allusion to her illness than to state
+simply that she was confined to her bed-room with a
+cold. “I see you are afraid about me,” she said, “but
+I have recovered from worse illnesses than this by
+God’s help and the strength of my constitution.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">83</span>
+My wife sent to her to say that she or my daughter
+would, with pleasure, come and keep her company, or
+sit up with her: this she refused. I then offered
+Miss Longchamp’s services: but Lady Hester’s pride
+would not allow her to expose to a stranger the
+meagreness of her chamber, so utterly unlike a
+European apartment. It was indeed an afflicting
+sight to behold her wrapped up in old blankets, her
+room lighted by yellow beeswax candles in brass
+candlesticks, drinking her tea out of a broken-spouted
+blue teapot and a cracked white cup and saucer,
+taking her draughts out of an old cup, with a short
+wooden deal bench by her bedside for a table, and in a
+room not so well furnished as a servant’s bed-room in
+England.</p>
+
+<p>The general state of wretchedness in which she lived
+had even struck Mr. Dundas, a gentleman, who, on
+returning overland from India, staid some days with
+her: and, as Lady Hester observed, when she told
+me the story, “He did not know all, as you do.
+I believe he almost shed tears. ‘When I see you,
+Lady Hester,’ said he, ‘with a set of fellows for
+servants who do nothing, and when I look at the
+room in which you pass your hours, I can hardly
+believe it is you. I was much affected at first, but
+now I am more reconciled. You are a being fluctuating
+between heaven and earth, and belonging to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">84</span>
+neither; and perhaps it is better things should be as
+they are’” Lady Hester added, “He has visited me
+two or three times: he is a sensible Scotchman, and
+I like him as well as anybody I have seen for some
+years.”</p>
+
+<p>November 15.—It was night, when a messenger
+arrived from Beyrout, and brought a small parcel
+containing a superbly bound book presented to her
+ladyship by the Oriental Translation Fund Society.
+It was accompanied by a complimentary letter from
+the president, Sir Gore Ouseley. The book was
+“<cite>The History of the Temple of Jerusalem, translated
+by the <abbr title="Reverend">Rev.</abbr> J. Reynolds</cite>.” After admiring it, and
+turning over the leaves, she said to me, “Look it over,
+and see what it is about,” and then began to talk of
+Sir Gore. “I recollect, doctor,” said she, “so well
+the night he was introduced to me: it was at Mr.
+Matook’s (?) supper.</p>
+
+<p>“You may imagine the numbers and numbers of
+people I met in society, whilst I lived with Mr. Pitt,
+almost all of whom were dying to make my acquaintance,
+and of whom I necessarily could know little or
+nothing. Indeed, to the greater part of those who
+were introduced to me, if they saw me afterwards,
+when they bowed I might return the salutation, smile
+a little, and pass on, for I had not time to do more:—a
+person’s life would not be long enough. Well, I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_85">85</span>
+recollect it was at a party where Charles X. was present—I
+think it was at Lord Harrington’s—that somebody
+said to me, ‘Mr. —— wants to know you so
+much! Why won’t you let him be introduced to you?’—‘Because
+I don’t like people whose face is all oily,
+like a soap-ball,’ answered I. Now, doctor, upon my
+word, I no more knew he had made his fortune by oil,
+than I do what was the colour of the paper in your
+saloon at Nice; and when his friend said, ‘You are
+too bad, Lady Hester,’ I did not understand what he
+meant. However, they told me there would be all the
+royalties there, and so I consented.</p>
+
+<p>“I have had an instinct all my life that never deceived
+me, about people who were thorough-bred or
+not; I knew them at once. Why was it, when Mr.
+H*******n came into a room, and took a long sweep
+with his hat, and made a stoop, and I said: ‘One
+would think he was looking under the bed for the <em>great
+business</em>;’ and all the people laughed, and when at last
+Mr. Pitt said, ‘Hester, you are too bad, you should
+not be personal,’ I declared ‘I did not know what he
+meant?’ Then he explained to me that the man was a
+broken-down doctor, a fact which, I honestly assured
+him, I never heard of before. But my quickness in detecting
+people’s old habits is so great, that I hit upon
+a thing without having the least previous intimation.</p>
+
+<p>“As I passed the card-table that evening where the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_86">86</span>
+Comte d’Artois was playing, he put down his cards to
+talk to me a little, so polite, so well-bred—poor man!
+And there were the other three old dowagers, who were
+playing with him, abusing him in English, which he
+understood very well, because he had stopped the game.
+After he had resumed his cards, I was leaning over
+the back of a chair facing him, reflecting in one of my
+thoughtful moments on the uncertainty of human greatness
+in the picture I had then before me, when I gave
+one of those deep sighs, which you have heard me do
+sometimes, something between a sigh and a grunt, and
+so startled the French King, that he literally threw
+down his cards to stare at me. I remained perfectly
+motionless, pretending not to observe his action; and,
+as he still continued to gaze at me, some of the lookers-on
+construed it into a sort of admiration on his part.
+This enraged Lady P., and her rage was increased
+when, at every knock at the door, I turned my head
+to see who was coming, and he turned his head too;
+for I was expecting the royalties, and so was he: but
+she did not know this, and she took it into her head
+that the Prince and I had some understanding between
+us.</p>
+
+<p>“I never thought any more of the matter; but, in
+the course of the evening, somebody brought Lady P.
+to me, and introduced her. ‘I have longed,’ said
+Lady P. ‘for some time to make your acquaintance:
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">87</span>
+I don’t know how it is that we have never met; it
+would give me great pleasure if I sometimes saw you
+at my parties,’ and so on. The next day I had a visit
+from Lady P., and the day after that came her card,
+and then an invitation; and, day after day, there was
+nothing but Lady P. So, at last, not knowing what
+it meant, I said to an acquaintance, ‘What is the
+reason that Lady P. is always coming after me?’—‘What!
+don’t you know?’ she replied: ‘why, the
+King of France is in love with you?’ And this is the
+art, doctor, of all those mistresses: they watch and observe
+if their lovers are pleased with any young person,
+and then invite her home, as a lure to keep alive the
+old attraction.”</p>
+
+<p>Here Lady Hester paused, and, after a moment,
+added: “How many of those French people did I see
+at that time, especially at Lord H.’s! There was the
+Duchess of Gontaut, who was obliged to turn washerwoman;
+and even to the last, when she was best off,
+was obliged to go out to parties in a hackney-coach.
+Why, the Duc de Berry himself lodged over a greengrocer’s
+in a little street leading out of Montague
+Square, and all the view he had was to lean out of his
+window, and look at the greengrocer’s stall. I have
+seen him many a time there, when he used to kiss his
+hand to me as I passed. The Duchess of Gontaut
+afterwards brought up the Duke of Bordeaux. That
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">88</span>
+was a woman quite admirable; so full of resources, so
+cheerful, she kept up the spirits of all the emigrants:
+and then she was so well dressed! She did not mind
+going in a hackney-coach to dine with the Duke of
+Portland.</p>
+
+<p>“Lord H********** scraped up a reputation which
+he never deserved,” continued Lady Hester, as her
+reflections led her from one person to another. “Insincere,
+greedy of place, and always pretending to be
+careless about it, he and my lady lived in a hugger-mugger
+sort of a way, half poverty half splendour,
+having soldiers for house servants, and my lady dining
+at two with the children (saying my lord dined out),
+and being waited on by a sergeant’s daughter. How
+often have I seen a scraggy bit of mutton sent up for
+luncheon, with some potatoes in their skins, before
+royalty! The princes would say to me, ‘Very bad,
+Lady Hester, very bad; but there! he has a large
+family—he is right to be saving.’ And then Lady
+H**********, with her little eyes, and a sort of
+waddle in her gait (for she once had a paralytic
+stroke), with a wig all curls, and, at the top of it,
+a great bunch of peacock’s feathers—then her dress,
+all bugles, and badly put on—horrid, doctor, horrid!
+and why should they have lived in such a large
+house, half furnished, with the girls sleeping altogether
+in large attics, with a broken looking-glass,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">89</span>
+and coming down into their mother’s room to dress
+themselves!</p>
+
+<p>“But to go back to Sir Gore Ouseley: it was at
+Mr. M.’s supper, when getting up from the card-table,
+and advancing towards me, he made a diplomatic bow,
+accompanied with some complimentary speech. That
+was the old school, very different from the fizgig
+people now-a days. Just before, the Prince had been
+standing in the middle of the room, talking to some
+one I did not know, first pulling up the flap of his
+coat to show his figure, then seizing the person he
+spoke to by the waistcoat, then laughing, then pretending
+to whisper; and this he continued for nearly
+an hour. ‘What can the Prince be talking about?’
+said some one next to me: ‘He does not know himself,’
+said I. Soon after, the person who had been
+talking to the Prince approached the sofa, when the
+mylord, who was sitting next to me, observed, ‘We
+have been looking at the Prince and you; what in
+the world was he talking about?’—‘He don’t know
+himself,’ answered his friend, ‘and I’m sure I don’t
+know.’—‘That’s just what Lady Hester said,’ rejoined
+the first speaker. ‘I have been wishing to make my
+bow to Lady Hester all the evening,’ said the friend,
+who then sat down by me.”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester went on: “What a mean fellow the
+Prince was, doctor! I believe he never showed a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">90</span>
+spark of good feeling to any human being. How
+often has he put men of small incomes to great inconvenience,
+by his telling them he would dine with them
+and bring ten or a dozen of his friends with him to
+drink the poor devils’ champagne, who hardly knew
+how to raise the wind, or to get trust for it! I recollect
+one who told me the Prince served him in this
+way, just at the time when he was in want of money,
+and that he did not know how to provide the dinner
+for him, when luckily a Sir Harry Featherstone or a
+Sir Gilbert Heatchcote or some such rich man bought
+his curricle and horses, and put a little ready money
+into his pocket. ‘I entertained him as well as I could,’
+said he, ‘and a few days after, when I was at Carlton
+House, and the Prince was dressing between four
+great mirrors, looking at himself in one and then in
+another, putting on a patch of hair and arranging
+his cravat, he began saying that he was desirous of
+showing me his thanks for my civility to him. So he
+pulled down a bandbox from a shelf, and seemed as if
+he was going to draw something of value out of it. I
+thought to myself it might be some point-lace, perhaps,
+of which, after using a little for my court-dress, I
+might sell the remainder for five or six hundred
+guineas: or perhaps, thought I, as there is no ceremony
+between us, he is going to give me some banknotes.
+Conceive my astonishment, when he opened
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_91">91</span>
+the bandbox, and pulled out a wig, which I even believe
+he had worn. ‘There,’ said he, ‘as you are
+getting bald, is a very superior wig, made by—I forget
+the man’s name, but it was not Sugden.’ The
+man could hardly contain himself, and was almost
+tempted to leave it in the hall as he went out. Did
+you ever hear of such meanness? Everybody who
+had to do with him was afraid of him. He was sure
+to get a horse, or a vis-à-vis, or a something, wherever
+he went, and never pay for them. He was a man
+without a heart,<a id="FNanchor_9" href="#Footnote_9" class="fnanchor">[9]</a> who had not one good quality about
+him. Doctor,” cried Lady Hester, “I have been intimate
+with those who spent their time with him from
+morning to night, and they have told me that it was
+impossible for any person who knew him to think well
+of him.<a id="FNanchor_10" href="#Footnote_10" class="fnanchor">[10]</a>”</p>
+
+<p>“Look at his unfeeling conduct in deserting poor
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_92">92</span>
+Sheridan! Why, they were going to take the bed
+from under him whilst he was dying; and there was
+Mrs. Sheridan pushing the bailiffs out of the room.
+That amiable woman, too, I believe, died of grief at
+the misery to which she was reduced. The Prince
+had not one good quality. How many fell victims to
+him! Not so much those who were most intimate
+with him—for they swallowed the poison and took
+the antidote—they knew him well: but those were
+the greatest sufferers who imitated his vices, who were
+poisoned by the contagion, without knowing what a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_93">93</span>
+detestable person he was. How many saw their prospects
+blasted by him for ever!”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester continued: “Oh! when I think that
+I have heard a sultan” (meaning George IV.) “listen
+to a woman singing <cite>Hie diddle diddle, the cat and the
+fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon</cite>, and cry, ‘Brava!
+charming!’—Good God! doctor, what would the
+Turks say to such a thing, if they knew it?</p>
+
+<p>“There was Lord D., an old debauchee, who had
+lost the use of his lower extremities by a paralytic
+stroke—the way, by the by, in which all such men
+seem to finish; nay, I believe that men much addicted
+to sensuality even impair their intellects too—one
+day met me on the esplanade, and, in his usual
+way, began talking some very insipid stuff about his
+dining with the Prince, and the like; when James,
+who overheard the conversation, made an impromptu,
+which exactly described one of the Prince’s dinners;
+and, though I don’t recollect it word for word, it was
+something to this effect:—</p>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry">
+    <div class="verse indent0">‘With the Prince I dine to-day:</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">We shall have prodigious fun.</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">I a beastly thing shall say,</div>
+    <div class="verse indent2">And he’ll end it with a pun.’</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p>“I remember the Prince’s saying to Lord Petersham,
+‘What can be the reason that Lady Hester,
+who likes all my brothers, does not like me?’ Lord P.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">94</span>
+told me this, and I replied—If he asks me, I will
+have an answer ready for him, and that is, ‘When
+he behaves like them I shall like him, and not before.’
+I loved all the princes but him. They were
+not philosophers, but they were so hearty in their
+talking, in their eating, in all they did! They would
+eat like ploughmen, and their handsome teeth would”
+(here she imitated the mastication of food, to show me
+how) “at a pretty rate.</p>
+
+<p>“The Prince is a despicable character. He was
+anxious enough to know me whilst Mr. Pitt was
+alive; but the very first day of my going to court,
+after Mr. Pitt’s death, he cut me, turning his back on
+me whilst I was talking to the Duke of Richmond.</p>
+
+<p>“As for the princesses, there was some excuse for
+their conduct: I do not mean as regards myself—for
+they were always polite to me—but as to what
+people found fault with them for. The old queen
+treated them with such severity, shutting them up in
+a sort of a prison—at least the Princess Sophia—that
+I rather pitied than blamed them.</p>
+
+<p>“But look at the princes: what a family was there!
+never getting more than four hours’ sleep, and always
+so healthy and well-looking. But men generally are
+not now-a-days as they were in my time. I do not
+mean a Jack M. and those of his description, handsome,
+but of no conversation: they are, however,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">95</span>
+pleasant to look at. But where will you see men like
+Lord Rivers, like the Duke of Dorset? Where will
+you find such pure honour as was in the Duke of
+Richmond and Lord Winchelsea? The men of the
+present generation are good for nothing—they have
+no spunk in them.</p>
+
+<p>“And as for women, show me such women of
+fashion as Lady Salisbury, the Duchess of Rutland,
+Lady Stafford, and” (three or four more were named,
+but they have slipped my memory). “However, doctor,
+I never knew more than four fashionable women, who
+could do the honours of their house, assign to everybody
+what was due to his rank, enter a room and
+speak to everybody, and preserve their dignity and
+self-possession at all times: it is a very difficult thing
+to acquire. One was the old Duchess of Rutland, the
+others the Marchioness of Stafford, Lady Liverpool,
+and the Countess of Mansfield:<a id="FNanchor_11" href="#Footnote_11" class="fnanchor">[11]</a>—all the rest of the
+<i lang="fr">bon ton</i> were <i>bosh</i>” (in Turkish, good for nothing).
+“The Countess of Liverpool was a Hervey; and men
+used to say, the world was divided into men, women,
+and Herveys—for that they were unlike every other
+human being. I have seen Lady Liverpool come into
+a room full of people; and she would bow to this one,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">96</span>
+speak to that one, and, when you thought she must
+tread on the toes of a third, turn round like a
+teetotum, and utter a few words so amiable, that
+everybody was charmed with her. As for the Duchess
+of D*********, it was all a ‘fu, fu, fuh,’ and ‘What
+shall I do?—Oh, dear me! I am quite in a fright!’—and
+so much affectation, that it could not be called
+high breeding; although she knew very well how to
+lay her traps for some young man whom she wanted
+to inveigle into her parties, and all that. Then there
+were some, with highly polished manners, who would
+pass along like oil over water, smooth and swimming
+about: but good breeding is very charming, doctor,
+isn’t it?</p>
+
+<p>“The last time I saw Lady Liverpool was at Lord
+Mulgrave’s. The dinner was waiting: Mr. Pitt and
+I had got there; but Lord Liverpool, being long in
+dressing, was still behind. Everybody was looking at
+the door or the window. At last his carriage was
+seen, and dinner was ordered. If you had been present
+when Lady Liverpool entered the room, and had
+marked the grace with which, whilst we were standing,
+she slipped in and out among the guests, like an
+eel, when she turned her back, turning her head round,
+speaking to this person and to that, and all with such
+seasonable courtesies and compliments, it was really
+wonderful. But Lady Liverpool was a Hervey, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">97</span>
+the Herveys, as I told you before, were a third part
+of the creation.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Lord! when I think of some people, who
+fancy that abruptness is the best way of approaching
+you—how horrid it is! I recollect one man, a sensible
+man too, who came into the room with—‘Lady
+Hester, I understand you are a very good judge of a
+leg; you shall look at mine: see, there are muscles!
+they say it is an Irish chairman’s; but isn’t it the
+true antique?’ Another would enter, and begin—‘What
+a horrid bonnet Lady So-and-so wears; I
+have just seen her, and I never shall get over it.’ A
+third would cry, on seeing you—‘Do you know Lord
+Such-a-one is given over? He has tumbled down from
+a terrible height, and is so hurt!’—‘Good God!
+what’s the matter?’—‘Why, don’t you know? He
+has tumbled from his government:’ and then they
+fancy that wit.</p>
+
+<p>“Such conversations as we hear in people’s houses
+are, in my mind, no conversations at all. A man
+who says, ‘Oh! it’s Sunday; you have been to
+church, I suppose?’—or, ‘You have not been to
+church, I see;’ or another, who says, ‘You are in
+mourning, are you not? what, is the poor Lord So-and-so
+dead at last?’—and is replied to by, ‘No, I
+am not in mourning; what makes you think so? is
+it that you don’t like black?’—all this is perfect nonsense,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">98</span>
+in my mind. I recollect being once at a party
+with the Duchess of Rutland, and a man of some note
+in the world stopped me just as we entered the room.
+‘Lady Hester,’ said he, ‘I am anxious to assure you
+of my entire devotion to Mr. Pitt:’ so far he got on
+well. ‘I had always—hem—if you—hem—I do assure
+you, Lady Hester, I have the sincerest regard—hem—G—d
+d—n me, Lady Hester, there is not a
+man for whom—hem—I esteem him beyond measure,
+and, G—d d—n me—hem—if I were asked—hem—I
+do assure you, Lady Hester—hem and here the
+poor man, who could not put two ideas together,
+coming to a stand-still, the Duchess of Rutland, to
+relieve his embarrassment, helped him out by saying,
+‘Lady Hester is perfectly convinced of your sincere
+attachment to Mr. Pitt’s interests.’ He had a beautiful
+amber cane, doctor, worth a hundred guineas, that he
+had sent for from Russia.”</p>
+
+<p>November 16.—Lady Hester Stanhope’s features
+had a very pallid and almost a ghastly look. The fits
+of oppression on her lungs grew more frequent, when,
+from a lying posture, she would start suddenly up in
+bed and gasp for breath. As she had not been beyond
+the precincts of her house for some years, I suggested
+the increased necessity of her getting a little
+fresh air, by going into her garden at least every day.
+She said, ‘I will do as you desire, and if you will ride
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">99</span>
+my ass a few times to break her in, and make her
+gentle, I will try and ride about in the garden: but,
+as for going outside my own gates, it is impossible;
+the people would beset me so—you have no idea.
+They conceal themselves behind hedges, in holes in the
+rocks, and, whichever way I turn, out comes some one
+with a complaint or a petition, begging, kissing my
+feet, and God knows what: I can’t do it. I can ride
+about my garden, and see to my plants and flowers:
+but you must break her in well for me; for, if she
+were to start at a bird or a serpent, I am so weak I
+should tumble off.’</p>
+
+<p>November 18.—I had taken some physic without
+consulting her, upon which she launched out into a
+tirade against English doctors. Impoverishment of
+the blood is a very favourite theme among people who
+are well off, and who shut their eyes to the robust health
+of many a labourer, whose whole sustenance amounts
+not to the offals of their table. So she began—“What
+folly you have been guilty of in impoverishing your
+blood! Look at a stupid Englishman, who takes a
+dose of salts, rides a trotting horse to get an appetite,
+eats his dinner, takes a cordial draught to make him
+agreeable, goes to his party, and then goes to bed:—for
+worlds, I would not be such a man’s wife! where
+is he to get a constitution? But the fault is not
+all their own—part is you doctors: you give the same
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_100">100</span>
+remedies for everybody. If I look at the mouthpiece
+of my pipe” (Lady Hester was smoking at the time)
+“I know it is amber; and, when I know it is amber,
+I know how to clean it: but, if I did not know that,
+I might attempt to clean it in some way that would
+spoil it: so it is with you doctors. Not half of you
+can distinguish between people’s <i>nijems</i> [stars], and
+what you do often does more harm than good. The
+constitution you take in hand you do not well
+examine; and then how can you apply proper remedies
+for it?”</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_7" href="#FNanchor_7" class="label">[7]</a>
+ Lady Hester, soon after she went to live with Mr. Pitt, was anxious
+that her three half-brothers should be removed from their father’s
+roof, to be under her own guidance: fearing that the line of politics
+which Earl Stanhope then followed might be injurious to their future
+welfare and prospects. To this end, Mr. Rice, a trusty person, of whom
+mention is incidentally made elsewhere, brought them furtively to
+town in a post-chaise, and they afterwards remained under Mr. Pitt’s
+protection until his death.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_8" href="#FNanchor_8" class="label">[8]</a>
+Whether Lady Hester Stanhope was justified in entertaining
+expectations of the G. property and title, I am unable to say; but
+having by me a copy of the grant to the first Lord Chatham, it is
+inserted here as conclusive against her ladyship, as far as regards
+the pension. The circumstances were these:—the day following his
+(then Mr. Pitt’s) resignation of office, a pension of £3,000 a-year
+was settled on <em>himself</em> and <em>two</em> other lives, and at the
+same time a title was conferred on his lady and her issue. He resigned
+office Oct. 9th, 1761, and the next published Gazette announced all
+these transactions. The notification ran thus:—That a warrant be
+prepared for granting to the Lady Hester Pitt, his wife, a Barony of
+Great Britain, by the name, style, and title of Baroness Chatham,
+to her heirs male, and also to confer upon the said William Pitt an
+annuity of £3,000 sterling during his own life, that of Lady Hester
+Pitt, and her son, John Pitt. Shortly after his death, May 11th,
+1778, His Majesty sent a message to the Commons thus:—George R.—His
+Majesty having considered the address of this house, that he will be
+graciously pleased to confer some signal and lasting mark of his royal
+favour on the family of the late William Pitt, Earl of Chatham, and
+being desirous to comply as speedily as possible with the request of
+his faithful Commons, has given directions for granting to the present
+Earl of Chatham, and to the heirs of the body of the late William Pitt,
+to whom the Earldom of Chatham may descend, an annuity of £4,000 per
+annum, payable out of the Civil List revenue; but his Majesty, not
+having it in his power to extend the effects of the said grant beyond
+the term of his own life, recommends it to the house to consider of
+a proper method of extending, securing, and annexing the same to the
+Earldom of Chatham in such a manner as shall be thought most effectual
+to the benefit of the family of the said William Pitt, Earl of Chatham.</p>
+<p class="p0 footnote right">Signed “G. R.”</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">On May 20th, in the House of Commons, Mr. Townsend moved in a committee
+on the king’s message—“That the sum of £4,000 be granted to his
+Majesty out of the Aggregate Fund, to commence from 5th July, 1778,
+and be settled in the most beneficial manner upon the present Earl of
+Chatham and the heirs of the body of the late William Pitt, to whom the
+Earldom of Chatham shall descend.” The resolution was agreed to without
+opposition, and a bill was ordered to be brought in thereon, which
+passed the Commons without debate.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_9" href="#FNanchor_9" class="label">[9]</a>
+“The second day of the king’s illness, and when he was at
+his worst, the P. of W. went in the evening to a concert at Lady
+Hamilton’s, and there told Calonne (the rascally French ex-minister)
+‘Savez vous, Monsieur de Calonne, que mon pere est aussi fou que
+jamais.’”—<cite>Diaries and Correspondence</cite>, <abbr title="volume four page">v. 4, p.</abbr> 20.
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_10" href="#FNanchor_10" class="label">[10]</a>
+<i lang="la">Audi alteram partem</i> is a maxim that holds good wherever
+accusations are levelled against individuals, illustrious or mean.
+Lady Hester may have maligned the Prince from personal pique or from
+some other cause; and, whilst she placed his foibles and failings
+in a conspicuous point of view, may have studiously concealed the
+good qualities which he possessed. Sir Walter Scott, who read men’s
+characters if any body could, has left upon record a very different
+opinion of him; and, unless we suppose that Sir Walter had motives of
+his own for eulogizing him, we must place his testimony in the balance
+against Lady Hester’s spite. In a letter, he describes George <abbr title="Four">IV.</abbr>
+as—“A sovereign, whose gentle and generous disposition, and singular
+manners, and captivating conversation, rendered him as much the
+darling of private society, as his heart felt interest in the general
+welfare of the country: and the constant and steady course of wise
+measures, by which he raised his reign to such a state of triumphal
+prosperity, made him justly delighted in by his subjects.”—<cite>Letter
+from Sir W. Scott</cite>, p. 65, vol. ii., <cite>Mem. of Sir Wm. Knighton,
+Bart.</cite>—Paris edit. Sir Walter could not have written worse prose
+if he had tried. It shows how difficult it is to string words together
+on a subject where perhaps the convictions of the heart were not
+altogether in unison with the sentiments expressed.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_11" href="#FNanchor_11" class="label">[11]</a>
+Louisa, in her own right Countess of Mansfield, is here meant.</p>
+
+</div><!--end footnotes-->
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER </span> <abbr title="Four"><span class="allsmcap">IV.</span></abbr></h2>
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_101">101</span>
+
+<p class="small short">Conscription in Syria—Inviolability of consular houses—Panic
+and flight of the people of Sayda—Protection afforded
+by Lady Hester—Story of a boy—Mustafa the barber—Cruelty
+to mothers of Conscripts—Conscription in the villages—Lady
+Hester’s dream—Inhabitants of Sayda mulcted—Lady
+Hester’s opinion of negresses—Severity necessary in
+Turkey—Case of Monsieur Danna—Captain Y.—Mustafa
+Pasha’s cruelty.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2">November 18, 1837.—The conscription for Ibrahim
+Pasha’s army, called the <i>nizàm</i> or regular troops, was
+going on at this time, and created much distress in
+the towns and villages. Forced levies were unknown
+previous to the conquests of that ambitious prince; as
+it was customary for the pashas to keep in their pay
+mercenary troops, composed chiefly of Albanians, a
+nation that for some centuries had sent its hordes into
+different parts of the Turkish empire, under the guidance
+of enterprising chieftains, to seek military service. There
+were also Bosnians, Kûrds, and some Mograbýns or
+Moors: these, with the Janissaries or standing militia,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">102</span>
+had exempted the inhabitants in general from enlistment;
+and, although the martial and turbulent disposition
+of the Mohametans had frequently manifested
+itself in their provincial insurrections and in the petty
+contentions between neighbouring chieftains, yet a man
+always went to the camp from choice and from the
+hopes of booty, and quitted it when tired of the
+service. But Ibrahim Pasha, among the innovations
+which he found it necessary or politic to introduce for
+the furtherance of his father’s views, saw that his whole
+dependance must be on the adoption of a conscription,
+after the manner of France and other European states.
+He had already drained Egypt, in this manner, of all
+her able-bodied youths; and, to supply the constant
+waste of men carried off by war and disease, he had,
+since his first taking possession of Syria, made an
+annual levy after harvest time.</p>
+
+<p>At first, the idle, vagabond, thievish, and ardent part
+of the population supplied the numbers he required;
+and, as fast as they could be collected, they were shipped
+off to Egypt; where, marched to the Hedjàz and to
+distant wars, the major portion of them left their bones,
+whilst some gained rank and lucrative situations, and
+a few returned to tell the story of their exploits. For
+with Ibrahim there was no defined term of service;
+once a soldier, every man continued so until death or
+desertion broke the chain. In the same way the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">103</span>
+Egyptian conscripts were sent into Syria: so that no
+sympathy, in either case, existed between the troops
+and the people amongst whom they were quartered,
+which acted as a direct check upon the spirit of
+insurrection.</p>
+
+<p>So far, everything had gone on peaceably, and the
+quiet portion of the inhabitants rejoiced in seeing their
+neighbourhood cleared of such troublesome rabble.
+But latterly the conscription had begun to fall on the
+families of shopkeepers, tradesmen, small farmers, and
+the like: and it will be seen that, of all the changes
+introduced by Ibrahim Pasha into the government of
+the country, the conscription became the most odious.</p>
+
+<p>The first intimation people had of the levies this
+year was one evening, when, as the inhabitants of
+Sayda were coming out of their mosques, gangs of
+soldiers suddenly appeared at the doors, and laid hands
+on all the young men. At the same moment, similar
+measures had been taken at the coffee-houses, and
+nothing was to be seen but young fellows dragged
+through the streets, or running off in all directions to
+secrete themselves in some friend’s house, stable, vault,
+or the like. The city gates were closed, and there
+was no outlet for the fugitives: but Sayda, although
+walled in, has many houses with windows looking on
+the fields; and from these, during the night, some let
+themselves down and escaped to the gardens, or villages,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">104</span>
+or to Mount Lebanon. The next day the city
+wore the appearance of a deserted place: the shops
+were closed, and consternation reigned in every face.
+The panic became general.</p>
+
+<p>It is customary in Turkish towns to consider consular
+residences as inviolable; a point on which, from
+apprehension of tumults and for personal safety, the
+consuls have ever been very tenacious. France possesses,
+from a long date, a khan or factory-house in
+Sayda, wherein the subjects of that nation reside. It
+is a square building with one gateway, containing a
+spacious quadrangle, surrounded by vaulted warehouses,
+and, over these, commodious habitations with a handsome
+corridor in front. It may be compared to a
+quadrangle of a college at the Universities. To this
+khan many of the young men fled, being admitted out
+of compassion, and in some cases for a consideration of
+a more tangible nature.</p>
+
+<p>The number of conscripts for Sayda, as was made
+known afterwards, had been rated at one hundred and
+eighty. When the first press was over, the government
+found the quota had not yet been half supplied:
+but the secret of the deficiency was kept, and it was
+given out that no more would be wanted. A smiling
+face was assumed by the commandant and his staff,
+and every expression of sympathy was in their mouths,
+to demonstrate the cessation of all farther oppressive
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">105</span>
+measures. By calming the people’s fears in this way,
+information was obtained as to those concealed in the
+French khan, and scouts were sent about the country
+to get tidings of the fugitives.</p>
+
+<p>In the mean time, the caverns and excavations,
+once the beautiful sepulchres of the ancient Sidonians,
+in which the environs of Sayda abound, were converted
+into hiding-places, all well known to the peasantry
+and gardeners: but no soul was found capable of betraying
+the fugitives. Some were concealed by the
+Christian peasants in cellars, although the punishment
+of detection was a terrible bastinadoing. At the end
+of about a fortnight, when everything seemed calm
+again, all of a sudden the fathers of those who were
+known to be in the French khan were seized in their
+dwellings and shops, and brought before the motsellem
+or mayor. They were told that their sons’ hiding-places
+were known, and that means would be resorted
+to for forcing them to come out, if they, the fathers,
+did not immediately use their paternal authority to
+compel them. Anxious to save their children, they
+strenuously denied any knowledge of their places of
+concealment. Then it was that the dreadful work of
+bastinadoing began. From the windows of the east
+side of the khan was visible the open court in the front of
+the motsellem’s gate, where, according to the Eastern
+custom, he often sat to administer justice or injustice,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">106</span>
+as the case might be, and through those windows the
+sons might behold their aged fathers, writhing with
+agony under that cruel punishment, until pain and
+anguish extorted the appeal of, “Come forth, for
+mercy’s sake! and save a father’s life.” Some yielded
+to the call, and some thought only of their own
+safety.</p>
+
+<p>As happens always in all Turkish matters, much
+bribery arose from this state of tribulation. Nobody
+in these countries is inaccessible to a bribe.
+Many were the men in office who received gratifications
+of vast sums to favour the exemption or escape of
+individuals. Substitutes could hardly be got, even at
+the enormous premium of 10,000 piasters each, or
+£100 sterling; such a dread had the natives of being
+expatriated and subjected to military discipline! for
+in Ibrahim Pasha’s army the drill is indeed a terrible
+ordeal. There, inadvertency, slowness of apprehension,
+or obstinacy, is not punished by a reprimand,
+a day’s imprisonment, or double drill; but the poor
+recruit is, at the moment, thrown on the ground,
+and lacerated without mercy by the korbàsh.</p>
+
+<p>Among the fugitives, there were two young men, the
+sons of a respectable shopkeeper, who, during twenty
+years, had been employed, more or less, by Lady
+Hester: these two fled for refuge to Jôon. No
+notice was taken of the circumstance by the government;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">107</span>
+and, after remaining about six weeks under her
+protection, they returned to Sayda, where they remained
+unmolested. Her ladyship’s servants also enjoyed
+an exemption from the press; and, had she chosen to
+avail herself of the dilemma in which these unfortunate
+young men were placed, she might easily have
+ensured their servitude without pay, by the mere
+threat of turning them adrift: in which case they would
+have been compelled to remain upon any conditions
+she might have thought proper to propose.</p>
+
+<p>An old Turk presented himself, one day, at my
+gate with his son, a boy about fourteen years of age,
+and, with earnest entreaties, begged me to take the
+son as my servant, no matter in what capacity, and
+for nothing. I asked him how he could be apprehensive
+for a stripling, too young to carry a musket;
+but he told me that his age was no safeguard. “Alas!”
+said he, “these unprincipled Egyptians will lay hold
+of him; for there are other kinds of service besides
+carrying a gun: you do not know them as well as
+we do.” I was very unwillingly obliged to refuse the
+man’s request; for how could a stranger violate the
+laws of a country in which he resided, any more than
+he could harbour a deserter in France, for example,
+where he would be brought to justice for so doing?
+But some of the agents of European powers do not
+scruple, in these parts, to enrich themselves by affording
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">108</span>
+protection to Turkish deserters, contrary to the
+edicts of a sovereign prince, and then set up, as an
+excuse, the want of civilization in Mahometan countries.</p>
+
+<p>A woman, the widow of Shaykh Omar ed dyn,
+came also on a donkey to beg Lady Hester’s intercession
+with the commandant for one of her sons, a
+lad, who had been pressed in the streets. Lady
+Hester sent out word to her that she could not mix
+herself up in the business, and desired me to give her
+500 piasters—I suppose to help her to buy him off.
+This son, Lady Hester told me, was a beautiful boy,
+and that she once had him in her house, but could
+not keep him—he was too handsome! * * * A sad
+picture this of the morals of the Syrian Turks, and
+yet a true one!</p>
+
+<p>November 20.—After a succession of sunny days,
+finer and warmer than an English summer, the wind
+got up at the change of the moon, and it blew a gale.
+The effect of gloomy weather in climates naturally so
+genial as that of Syria is perhaps more impressive
+than in one like that of England, where clouds and
+fogs are so common. I was therefore in a fit humour
+to listen to the melancholy stories of her ladyship’s
+secretary, Mr. Michael Abella, who had been absent
+a day or two to see his father and mother at Sayda.
+He told me that the press for recruits continued with
+unabated severity, and that the military commandant
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_109">109</span>
+and motsellem were resorting to measures, which, I
+thank God, are unknown in England! From imprisoning
+and bastinadoing fathers, with a view to
+make them produce their children, a measure which
+had already induced several families to abandon their
+homes, they now proceeded to bastinado the neighbours
+and acquaintances of the fugitives, in order to
+wring from them the secret of their hiding-places.</p>
+
+<p>The reader is already in some degree familiar with
+the name of Mustafa, the barber, well-known in Sayda
+for his skill in shaving, phlebotomizing, and curing
+sores and wounds. He had four or five sons, and he
+had taken his donkey and ridden up to Jôon to beg
+of Lady Hester Stanhope to admit one or two of
+them into her household, in order to save them from
+the conscription. In the interim, two others had
+taken refuge in the French khan, and one had fled to
+Tyr; but the father said he expected hourly to be
+seized and put to the torture, if some means were not
+afforded him for protecting his children. “A letter
+from the Syt mylady to the commandant,” added
+Mustafa, “would be sufficient to save my two boys
+who are in the French khan, and it is so easy for her
+to write it.” Lady Hester, being ill, could not see
+Mustafa, and I went to her and stated his supplication.
+She considered the matter over, and, as
+Mustafa was rather a favourite, she said at first—“I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_110">110</span>
+think I will write to the commandant; for poor Mustafa
+will go crazy if his children are taken away from
+him. I have only to say that I wish the commandant
+to <i>bakshýsh</i>” (make a present of) “these boys to me,
+and I know he will do it:” then, reflecting a little
+while, she altered her mind. “No, doctor,” says she,
+“it will not do: I must not do anything in the face
+of the laws of the country; and, besides, I shall
+have all the fathers and mothers in Sayda up here.
+Go, tell him so.” I did, and Mustafa returned very
+much dispirited to Sayda.</p>
+
+<p>He had scarcely got back to his shop, when, as he
+had anticipated, he was summoned before the motsellem,
+and questioned about his children. With an
+assumed air of cheerfulness and submission, he answered
+that they were within call, and, if necessary,
+he would fetch them immediately. The motsellem,
+by way of precaution, was about to send a guard of a
+couple of soldiers, to see that no trick was played
+him; but Mustafa, laughing, exclaimed—“Oh! don’t
+be afraid of me: I shan’t run off. That man” (pointing
+to a small merchant of his acquaintance standing
+by)—“that man will be bail for my appearance.”
+The man nodded his head, and said—“There is no
+fear of Mâalem Mustafa: I will be responsible for him.”</p>
+
+<p>Mustafa went towards his house, and, as soon as he
+was out of sight, looking round to make sure that he
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_111">111</span>
+was not followed, he hurried to one of the outlets of
+the town, entered a lane between the gardens, and,
+mounting again on his own donkey, which he had
+left with a friend in case of such an emergency, rode
+off. Not appearing within the expected time, search
+was made for him, and, when he was not to be found,
+the man, who so incautiously vouched for his reappearance,
+was seized, bastinadoed, and thrown into
+gaol. Mustafa, in the mean time, had taken the
+road to Jôon,—not to Lady Hester’s residence, but
+to Dayr el Mkhallas, the monastery, where he had
+a good friend in the abbot, and was immediately sheltered
+in a comfortable cell. Nor did he, when he heard
+what cruelties had been inflicted on his bail, move
+one inch from his retreat, but there remained for
+about six weeks, until, by negociations with the commandant
+and by the sacrifice of a good round sum,
+he was informed that his children were safe, and that
+he might return unmolested.</p>
+
+<p>The secretary told me that, in some cases, mothers
+were suspended by the hair of their head, and whipped,
+to make them confess where their children were concealed.
+Surely such horrors are enough to make men
+hold these sanguinary tyrants in abhorrence, who,
+whatever their pretended advances towards civilization
+may be, never suffer it to soften the barbarity of their
+natures. Of civilization, they have borrowed conscription,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">112</span>
+custom-houses, quarantines, ardent spirit
+and wine-drinking, prostitution, shop licensing, high
+taxation, and some other of our doubtful marks of
+superiority; but whatever is really excellent in an advanced
+state of society they have forgotten to inquire
+about. The secretary added that, when down at
+Sayda, he had seen a lad, nursed in the lap of luxury,
+the only child of respectable parents, at drill on the
+parade outside of the town, with two soldiers who
+never quitted him. The drilling was enforced by cuts
+of the korbàsh. So long as the recruits remain in
+Sayda, their parents are allowed to supply them with
+a meal and other little comforts; but, when transported
+to Egypt, and perhaps to the Hedjàz, they are
+exposed to hardships unknown to European troops.
+Their pay is fifteen piasters (3<abbr title="shillings"><i>s.</i></abbr> 2<abbr title="pence"><i>d.</i></abbr> English) a month.</p>
+
+<p>After the expiration of two or three weeks, the
+shaykhs or head-men of the villages in Mount Lebanon,
+received orders to levy their contingent of
+recruits, and pretty much the same scenes were acted
+over again. From the village of Jôon eight conscripts
+were required; for, although the population
+might be five hundred persons, there were but few
+Mahometan families. No sooner had the estafette,
+who brought the order, alighted at the Shaykh’s
+door, than the mussulman peasants to a man seemed
+to guess what its contents were, and every one who
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">113</span>
+thought himself liable to serve made off to the
+forests. Among the lads put down on the roll were
+two, the brothers of Fatôom and Sâada, Lady Hester’s
+maids. The girls fell on their knees, kissed her
+feet and the hem of her robe, and prayed her, for
+God’s sake, to save them. Lady Hester returned the
+same answer she had done to Mustafa, the barber,
+and to the other applicants, that she could not act
+contrary to the laws of the country, and that they
+must take their chance.</p>
+
+<p>Three or four days had elapsed, when, quitting my
+house in the morning to go to Lady Hester’s, I found
+that all her people were full of an extraordinary
+dream she had had. She had seen in her vision a
+man with a white beard, who had conducted her
+among the ravines of Mount Lebanon to a place,
+where, in a cavern, lay two youths apparently in a
+trance, and had told her to lead them away to her
+residence. She attempted to raise them, and at the
+same moment the earth opened, and she awoke. As
+soon as I saw Lady Hester, she recounted to me her
+dream to the same effect, but with many more particulars.
+Being in the habit of hearing strange things
+of this kind from her, I thought nothing of it, although
+I well knew there was something intended by
+it, as she never spoke without a motive.</p>
+
+<p>Next morning I saw, as I passed the porter’s lodge,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">114</span>
+two peasant lads sitting in it, and, as soon as I got to
+Lady Hester’s room, she asked me if I had observed
+them.—“Isn’t it wonderful, doctor,” said Lady
+Hester, “that I should have had exactly the same
+dream two nights following, and the second time so
+strongly impressed on my mind, that I was sure some
+of it would turn out true: and so it has. For this
+very morning, long before daylight, I had Logmagi
+called, and, describing to him the way he was to go in
+the mountain until he should come to a wild spot
+which I painted to him, I sent him off; and, sure
+enough, he found those two lads you saw, concealed,
+not in a cavern, but in a tree, just where I had directed
+him to go.</p>
+
+<p>“They are two runaway conscripts, and, although
+I know nothing of them, yet I seem to feel that God
+directed me to bring them here. Poor lads! did you
+observe whether they looked pale? they must be in
+want of nourishment; for the search that is going on
+everywhere after deserters is very hot. Logmagi
+himself had no very pleasant duty to perform; for, if
+they had mistaken him for a man in search of them,
+one against two in the heart of the mountain ran some
+risk of his life. You know, one deserter the other
+day wounded three soldiers who attempted to take
+him, and another killed two out of five, and, although
+taken, was not punished by the Pasha, who exchanged
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">115</span>
+willingly an athletic gladiator, who had proved his
+fighting propensities, for two cowards.”</p>
+
+<p>These lads, whom Lady Hester pretended not to
+know, were the two brothers of Fatôom and Sâada:
+they were put into a room in an inner enclosure,
+where they had comfortable quarters assigned them,
+and were kept for two months hid from observation;
+by which means they escaped the conscription of that
+year. At the end of their term, they were one day
+turned out, told they might go home in safety, and
+warned that, if ever they made their appearance near
+the house, they would be flogged. Such were Lady
+Hester’s eccentric ways; and just as they were
+wasting their breath in protestations of gratitude, they
+were frightened out of their senses. No doubt, the
+reason was that, as from their long stay in the premises,
+they were more or less acquainted with every
+locality, it might be that they had formed plans to
+carry off stolen goods, which Lady Hester thus had
+the foresight to frustrate. She never told me that
+her dream was an invention, but I believe that it
+was.</p>
+
+<p>In addition to the loss of a son, or a husband, or a
+brother, which the dozen families of Jôon (for there
+were no more) had to complain of, these same families
+were taxed at the rate of one, two, or three hundred
+piasters each, in order to furnish the equipment of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">116</span>
+soldiers draughted from among them. For, under
+the pretext of sending off each recruit with a good
+kit and with a little money in his pocket, a benevolence
+tax was invented, the greatest part of which, after
+the parings of the collectors, went to the Pasha’s
+treasury, and the half-naked recruit was left to take
+his chance. Oh! that a European soldier could see
+what these men are compelled to live on—how they
+sleep, how they are flogged—and how they are left to
+die!—and yet suicide is unknown among them.</p>
+
+<p>The bastinado in Sayda was succeeded by mulcts.
+An order was published by the Pasha, that those
+whose sons had concealed themselves, or did not
+appear by a certain day, should be taxed collectively
+1,300 purses, a sum more than enough to pay for
+substitutes. An appeal was made to Ibrahim Pasha
+to lessen the fine, but the result never came to my
+knowledge.</p>
+
+<p>November 19.—I had taken to my house to read
+the book that Sir Gore Ouseley had sent Lady Hester
+Stanhope, and I related to her the anecdote of the old
+woman and the copper dish.<a id="FNanchor_12" href="#Footnote_12" class="fnanchor">[12]</a> This threw a gleam of
+satisfaction over her countenance. “Ah!” said she,
+and she made a sigh of pleasurable feeling, “these are
+the people I like; that’s my sort: but the people
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_117">117</span>
+now-a-days, who call themselves gentlemen, and don’t
+know how to blow their nose!—when the first peer
+of the realm will go about bragging what a trick he
+has played some poor woman whom he has seduced!
+Cursed be the hour that ever the name of gentleman
+came into the language! I have seen hedgers and
+ditchers at my father’s, who talked twice as good
+sense as half the fine gentlemen now-a-days—a pack
+of fellows, that do little else than eat, drink, and
+sleep. Can one exist with such persons as these?
+or is it to be supposed that God can tolerate such
+brutalities?”</p>
+
+<p>I sat by, as I was accustomed to do, on such occasions,
+mute; knowing that a word uttered at that
+moment would only increase her irritation, instead of
+appeasing it. She went on: “And whilst you show
+no more sensibility than that wall, here am I, a poor
+dying creature” (and then she wept so that it was
+piteous to hear her), “half killed by these nasty black
+beasts. Last night, instead of coming refreshed out
+of my bath, soothed by a gentle perspiration, I was
+drier than ever, with my mouth parched, my skin
+parched, and feebler than I was yesterday. But they
+will all suffer for it; not here, perhaps, but in the
+other world: for God will not see a poor miserable
+creature trampled under foot as I have been.”</p>
+
+<p>As she grew a little calm, I expressed my regret to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_118">118</span>
+see her so annoyed and tormented by her servants.
+The conversation then turned on blacks: and I asked—“Are
+they then never susceptible of feeling: can kind
+treatment never work on their sensibility?”—“Doctor,”
+answered Lady Hester, “they have neither one nor
+the other: it is a bit of black skin, which the people
+of the country say you must work on with the korbàsh,
+and with nothing else. I recollect an aga, who told
+me that he had a black slave, who, when he first
+bought her, one day got hold of his poniard, and
+seemed as if she was going to stab him with it. He
+started up, seized his sabre, and gave her a cut or
+two; then, with a switch, beat her pretty handsomely.
+From that day she became fond of him, faithful, and
+so attached, that, when he wanted to sell her, she
+would not be sold, but always contrived that the contract
+should be broken by her swearing she would kill
+herself, throw herself over the terrace, or something,
+that made the buyer refuse to take her.</p>
+
+<p>“I recollect another story. There were five European
+travellers coming down the banks of the Nile on
+horseback, when they saw an aga, who was sitting in
+the open air, lay hold of a black woman by the hair of
+her head, throw her down, and flog her most unmercifully
+with the korbàsh. One of the party was a
+German count, or something, who, being what you
+call a humane man, said he must interfere; but the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_119">119</span>
+others told him he had better not. However, he did:
+and what was the consequence? why, the woman immediately
+jumped up, called him an impudent rascal,
+slapped his face with her slipper, hooted him, and
+followed the party until she fairly frightened them by
+her violence.</p>
+
+<p>“No, doctor, they do not like mild people. They
+always say they want no old hens, but a <em>jigger</em>” (I
+believe her ladyship meant some ferocious animal)
+“for their master. As for what you say, that the
+common people of this country stand in respect of
+nobody, I can tell you that they do. You should
+have seen the Shaykh Beshýr, how they respected
+him. When I was at his palace, I recollect, one day,
+one of his secretaries brought in a bag of money. ‘Is
+it all here?’ said the Shaykh, with a terrible, cross,
+frowning face. ‘It is, your felicity,’ said the man.
+‘Very well,’ said the Shaykh, still with the same
+fierce countenance; and I asked him what he put on
+such a severe look for to a very pleasing-looking man.
+‘Why,’ answered he, ‘if I did not, I should be robbed
+past imagination: if I said to him, I am much obliged
+to you, sir; you have given yourself a great deal of
+trouble on my account, and the like compliments, he
+would go away and chuckle in his own mind to think
+his peculations were not suspected; but now he will
+go, and say to himself, I will bet an <i>adli</i> some one
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">120</span>
+has told the Shaykh of the five hundred piasters that
+were left for me at my house: I must send directly,
+and desire they may be returned—or, he knows about
+the tobacco that was brought me by the peasant; I
+had better get rid of it; and so on. Their peculations
+are past all bounds, and they must be kept under with
+a rod of iron.’</p>
+
+<p>“There was Danna, the poor old Frenchman, who
+lost his trunk with all his doubloons in it: do you
+think he would ever have found them, if the Emir
+Beshýr had not sent Hamâady to that village about a
+league off—what do you call it?—where the robbery
+was committed? He assembled all the peasants, men
+and women, and he told them—‘Now, my friends,
+Monsieur Danna does not want anybody to be punished,
+if he can help it; therefore, you have only to produce
+the money, and nothing farther will be said: for the
+money was lost here, and some of you must know
+where it is.’ To see what protestations of innocence
+there were, what asseverations! and from the women
+more than the men. So Hamâady, finding that talking
+was of no use, heated his red-hot irons and his copper
+skull caps, and produced his instruments of torture;
+and, seeing that the women were more vociferous than
+the men, he selected one on whom strong suspicions
+had fallen, and drove a spike under her finger-nails.
+At the first thrust, she screamed out—‘Let me off!
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">121</span>
+let me off! and I will acknowledge all.’ She then immediately
+confessed—would you believe it?—that the
+curate’s son had robbed Danna, and she had shared
+the money with him.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, tell me, was it best that the old Frenchman
+should die of starvation, or that the rascally thief of a
+woman, who had induced the curate’s son to commit
+the robbery, should be punished, as a warning to
+others? If such severe punishments were not used
+among them, we should not sleep safe in our beds.
+How well is it known that they have with pickaxes
+opened a roof, and thrown in lighted straw to suffocate
+people, that they might rob in security.</p>
+
+<p>“I recollect once, when Captain Y. was here, I was
+showing him the garden; and, seeing some lettuces
+which were badly planted, he said to me, ‘That’s not
+the way to plant lettuces: they should be so and so.’—‘Yes,’
+I replied, ‘I have told the gardener so a
+hundred times, and he will never listen to me.’—‘Oh!
+oh!’ said he, ‘won’t he? Let me bring a boatswain’s
+mate to him, and I’ll soon see whether he will or not?—‘You
+are very good,’ was my answer; ‘but then I
+should lose your company for half a day, and I had
+rather have no lettuces than do that.</p>
+
+<p>“When I first came to this country, you know
+perfectly well that I never behaved otherwise than
+with the greatest kindness to servants. You ask me
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">122</span>
+why I don’t now try gentle measures with them, rewarding
+the good, and merely dismissing the idle and
+vicious: my reply is, I did so for years, until I found
+they abused my forbearance in the grossest manner.
+Do you think it would frighten the rest, were I to
+turn away one or two? no such thing. Why, upon
+one occasion, four of them, after they had received
+their wages, and had each got a present of new shawls,
+new girdles, and new kombázes, all went off together,
+clothes, wages and all, in the night. It is by degrees
+I am become what I am; and, only after repeated
+trials and proofs of the inefficiency of everything but
+severity, that I am grown so indifferent, that I do
+nothing but scold and abuse them.</p>
+
+<p>“But you talk of cruelty: it is such men as
+Mustafa Pasha, who was one of those who besieged
+Acre when Abdallah Pasha was <i>firmanlee</i>” (proscribed),
+“that you should call cruel; he was indeed
+a sanguinary tyrant. Doctor, he made a noise
+sometimes like the low growl of a tiger, and his
+people knew then that blood must flow. It was his
+custom, when the fit was on him, to send for some
+poor wretch from prison, and kill him with his own
+hand. He would then grow calm, smoke his pipe,
+and seem for a time quieted. But he was a shrewd
+man, and a clever pasha. He wrote with his own
+hand (which pashas never do, except on particular
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">123</span>
+occasions) a letter to the Shaykh Beshýr, desiring him
+to pay marked attention to me. The Shaykh was
+highly flattered with the distinction shown him.”</p>
+
+<p>The recollection of the Pasha’s civility and the
+Shaykh Beshýr’s letter recalled her thoughts to what
+she had proposed to do at the beginning of the
+evening, which was to write an answer to Sir Gore
+Ouseley, and to thank the Oriental Translation Fund
+Society for their present. This was done in a letter
+from which the following are extracts:—</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center"><i>To the Right Hon. Sir Gore Ouseley, Bart.</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right">
+Djoun, on Mount Lebanon,<br>
+<span class="r2">November 20, 1837.</span></p>
+
+<p>Forgotten by the world, I cannot feel otherwise
+than much flattered by the mark of attention which
+it has pleased the society of learned men to honour
+me with. I must therefore beg leave, in expressing
+my gratitude, to return them my sincere thanks.
+You must not suppose that I am the least of an
+Arabic scholar, for I can neither read nor write one
+word of that language, and am (without affectation) a
+great dunce upon some subjects. Having lived part
+of my life with the greatest philosophers and politicians
+of the age, I have been able to make this
+<em>observation</em>, that all of them, however they may dispute
+and ingeniously reason upon abstruse subjects,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">124</span>
+have, in moments of confidence, candidly declared
+that we can go no <em>farther</em>. Here we must stop—all
+is problematical: therefore I have wished, however it
+may appear presumptuous, <em>to go farther</em> and remove
+some of these stumbling-blocks, not by erudition, but
+by trusting to some happy accident.</p>
+
+<p>It is extraordinary that many of this nature have
+occurred to me during my residence in the East. First,
+many proofs of the fallacy of history; next, the denial
+of many curious facts, which are even scouted as gross
+superstitions, and are pretended to be doubted, because
+no one knows how to account for them, but which real
+knowledge can clearly substantiate. Then there is a
+gap in history which ought to be filled up with the
+reign of Malek Sayf (a second King Solomon), and
+his family, and after him with that of Hamzy, the
+sort of Messiah of the Druzes, who is expected to
+return in another form. I once saw a work, which
+clearly proved the Pyramids to be antediluvian, and
+that Japhet was aware the deluge was to be partial, as
+he placed <em>that</em> which was most valuable to him in
+another quarter of the world.</p>
+
+<p>The Bedoween Arabs may be divided into two
+distinct classes, original Arabs, and the descendants
+of Ismael, whose daughter married the ninth descendant
+of the great Katàn, out of which germ sprang
+the famous tribe of the Koreish, subdivided into many
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">125</span>
+tribes, and which are a mixture of Hebrew blood.
+One of the most famous tribes was that of the Beni
+Hasheniz, from which spring the Boshnàk and the
+Beni Omeyn, the Irish, always famed for the beauty
+of their women. The Scotch are likewise Koreish—the
+nobility descending from the King Al Yem (and
+his court), father of Gebailuata, who headed the
+50,000 horse, when they took their flight from the
+Hedjáz, after a quarrel with the Caliph Omar. They
+resided some time in Syria; but, when the town of
+Gebeili became inadequate to contain their numbers,
+many took themselves off to the Emperor Herculius,<a id="FNanchor_13" href="#Footnote_13" class="fnanchor">[13]</a>
+towards Antioch and Tarsus.</p>
+
+<p>You must look over the Scotch titles and names
+of persons and places, and you will see how many
+there are, who, it is plain to perceive, are of Arabic
+origin; and you will soon observe the relation they
+bear either to circumstances, former employments,
+propensities, or tastes.</p>
+
+<p>You cannot expect, as when a Frenchman remains
+forty years in England, and can neither pronounce nor
+spell a name, that, during such a lapse of time, many
+of these names should not have undergone changes;
+but their origin is yet evident.</p>
+
+<p>The Duke of Leinster’s motto (<i>Croom Aboo</i>—his
+father’s vineyards) has a grand signification, alluding
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">126</span>
+to the most learned of works, of which only two
+copies exist, and which was not well understood even
+by the great Ulemas until about five hundred years
+afterwards, when Shaikh Mohadeen of the Beni Taya
+found out the key.</p>
+
+<p>If the philosopher of chance should have presumed
+to have offered a little heterogeneous information
+to the learned, you, sir, must forgive me.
+Your star denotes you to be of admirable good taste
+and great perspicuity, and therefore well calculated to
+investigate the subjects I have had the honour to lay
+before you.</p>
+
+<p>You will forgive me for having used the pen of
+another, but my sight and state of health will not at
+all times allow of my writing a long letter.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+I salute all the philosophers with respect,<br>
+<span class="smcap r2">Hester Lucy Stanhope</span>.&emsp;</p>
+</div><!--end blockquote-->
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_12" href="#FNanchor_12" class="label">[12]</a>
+See the History of the Temple of Jerusalem, translated
+from the Arabic by the <abbr title="Reverend">Rev.</abbr> Mr. Reynolds, <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 403.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_13" href="#FNanchor_13" class="label">[13]</a>
+Heraclius?</p>
+
+</div><!--end footnotes-->
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">127</span>
+
+<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span> <abbr title="Five"><span class="allsmcap">V.</span></abbr></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="small short">Rainy season—Lady Hester’s despondency—Her Turkish
+costume—Turkish servants—Terror inspired by Lady Hester
+in her servants—Visit of Messieurs Poujolat and Boutés—Lady
+Hester’s inability to entertain strangers—Her dejected
+spirits and bad health.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2">November 24.—Still rain, rain! The courtyards
+were deep in mud and puddles, and the men-servants
+walked about in wooden clogs, such as are worn in
+breweries. The flat roofs, which cover the houses in
+most parts of Syria, are made of a cement of mortar
+and fine gravel, in appearance like an asphaltum
+causeway. In the hot months fissures show themselves;
+and it rarely happens, when winter comes on,
+that, during the first heavy rains, the wet does not
+filter through. Lady Hester, therefore, had to suffer,
+as well as all the house, from this annoyance, hardly
+bearable when a person is in health, but extremely
+distressing and even dangerous in sickness. For some
+days past pans had been standing on the bedroom
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">128</span>
+floor to catch the droppings, and it continued to rain
+on. The sloppy communications from door to door,
+where every door opens into a courtyard, gave likewise
+a damp to the apartments only supportable in a
+climate as mild as that of Syria. Snow had covered
+the upper chain of Mount Lebanon in great abundance,
+and the wind blew furiously. Everybody was
+out of humour, and many of the servants were labouring
+under bad coughs and colds: but the women, notwithstanding,
+always moved about the house with
+naked feet. It was a wonder to see how, with coughs
+that might be heard from one courtyard to another,
+they constantly went barefoot, and yet got well; and
+a servant, if sent to the village, was sure to leave his
+shoes at the porter’s lodge, and, drawing his <i>sherwáls</i>
+or trousers up above his knees, to set off as light as a
+deer through the pelting storm, careless of wet, if he
+could but cover his head.</p>
+
+<p>I saw Lady Hester about two in the day: she
+was in low spirits, lying in her bed with the window
+and door open from a sense of suffocation which had
+just before seized her.</p>
+
+<p>“Would you believe it,” said she, as I entered,
+“those beasts would leave me to die here before they
+came to my assistance! and, if I happen to fall asleep,
+there is not one would cover my shoulders to prevent
+my taking cold.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_129">129</span>
+Poor Lady Hester! thought I, the contrast between
+your early days and your present sufferings is
+almost enough to break your heart. So I abused the
+maids handsomely; and then, being satisfied with the
+warmth of my expressions, and having vented her own
+anger, she began to talk composedly.</p>
+
+<p>I remained until near dinner-time, and, after dinner,
+went to her again. She observed that the nights were
+dreadfully long, and that she should be obliged to me if
+I would read to her. Her stock of books, and mine too,
+was very small, and, after naming a few, which did
+not please her, I recollected she had asked me once if
+I had by me a heathen mythology, and she immediately
+fixed on that. So, writing on a slip of paper
+to my daughter to send me hers, Lady Hester said,
+“First let me order a pipe for you:” for this was usually
+the preliminary to all business or conversation.
+Every sitting was opened with a pipe, and generally
+terminated with one; as her ladyship would say, “But,
+before you go, doctor, you must smoke one pipe more.”
+When the book came, she desired me to turn to the
+part about Jupiter Ammon, and it will be seen farther
+on why she did so. After a page or two, she began
+to talk of the coming of the Mahadi, and the conversation
+was prolonged far into the night. She afterwards
+ordered tea—for I now drank tea with her almost
+every evening—and I then returned to my house,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_130">130</span>
+covered with my thick capote, which, in the short distance
+of a few hundred yards, could hardly save me
+from being wet through.</p>
+
+<p>November 25.—The annual fast of the Mahometans,
+called Ramazàn, had begun on the preceding day. It
+is customary for persons of rank to make presents of
+clothes and other things to their dependants, during
+the lunar month that the Ramazàn lasts, in order that
+they may appear dressed up in finery on the first day
+of the succeeding new moon, at the holyday of the
+Byràm, which succeeds it, as Easter-day does Lent
+among Christians. Lady Hester, who never was behindhand
+in beneficence, made it a rule to clothe all
+her Mahometan servants anew at this season, as she
+did all her Christian ones on New Year’s Day or at
+Easter. New capotes, pelisses, sherwáls, shirts,
+shifts, turbans, gowns, &amp;c., were always bought
+previous to the time; and, the best being given to
+the most deserving, the worst to the least so, with
+none at all to the lazy and worthless, some sort of
+activity was observable in their service previous to
+the expected time. But the objects they coveted once
+in their possession, they soon relapsed into their customary
+sloth.</p>
+
+<p>Some of these articles of dress were lying on the
+floor, Lady Hester having had them brought for her
+to look at. She said to me, “You must take home
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_131">131</span>
+one of these abahs<a id="FNanchor_14" href="#Footnote_14" class="fnanchor">[14]</a> to show to your family. You
+must tell them,” continued she, “that once I had all
+my servants clothed in such abahs as that: but they
+played me such tricks, I have given it up. Some sold
+them; and, on one occasion, four of them marched off
+within twenty-four hours after I had dressed them
+from head to foot, and I never saw them again: isn’t
+it abominable? At the time that I dressed them so
+well, and rode out myself with my bornôos, crimson
+and gold, the gold lace being everywhere where silk
+tape is generally put, I did not owe a shilling in
+the world.”</p>
+
+<p>“Once,” she continued, “when riding my beautiful
+Arabian mare Asfoor, near a place called Gezýn, in
+that crimson bornôos, with a richly-embroidered dress
+under it, and on my crimson velvet saddle, I happened
+to approach an encampment of the Pasha’s
+troops. Several <i>benát el hawa</i>” (street ladies), “who
+were living with the soldiers, ran across a field to come
+up with me, thinking I was some young bey or binbashi.
+Every time, just as they got near, I quickened
+my horse’s pace, that they might not see I was a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">132</span>
+woman: at last, two fairly came and seized my knees,
+to make me turn and look at them. But what was
+their confusion (for such women are not so hardened
+as in Europe) when they saw I had no beard or mustachios,
+and was one of their own sex!”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester related this droll adventure to me
+more than once, to show, I believe, what a distinguished
+and real Turkish appearance she made on
+horseback, which was perfectly true: but to return to
+the servants.</p>
+
+<p>A Turk for work is little better than a brute animal:
+he moves about nimbly, when roused by vociferation
+and threats, and squats down like a dog the
+moment he is left to himself. England produces no
+type of the Syrian serving-man. He sets about his
+work as a task that is given to him, and, when it is
+over, sits down immediately to smoke his pipe and to
+gossip, or seeks a snug place near at hand, and goes
+to sleep. You call him, and set him to do something
+else, and the same practice follows. The next day
+you expect he will, of his own accord, recommence
+what was shown to him on the preceding one; but
+no such thing: you have to tell him over again, and
+so every day. He is a thief from habit, and a liar
+of the most brazen stamp, as no shame is ever attached
+to detection. In plausible language, protestations
+of honesty and fidelity, he has no superior;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">133</span>
+and, if beaten or reviled, he will smother his choler,
+nay, kiss the hand that has chastised him, but waits
+a fit opportunity for vengeance, and carefully weighs
+kicks against coppers. He is generally so servile as
+to make you bear with his worthlessness, even though
+you despise him; and, when your anger appears to
+threaten him with the loss of his place and is at the
+highest, he smooths it down with an extraordinary
+day’s activity, making you hope that a reformation
+has taken place in him: but it is all delusion. And
+think not that you, a Christian, can raise your hand
+against the meanest servant, if a Mahometan: when
+you would have him beaten, you must employ another
+Mahometan to do it, who will, however, lay on to your
+heart’s content.</p>
+
+<p>What has been said above applies to the menials of
+towns and cities. Of another class of servants taken
+from the villages, Lady Hester used to say, “I have
+tried the Syrian <i>fellahs</i>” (peasants) “for twenty years
+as servants, and I ought to know pretty well what
+they are fit for. It is my opinion that, for hard
+work, lifting heavy things, going with mules and
+asses, for foot messengers across the country, and for
+such business, you may make something of them, but
+for nothing else. The women are idle, and prone to
+thieving; and it is impossible to teach them any
+European usages.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">134</span>
+One day, in walking through the back yard, I
+observed two stakes, about six feet high and sharply
+pointed, stuck deep and firmly into the ground, which
+had before escaped my notice. I inquired what they
+were for, but got no satisfactory answer, the dairyman,
+to whom I addressed myself, using the reply so
+common throughout the East, <i>Ma aref</i> (I don’t know);
+for no people in the world have so quick a scent of the
+danger of being brought into trouble by professing to
+know what is inquired about as the Orientals. A
+Jew, in a street in Turkey, and a Christian likewise,
+is sure to answer the most simple question by an “I
+don’t know”—“I have not heard”—“I have not
+seen;” for he fears what that question may lead to,
+and that, if he knows a little, a bastinadoing may be
+resorted to to make him know more: so I afterwards
+asked Lady Hester. “Oh!” replied she, “I’ll tell
+you how those stakes came there: I had forgotten all
+about them. One day, at the time they were robbing
+me right and left, I ordered the carpenter to make two
+stakes, such as people are impaled upon, and to erect
+them in the back yard. I spoke not to any one why
+or wherefore I had given the order; but if you had
+seen the fright that pervaded the house, and for weeks
+how well the maids behaved, you would then have
+known, as I do, that it is only by such terrible means
+that these abominable jades can be kept under. From
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_135">135</span>
+that time to this it appears the stakes have remained;
+for, as I never go into that yard, I had forgotten
+them: but since they are there still, there let them be.”</p>
+
+<p>Thus Lady Hester was dying in a struggle to cure
+her men and maids of theft, lying, and carelessness,
+whilst they ended the month with the same indifference
+to honesty, truth, and cleanliness, as they began
+it.</p>
+
+<p>Each one was a sycophant to those who had authority
+over him; each one distrusted his comrade.
+Lady Hester might say with truth, “If I did not act
+so, they would cut your throat and mine:” but why
+did she keep such wretches about her? why not turn
+them away, and procure European servants? or why
+continue to live in such a wild mountain, and not
+make her dwelling-place in or near a city, where consular
+protection was at hand? The first three questions
+I have endeavoured to answer already; and, as
+for the last, respecting consular protection, he that had
+dared to suggest such an expedient of safety to her
+would have rued the observation. To name a consul
+in that sense to her was to name what was most
+odious; and the epithets that were generally coupled
+with their names were such as I have too much
+respect for that useful body of magistrates to put
+down in writing.</p>
+
+<p>Saturday, November 25.—As I was returning from
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_136">136</span>
+the village about four in the afternoon, on ascending
+the side of the hill on which Lady Hester’s house
+stands, I met four persons mounted on mules, and
+conjectured them, by their boots, which were black,
+and reached up to the calf of the leg, not to be of the
+country; for in Syria either red or yellow boots are
+always worn. They had on Morea capotes, and their
+dress was that of the more northern provinces of
+Turkey. In passing them, I said, “Good evening!”
+in Arabic, but, on receiving no answer from the two
+nearest to me, I looked hard at them, and immediately
+saw they were Europeans.</p>
+
+<p>On alighting at my own door, I asked the servant
+if he had seen anybody go by, and his reply was, that
+three or four Turkish soldiers had passed. I then
+inquired of one of Lady Hester’s muleteers, who was
+unloading some provisions he had brought from Sayda,
+if he knew who the four men were whom I had seen;
+and he answered that, at the foot of the hill, they had
+inquired of him the road to Jôon, and that they were
+Milordi travelling: Milordo being the term applied to
+every European who travels in the Levant with a
+man-servant, and has money to spend.</p>
+
+<p>I went in to Lady Hester a few minutes afterwards,
+and told her that some travellers, as I thought, to get
+a nearer view of her house than could be had from the
+high road, had made a round, and had just ridden past
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_137">137</span>
+the door. About a quarter of an hour afterwards, the
+maid brought in a message from the porter to say that
+two Franks, just arrived at the village of Jôon, had
+sent their servant with a note, and the porter wished
+to know whether the note was to be taken in. For
+Lady Hester had been so tormented with begging
+letters, petitions, stories of distress, &amp;c., that it was
+become a general rule for him never to receive any
+written paper, until he had first sent in to say who
+had brought it, and from whom it came; and then
+she would decide whether it was to be refused or not.
+The note, accordingly, was fetched.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester read it to herself, and then the following
+conversation took place, which will explain
+some of the reasons why she did not always receive
+strangers who presented themselves at her gate.
+“Yes, doctor,” said she, “you were right: they are
+two travellers, who have been to Palmyra and about,
+and want to come and talk to me concerning the Arabs
+and the desert. Should you like to go to Jôon, and
+tell them I can’t see them, because I have been confined
+to my room for several days from a bad cold?”
+I answered, “Certainly; I would go with the greatest
+pleasure.” She then rang the bell, and desired the
+servant to order my horse. She continued, “One of
+the names, I think, is a man of a great family.”—“What
+is it?” I asked. She took up the note
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">138</span>
+again. “Boo, poo, bon—no—Boo—jo—lais—Beaujolais,
+I think it is. No, Pou—jo—lat; it is Poujolat.”—“Then,”
+interrupted I, “I guess who they are:
+there was a Monsieur Poujolat, who came into the
+Levant six or seven years ago, to make researches
+respecting the crusades: I saw him at Cyprus; he
+and Monsieur Michaud were together. They were
+considered men of talent, and I believe were contributors
+to some Paris newspaper during Charles the
+Tenth’s time. They had published already some
+volumes of their travels before I left Europe, and the
+greatest part of the ground was travelled over, as I
+surmise, in the saloons of their consuls, during the
+long evenings when they were shut in by the plague
+of 1831 and 1832; for they speak of many places
+where they could hardly have gone. But this is not
+unusual,” I added, “with some writers; for Monsieur
+Chaboçeau, a French doctor at Damascus, told me, in
+1813, when I was staying in his house, that Monsieur
+de Volney never went to Palmyra, although he leads
+one to suppose he had been there; for, owing to a
+great fall of snow just at the period when he projected
+that journey, he was compelled to relinquish the
+attempt. Monsieur Chaboçeau, an octogenarian, had
+known him, and entertained him as his guest in his
+house; and he answered me, when I reiterated the
+question, that Volney never saw Palmyra.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_139">139</span>
+“Oh! if they have written about the crusades,”
+said Lady Hester, paying no attention to what I said
+about Volney, “tell them that all the crusaders are
+not dead, but that some of them are asleep only;
+asleep in the same arms and the same dress they wore
+on the field of battle, and will awake at the first resurrection.
+Mind you say the first resurrection; for
+I suppose you know there are to be two, one a partial
+one, and the last a general one.<a id="FNanchor_15" href="#Footnote_15" class="fnanchor">[15]</a></p>
+
+<p>“But there, doctor, I must not detain you. Now,
+just listen to what you have got to do. Mohammed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_140">140</span>
+shall take to them two bottles of red wine, and two
+bottles of <i lang="es">vino d’oro</i>” (ding, ding.) “Zezefôon, tell
+Mohammed to get out four bottles of wine, two of
+each sort; of my wine—you understand—and he is to
+put them in a basket, and be ready to go with the
+doctor to Jôon.” Then, addressing herself again to
+me, “You must say to them that I am very sorry I
+can’t see them, but that I am not very well, and that
+I beg their acceptance of a little wine, which, perhaps,
+they might not find where they sleep to-night. Say
+to them, I should be very much pleased to talk over
+their journey to Palmyra with them; and add that
+the respect I bear to all the French makes me always
+happy to meet with one of their nation. Say that the
+wine is not so good as I could wish it to be, but that,
+since Ibrahim Pasha and his soldiers have been in the
+country, they have drunk up all the good, and it is
+now very difficult to procure any. If they talk about
+Ibrahim Pasha, say that I admire his courage, but
+cannot respect him; that I am a faithful subject of
+the Sultan, and shall always be so, and that I do not
+like servants that rise against their masters; for
+whether Cromwells, or Buonapartes, or people in these
+countries, it never succeeds. If they allude to the
+horrors of the recruiting service, and to the nizàm
+troops, tell them that I never interfere in matters like
+that; but that, when heads were to be saved and the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_141">141</span>
+wounded and houseless to be succoured, as after the
+siege of Acre, then I was not afraid of Ibrahim Pasha,
+or any of them. Well, I think that’s all:” then,
+musing a little while, she added, “I ought, perhaps,
+to ask them to pass the night here; but, if I did, it
+would be all confusion: no dinner ready for them—and,
+before it could be, it would be midnight, for I
+must have a sheep killed: besides, it would be setting
+a bad example. There would be others then coming
+just at nightfall to get a supper and be off in the
+morning, as has happened more than once already.
+So now go, doctor, and” (ding, ding) “Fatôom! who
+is that woman that lodges strangers sometimes at
+Jôon?”—“Werdy, Sytty, the midwife.”—“Ah! so;
+very well. Tell them, doctor, that they had better
+not think of going to Sayda to-night, as the gates
+will be shut; and that they will be nowhere better
+off for sleeping in all the village than at Werdy, the
+midwife’s: for she has good beds and clean counterpanes:
+so now go.”</p>
+
+<p>I half rose to go, still hanging back, as knowing her
+ladyship would, as usual, have much more to say.
+“Oh! by the bye,” she resumed, “if they inquire
+about me, and ask any questions, you may say that
+sometimes I am a great talker when subjects please
+me, and sometimes say very little if they do not. I
+am a character: what I do, or intend to do, nobody
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">142</span>
+knows beforehand; and, when done, people don’t
+always know why, until the proper time, and then it
+comes out.” Here she paused a little, and then
+resumed. “I dare say they came here to have something
+to put in their book, so mind you tell them
+about the crusaders; for it is true, doctor. You
+recollect I told you the story, and how these sleeping
+crusaders had been seen by several persons; and I
+don’t suppose those persons would lie more than other
+people; why should they?”—“Why should they
+indeed?” I answered. “They were martyrs,” resumed
+her ladyship, “and those who sleep are not only of
+the Christians who fought, but of the Saracens also;
+men, that is, who felt from their souls the justice of
+the cause they fought for. As for yourself, if you
+don’t believe it, you may add you know nothing about
+it; for you are lately come into the country, and all
+these are things which are become known to me during
+my long residence here.”</p>
+
+<p>At last I went, mounted my horse, and rode out of
+the gate, Mohammed following with the basket of
+wine. But, instead of having to go to the village, I
+found the strangers waiting on their mules about two
+or three hundred yards from the porter’s lodge. My
+horse, taken from his feed, for it was near sunset, and
+seeing the mules, jumped and pranced so that I was
+obliged to dismount before I could approach them. I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">143</span>
+delivered Lady Hester’s message to them, and in
+answer they expressed, in polite terms, their regret at
+not seeing her, and their still greater regret that the
+reason was from her ill state of health. Unlike what
+some Englishmen have done on similar occasions, they
+uttered not the slightest murmur about her want of
+hospitality, nor the least doubt of the veracity of the
+excuse; but, as soon as they found that they should
+not be admitted, they cut short all further conversation;
+lamenting, as night was fast approaching, that
+they could not stop, and that they were under the
+necessity of bending their way somewhere as fast as
+possible to get a night’s lodging. I pointed to the
+village, recommended them to go there, and repeated
+Werdy, the midwife’s name, two or three times, as a
+cottage where they would be comfortably lodged. But,
+yielding to the advice of their servant, who, as is the
+case with all travellers ignorant of the language in a
+strange country, seemed to lead his masters pretty
+much where he liked, they were induced to set off for
+Sayda, where they could not arrive in less than three
+hours, instead of passing the night at Jôon, where
+they would have been housed in ten minutes. So,
+presenting them with the wine, and having informed
+them of the name of the French consular agent at
+Sayda, where they would do well to demand a lodging,
+I wished them good night, and took my leave. They
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">144</span>
+mounted their mules, and descended the bank by the
+narrow path that led under the hill to the Sayda road;
+when, as I was going back to the house, I heard one of
+the gentlemen calling out to me, “But the empty
+bottles?” Now the interview had been conducted, on
+my part, with all the etiquette I was master of, and
+on theirs, up to the moment of saying good night,
+with the politeness so natural to the French nation.
+But the exclamation, “What’s to be done with the
+empty bottles? you gave us the wine, but did you
+give us the bottles too?” sounded so comic, and in the
+vicinity of that residence too, where it was customary
+to give in a princely way, that the speaker fell a degree
+in the scale of my estimation on the score of breeding,
+how much soever he might be commended for his
+intended exactitude and probity.</p>
+
+<p>I returned to Lady Hester. During my short
+absence, one of her maids had informed her that the
+Franks, although they had made a show of going to
+Jôon when first they passed the gate, had in fact only
+retired into the valley between the two hills, where
+they had unpacked their saddle-bags and shifted
+themselves, in order to make a decent appearance
+before her. This increased her regret at the trouble
+they had so uselessly put themselves to. The rain
+came on soon after, and their unpleasant situation was
+the subject of conversation for a good half hour. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">145</span>
+name of the other gentleman who accompanied Monsier
+Poujolat was Boutés.</p>
+
+<p>Much has been said of Lady Hester Stanhope’s
+rudeness to her countrymen and others in refusing
+them admittance when at the door, and probably
+Messrs. Poujolat and Boutés might have complained
+at Sayda of her inhospitable conduct: but it is
+scarcely necessary for me to say that her real motives
+for acting as she did were not from a dislike to see
+people, since nobody enjoyed half-a-day’s conversation
+with a stranger more than she did. A few days after,</p>
+
+<p>December 2.—I had taken a long ride in the morning,
+and had seen a frigate under her studding sails
+running towards Sayda. The arrival of a ship of
+war was always an event to set the house in commotion;
+for it was very well known that, if her colours
+were English or French, the chances were ten to one
+that either the captain or some of the officers would
+come up to Jôon. Accordingly, on returning home at
+about 4 o’clock, I told Lady Hester Stanhope of it:
+but she was not well, had passed the night badly, and
+all she said was,—“Well, if they come, I shall not
+see any of them.” Now, it is not improbable, if any
+of the officers had presented themselves, and had been
+told that her ladyship was unable to receive them,
+owing to the state of her health, that they would have
+gone away discontented, and disposed to attribute her
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">146</span>
+refusal to any other cause than the real one: but let
+any one, who reads what follows, say if she was in a
+fit state to hold conversation with strangers.</p>
+
+<p>Her health was still very far from good, and this
+day was a day of sorrow. Her maids had been
+sulky and impertinent, and her forlorn and deserted
+situation came so forcibly across her mind, that she
+raised up her hands to heaven, and wept. “Oh!”
+said she, “if these horrid servants would but do as
+they are told, I could get on by myself, and should
+not want anybody to help me: but they are like
+jibbing horses, and the only good horse in the team
+is worked to death. Were I well, I would not care
+for a thousand of them; I should know how to manage
+them: but, sick as I am, hardly able to raise my
+hand to ring the bell, if anything were to happen
+to me, I might die, and nobody would come to my
+assistance.”</p>
+
+<p>I offered, as I had done almost daily, to have my
+bed removed to the room next to hers, and to sleep
+there, in order to be at hand if she should want my
+assistance: but she would not admit of it; and I
+could only use my best efforts to soothe her, which
+was no easy matter. I remained six hours with her,
+sitting the whole time in a constrained posture, that I
+might catch her words, so low was her voice. And I
+could not move without sensibly annoying her, as she
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">147</span>
+was sure to construe it into a wish to be gone, or a
+disregard of her situation, and to say she was neglected
+by everybody.</p>
+
+<p>It is incredible how Lady Hester Stanhope used to
+torment herself about trifles. People, who never happened
+to meet with a person of her peculiar character,
+would be amazed at the precision with which she set
+about everything she undertook. The most trivial
+and fugitive affairs were transacted with quite as
+much pains and exactitude as she brought to bear
+upon the most important plans. This was, in fact,
+the character of her mind, exhibiting itself throughout
+her entire conduct. I have known her lose nearly a
+whole day in scolding about a nosegay of roses which
+she wished to send to the Pasha’s wife. For the purpose
+of sending nosegays safely to distant places, she
+had invented a sort of canister. In the bottom part
+was placed a tumbler full of water, in which the flower-stalks
+were kept moist; and the nosegay was thus
+carried to any distance, suspended to the mules,
+saddle, or in a man’s hand. The servants, who could
+not understand why such importance was attached to
+a few flowers, were remiss in keeping the canisters
+clean, nor would the gardener arrange the flowers as
+Lady Hester wished. For a matter like this she
+would storm and cry, and appeal to me if it was not a
+shame she should be so treated.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">148</span>
+December 3.—To-day, a servant, who was ill, had
+become the object of her immediate anxiety. “As
+for myself,” cried she, “I care not how ragged, how
+neglected I am; but I am in a fever if I think a poor
+creature is in want of such comforts as his illness may
+require. Such is my despotism: and I dread every
+moment of the day lest his necessities should not be
+attended to. Who is to see his room warmed, to take
+care he has proper drinks, to give him his medicine?
+I know nobody will do it, unless I see to it myself.”
+I assured her he should have every attention possible.</p>
+
+<p>It was in vain to expect any sentiment or feeling
+from servants and slaves, who had no prospect before
+them but one constant round of forced work, against
+their habits and inclinations. Although Lady Hester
+Stanhope had adopted almost all the customs of the
+East, she still retained many of her own: and to condemn
+the slaves to learn the usages of Franks was
+like obliging an English housemaid to fall into those
+of the Turks. Thus, the airing of linen, ironing,
+baking loaves of bread instead of flat cakes, cleaning
+knives, brightening pots, pans, and kettles, mending
+holes in clothes, and other domestic cleanly usages,
+were points of contention which were constantly fought
+over and over again for twenty years, with no better
+success at the last than at the first.</p>
+
+<p>Her conversation turned one day on Sir G. H.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">149</span>
+“What can be the reason?” said she, “I am now
+always thinking of Sir G. H. Seven years ago, when
+you were here, you spoke about him, and I thought
+no more of him than merely to make some remarks at
+the moment; but now I have dreamed of him two
+or three times, and I am sure something is going to
+happen to him, either very good or very bad. I have
+been thinking how well he would do for master of the
+horse to the Queen, and I have a good way of giving
+a hint of it through the Buckleys: for I always said
+that, next to Lord Chatham, nobody ever had such
+handsome equipages as Sir G.: nobody’s horses and
+carriages were so neatly picked out as theirs. Sir G.
+is a man, doctor, from what you tell me, that would
+have just suited Mr. Pitt. That polished and quiet
+manner which Sir G. has was what Mr. Pitt found so
+agreeable in Mr. Long. It is very odd—Mr. Pitt
+always would dress for dinner, even if we were alone.
+One day, I said to him, ‘You are tired, and there is
+no one but ourselves; why need you dress!’ He replied,
+‘Why, I don’t know, Hester; but if one omits
+to do it to-day, we neglect it to-morrow, and so on,
+until one grows a pig.’”</p>
+
+<p>December 7, 1837.—Poor Lady Hester’s appearance
+to-day would have been a piteous sight for her
+friends in England. I saw her about noon: she was
+pale, very ill, and her natural good spirits quite gone.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">150</span>
+“Doctor,” said she, in a faint voice, “I am very
+poorly to-day, and I was still worse in the night. I
+was within that” (holding up her finger) “of death’s
+door, and I find nothing now will relieve me. A little
+while ago, I could depend on something or other,
+when seized with these spasmodic attacks; but now
+everything fails. How am I to get better, when I
+can’t have a moment’s repose from morning till night?
+When I was ill on former occasions, I could amuse
+myself with my thoughts, with cutting out in paper;—why,
+I have a closet full of models, in paper, of
+rooms, and arches, and vaults, and pavilions, and
+buildings, with so many plans of alterations, you can’t
+think. But now, if I want a pair of scissors, they
+can’t be found; if I want a needle and thread, there is
+none forthcoming; and I am wearied to death about
+the smallest trifles.”</p>
+
+<p>She here began to cry and wring her hands, presenting
+a most melancholy picture of despair. When
+she had recovered a little, she went on: “To look
+upon me now, what a lesson against vanity! Look at
+this arm, all skin and bone, so thin, so thin, that you
+may see through it; and once, without exaggeration,
+so rounded, that you could not pinch the skin up.
+My neck was once so fair that a pearl necklace scarcely
+showed on it; and men—no fools, but sensible men—would
+say to me, ‘God has given you a neck you
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">151</span>
+really may be proud of: you are one of nature’s
+favourites, and one may be excused for admiring that
+beautiful skin.’ If they could behold me now, with
+my teeth all gone, and with long lines in my face—not
+wrinkles, for I have no wrinkles when I am left
+quiet, and not made angry: but my face is drawn out
+of its composure by these wretches. I thank God
+that old age has come upon me unperceived. When
+I used to see the painted Lady H. dressed in pink
+and silver, with her head shaking, and jumped by her
+footman into her sociable, attempting to appear young,
+I felt a kind of horror and disgust I can’t describe.
+I wonder how Lady Stafford dresses, now she is no
+longer young: but I can’t fancy her grown old.”</p>
+
+<p>She paused, and then resumed. “I have,” she
+said, “been under the saw” (drawing the little finger
+of her right hand backward and forward across the
+forefinger of her left) “for many years, and not a
+tooth but what has told; but it is God’s will, and I
+do not repine: it is man’s ingratitude that wounds
+me most. How many harsh answers have even you
+given me, when I have been telling you things for
+your good: it is that which hurts me.”</p>
+
+<p>I confessed my fault, and expressed my deep regret
+that I had ever caused her any pain.</p>
+
+<p>She went on. “When I see people of understanding
+moidering away their time, losing their memory,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_152">152</span>
+and doing nothing that is useful to mankind, I must
+be frank, and tell them of it. You are in darkness,
+and I have done my best to enlighten you: if I have
+not succeeded, it is not my fault. As for pleasing or
+displeasing me, put that out of your head: there is
+no more in that than in pleasing or displeasing that
+door. I am but a worm—a poor, miserable being—an
+humble instrument in the hands of God. But, if
+a man is benighted, and sees a light in a castle, does
+he go to it, or does he not? Perhaps it may be a
+good genius that guides him there, perhaps it may be
+a den of thieves: but there he goes.”</p>
+
+<p>In this mournful strain Lady Hester went on for
+some time. Every thing around me presented so
+affecting a picture, that, unable to restrain my emotions,
+I burst into tears. She let me recover myself,
+and then, making me drink a finjàn of coffee, with a
+little orange-flower water in it, to restore my spirits,
+she advised me to go and take a walk.</p>
+
+<p>An hour or two afterwards I saw her again. She
+was much better, and was sitting up in her bed, cutting
+out articles of clothing, and fixing on patterns for
+new gowns for her maids. “I hate money,” she said,
+“and could wish to have nothing to do with it but
+saying, ‘Take this, and lay it out so and so.’” Ever
+sanguine, she was forming plans of what she should
+do in the spring, when she purposed remodelling her
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_153">153</span>
+household, and replacing her present servants by a
+fresh set. The world was to be convulsed by revolutions,
+nations were to be punished by sickness and
+calamities; and her object was to secure, for those in
+whose welfare she felt interested, an asylum in the
+coming days of trouble.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_14" href="#FNanchor_14" class="label">[14]</a>
+ An abah is either a long cloak, or else a woollen frock-coat,
+sometimes brocaded in a triangle of gold thread (the base going from
+shoulder to shoulder, and the apex pointing at the waist), on a
+marone-coloured ground, as this was, and presenting a very brilliant
+appearance.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_15" href="#FNanchor_15" class="label">[15]</a>
+It was by such speeches as these that Lady Hester sometimes left
+an impression on her hearers that she was insane. The reader must judge
+for himself. There are, however, strong reasons for believing that
+there was a profound and deeply-planned method in all her actions,
+and those who said she was unsound in her intellects would have had
+great difficulty in proving it before a competent tribunal. The vast
+combinations of her mind, when it was possible to get a glimpse
+of them, filled one with surprise, and set at naught all previous
+conjecture or conception; whilst separate and particular conversations
+and reasonings wore the stamp of great oddity and sometimes of
+insanity. Let Mr. Dundas, Lord Hardwicke, Mr. Way, Lord <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Asaph,
+Count Delaborde, Count Yowiski, if still alive, Count de la Porte,
+Dr. Mills, <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Lamartine, Count Marcellus, and a hundred others who
+have conversed with her, say what was the impression she left on their
+minds; and not till then let persons who have never held intercourse
+with her of late years pronounce her mad.</p>
+
+</div><!--end footnotes-->
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">154</span>
+
+<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span> <abbr title="Six"><span class="allsmcap">VI.</span></abbr></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="small short">The Delphic priestess—Abdallah Pasha’s ingratitude—His
+cowardice—Lady Hester’s spies—Her emaciation—History
+of General Loustaunau.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2">December 8.—A most violent storm of rain, thunder,
+and lightning, kept me prisoner. The courtyards
+were flooded. When all the house was in confusion
+from the wet, and clogs were heard clattering on all
+sides, I entered Lady Hester’s room, and remained
+for about an hour, talking on indifferent subjects, without
+hearing from her one word in allusion to the state
+of the weather. At last she said, “Doctor, I find
+myself better from the thunder!” And when I replied
+that there were many persons who felt oppressed
+from an electric condition of the atmosphere and were
+relieved by its explosion, she observed, with some
+sharpness, “that I must be a great booby to make
+such a remark to her, as there was not a servant in
+the house who did not know that she could always
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">155</span>
+tell, three days beforehand, when a thunder-storm was
+coming on.”</p>
+
+<p>In the evening I sat with her about four hours.
+She was up, and had placed herself in a corner of
+her bed-room on a low ottoman (as it is called in England),
+which the Syrians name <i>terâahah</i>. The candle
+was put far back in the window recess, the light being
+thrown on my features, whilst it left hers in obscurity.
+This was her custom on almost all occasions, even
+when she had strangers visiting her, under pretence
+that she could not bear the light in her eyes, but, in
+fact, as I have reason to believe, to watch the play of
+people’s countenances.</p>
+
+<p>She resumed the subject of the preceding evening.
+I was too weary when I left her, and too busy next
+morning, to be able to write down her conversation,
+but, could I have done it, it must have left a profound
+impression on the reader’s mind, an idea of
+sublimity, whether he held her visionary opinions to
+be the mere rhapsodies of a disordered intellect, or
+the deductions of great reasoning powers, aided by remarkable
+foresight. Her language was so forcible and
+sublime, that I sometimes suspended my breath, and
+from time to time tried to assure myself that I was
+not hearkening to a superhuman voice. The smoke
+from our pipes by degrees filled the room, closely shut
+up as it was, and cast a deep gloom around us. The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">156</span>
+wind howled without, with now and then occasional
+echoes of the thunder among the mountains: and it
+required no great stretch of imagination to believe
+one’s self listening to the inspired oracles of the Delphic
+priestess, as she poured forth the warnings of what
+seemed a preternatural insight into futurity.</p>
+
+<p>December 9.—The morning was employed in writing
+letters, and in the evening I remained until half-past
+one with Lady Hester. She spoke of the alarm
+created in Mahomet Ali’s cabinet, by her affording
+protection to Abdallah Pasha’s people after the surrender
+of <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Jean d’Acre. “That impudent fellow
+C********,” said she, “sent me a packet of letters
+from Colonel Campbell, and told me I was to prepare
+a list of all the people in my house, giving their
+names, nation, a description of their persons, &amp;c. I
+returned him the packet, and desired him to forward
+it to the quarter whence it came, adding, ‘These are
+all the commands that Lady Hester Stanhope has at
+present to give to Mr. C********.’ To Colonel C. I
+wrote ‘that it was not customary for consuls to give
+orders to their superiors; that, as for the English
+name, about which he talked so much, I made over to
+him all the advantage he might derive from it.’ And
+my letter to Boghoz was to the effect that, ‘in confessing,
+as he did, that I rendered the state of this
+country unsettled by my measures, he acknowledged
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">157</span>
+the weakness of his master’s cause; that I disdained
+all partnership in it; and that the column on which
+Mahomet Ali’s exaltation rested would, before long,
+sink beneath him, and his greatness melt like snow
+before the fire.’ I added, ‘there could be little honour
+for Mahomet Ali to make himself a gladiator before a
+woman;’ and here I meant that, as a gladiator was
+some criminal who descended into the arena to fight,
+so he was a malefactor too.</p>
+
+<p>“As for Abdallah Pasha, he was not worth the
+pains I took about him; but I did it for my master,
+the Sultan. I kept and maintained for two years two
+hundred of his people, wounded, sick, and proscribed;
+and when I wrote to him to know what I should do
+with them, as the expense was too great for me, the
+answer of this ungrateful wretch was to ask me for a
+loan of twenty-five purses, and not even to send his
+remembrance to one of those who had bled and suffered
+in his cause. His ingratitude, however, has partly
+met with its reward: for the Sultan himself has heard
+of his cold-hearted conduct, and has taken away half
+what he allowed him. This is the man whose head I
+saved by my intercession with a person in power.</p>
+
+<p>“He was a coward, after all. The last day of the
+siege of Acre he lost his senses quite. As Ibrahim
+Pasha had effected a breach, some of Abdallah Pasha’s
+officers forced him to come upon the ramparts to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">158</span>
+encourage the soldiers; for he had remained during the
+whole time shut up in a vault under-ground with his
+women and boys, and had never once appeared. Well,
+the first thing he did was to sit down amidst the fire,
+quite bewildered. He then asked for an umbrella:
+then he called for some water; and, when they presented
+to him an <i>ibryk</i><a id="FNanchor_16" href="#Footnote_16" class="fnanchor">[16]</a> as being the only thing they
+had near at hand, not supposing that at such a moment
+he would mind what it was he drank from, he
+would not drink out of it?”</p>
+
+<p>They fetched him a goblet, and he made them take
+it back, because it was a glass he drank sherbet out of,
+and not water. The very man who handed it to him
+told me the story. At last they placed him in one
+corner of the battery, and covered him with a cloak.
+All this time the bullets were flying about.<a id="FNanchor_17" href="#Footnote_17" class="fnanchor">[17]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">159</span>
+Lady Hester continued:—“Of all those to whom
+I gave an asylum and bread, after the siege, I can’t
+say there were many who showed the least gratitude—four
+perhaps: the rest robbed me, and abused my
+goodness in every possible manner. One family alone
+consisted of seventeen persons. Will it be believed,
+that when I had new clothes made for the women for
+the Byrám holyday, they had the baseness to grumble
+at the stuff, the make, and everything, complaining
+they were not good enough for them? But this did
+not hurt me half so much as the little credit I get for
+everything I do among my relations and the English
+in general. My motives are misconstrued, or not appreciated;
+and, whilst a mighty fuss is made about
+some public subscription for people in Jamaica, Newfoundland,
+or God knows where, I, who, by my own
+individual exertions, have done the like for hundreds
+of wretched beings, driven out of their homes by the
+sabre and bayonet, am reviled and abused for every
+act of kindness or benevolence.</p>
+
+<p>“I knew a pretty deal of what was going forward
+during the siege of Acre by my own spies. Hanah,
+your old servant—Giovanni, as he used to be called—was
+one of them. He carried on his trade of a barber,
+and was married in Acre; and, when the bombarding
+began, he got out somehow, and came to me. So I
+furnished him with a beggar’s dress. But first I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">160</span>
+made him take leave of the other servants, and set off
+from the door. Then, hiding himself under a rock,
+when he was at a distance, he dressed himself as a
+<i>fakýr</i>, and, so perfect was his disguise, that, when he
+came back to me, I did not know him. He was a poor
+timid fellow, and that was the reason why I chose
+him as fit for my purpose. In such a nice business
+as that, I wanted a man that would follow my instructions
+exactly, and do nothing out of his own
+head: and Giovanni was in such a fright, that I was
+sure of him in that respect. Well, he succeeded perfectly
+well. There was a poor devil of a <i>sacca</i>, or
+water-carrier, in the camp, who used to take water to
+Derwish Pasha’s tents. Meanly dressed, and with
+his head held down, like one in misery, nobody paid
+any attention to him; at night he would frequently
+creep between the ropes of the Pasha’s tent, and
+seem to sleep there like an unhappy being who had
+no hole to put his head in. Through a slit in the
+tent, he could see and hear much that passed, communicating
+whatever information he obtained to
+Giovanni, who brought it at convenient opportunities
+to me. But when I wanted a stout-hearted fellow to
+carry a letter through the entrenchments to the foot of
+the walls, to be drawn up, then I chose a different sort
+of a messenger; for I had them all ready.”</p>
+
+<p>December 16.—The last three days Lady Hester
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_161">161</span>
+had suffered greatly. To-day she was in very low
+spirits, and sobbed aloud and wrung her hands, while
+she bitterly deplored her deserted state. “I believe
+it will do me good to cry,” she said, and she gave way
+freely to her emotions; but her weeping was not
+woman-like: it had a wild howl about it, that was
+painful to me to hear; she seemed not to be made of
+stuff for tears: and, if Bellona could have ever wept,
+she must have wept in this way. After she had given
+vent to her feelings, she gradually recovered, and her
+natural fecundity of language returned.</p>
+
+<p>December 17.—Christmas day was approaching,
+but the weather was of extraordinary mildness. Some
+idea may be formed of the climate of Syria from the
+circumstance that my house had no glass to the windows,
+and that the family sat always with the doors
+open. It was only during the heavy rains that the
+rooms felt chilly, and then a brazier, with lighted coals,
+was agreeable and quite sufficient to obviate the cold.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester made me observe how thin she had
+become. Her bones almost protruded through her
+skin, and she could not lie comfortably in any posture;
+so that it was difficult for her to get rest. Her fretfulness
+had increased to such a degree as to be equally
+distressing to herself and to those about her: yet the
+vigour of her mind never forsook her for a moment
+when anything called for its exertion.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_162">162</span>
+December 20.—was a rainy day, and, when I entered
+her ladyship’s chamber, I saw it would be a melancholy
+one. She was seated in the corner of the room,
+her features indicating great suffering. She burst into
+tears the moment I approached her. She had not
+slept the whole night, and had passed the hours, from
+the time I left her, in getting up and walking about
+supported by her women, and then lying down again,
+seeking relief from the feeling of suffocation and oppression
+which so much distressed her. The floor of
+the bed-room was covered with plates, pots, and pans,
+turnips, carrots, cabbages, knives and forks, spoons,
+and all other appurtenances of the table and kitchen.</p>
+
+<p>I must observe that, on the preceding day, at Lady
+Hester’s request, I had ridden over to Mar Elias to
+see General Loustaunau, the decayed French officer,
+who had now lived on her bounty for a period of more
+than twenty years. And although, from being of a
+choleric and violent temper, he had, on more than one
+occasion, embroiled himself with her, yet the only
+difference it made in her treatment towards him was
+merely to keep him at a distance from herself: but
+she had never, for one day, ceased to occupy herself
+with his wants and to provide for his comforts. He
+was now, as I was told, eighty years old, and his mind
+was possessed with hallucinations, which he fell into
+from a belief that he could interpret the prophecies in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_163">163</span>
+the Bible. He was constantly poring over that book,
+and he went very generally by the name of the Prophet:
+Lady Hester herself always called him so.
+He had a maid-servant to take care of him, a barber,
+on fixed days, to shave him. Lamb, mutton, or beef,
+flour for his bread, and wine, were sent as his consumption
+required, money being liberally furnished him
+for purchasing everything else from Sayda.</p>
+
+<p>Finding that he was very much neglected by the
+woman who was appointed to attend him, I mentioned
+the fact on my return to Lady Hester, and to this
+communication was to be attributed the extraordinary
+display on the floor of her bed-room; for, from her
+accustomed sensibility to the sufferings of others, she
+had fancied that the poor man was in want of everything.
+“See,” she said, “what I am reduced to:
+ever since daylight this morning” (and it was then
+nearly noon) “have I been handling pots and pans to
+make the Prophet comfortable. For on whom can I
+depend?—on these cold people—a pack of stocks and
+stones, who rest immoveable amidst their fellow-creatures’
+sufferings? Why did not you give that
+woman a dressing? I’ll have her turned out of the
+village—an impudent hussy!”</p>
+
+<p>Here, from having raised her voice, she was seized
+with a spasm in the throat and chest, and, making a
+sudden start, “Some water, some water! make haste!”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">164</span>
+she cried, and gasped for breath as if almost suffocated.
+I handed her some immediately, which she greedily
+drank: I then threw the window open, and she became
+better. “Don’t leave me, doctor: ring the bell;—I
+can’t bear to be left alone a moment; for, if one of
+these attacks were to come on, and I could not ring
+the bell, what could I do? You must forgive me if I
+fall into these violent passions; but such is my nature:
+I can’t help it. I am like the horse that Mr. Pitt
+had. Mr. Pitt used to say, ‘You must guide him
+with a hair; if I only move my leg, he goes on; and
+his pace is so easy, it’s quite charming: but, if you
+thwart him or contradict him, he is unmanageable;’—that’s
+me.”</p>
+
+<p>But, to return to General Loustaunau, or the Prophet—as
+his name has already appeared several times, it
+may not be amiss to give a short outline of his life, the
+particulars of which he communicated to me himself.
+From a village in the Pyrenees, near to Tarbes, one
+day, a young man, about twenty-four years of age,
+sallied forth, he knew not whither, to seek his fortune.
+Sprung from a family of peasants, he had received
+little or no education, and had nothing to depend on
+but his well-knitted frame, an intelligent and handsome
+countenance, robust health, and activity. He directed
+his steps towards one of the great sea-ports of France,
+resolved to work his passage to America. But, when
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_165">165</span>
+walking the quays and inquiring for a vessel bound
+across the Atlantic, he was told there was none; there
+was, however, a large merchant-ship freighting for the
+East Indies. Learning that the country she was
+chartered for was still more distant than the western
+colonies, he concluded, in his ardent and youthful mind,
+that it would open to him a still greater chance of
+meeting with adventures and of enriching himself.
+He accordingly got himself rated to work his passage
+as a seaman, and arrived in safety at the ship’s
+destination.</p>
+
+<p>It would be useless to occupy the reader’s time with
+the struggles which every man, unknown and without
+recommendations, has to make on a foreign shore, before
+he gets a footing in some shape congenial to his
+talents or his inclination. Natural talents Loustaunau
+had; for, in the space of a few months after his arrival
+on the Indian coast, he was spoken of as an intelligent
+young man to the French ambassador, Monsieur de
+Marigny, residing at Poonah, the Mahratta court,
+as far as I could understand: since it is to be borne
+in mind that Mr. Loustaunau, when he related all
+this, was eighty years old, had almost lost his memory,
+and was relapsing into second childhood. He
+soon after became an inmate of the embassy, on terms
+of some familiarity with Monsieur de Marigny, who
+discovered, in the young adventurer’s conversation, so
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_166">166</span>
+much good sense and elevation of mind, that he used
+to say to him, “It strikes me that you are no common
+man.”</p>
+
+<p>It so happened that the war between the English
+and the Rajah of the Mahrattas brought the hostile
+armies into the field at no great distance from Poonah;
+and Mr. L. one day told the ambassador, that, as he
+had never seen what war was, and had not far to go
+to do so, he should be much obliged if he would permit
+him to absent himself for a short time to be spectator
+of the action, which, report said, must soon take
+place between the two armies. Monsieur de M. tried
+to dissuade him from it, asking him of what use it
+would be to risk his life for the satisfaction of an empty
+curiosity. Mr. L.’s reply was, “If I am killed, why
+then <i lang="fr">bon jour</i>, and there will be an end of me:” M. de
+Marigny, therefore, complied with his wishes, and sent
+him with some of his own people and an introductory
+letter, to General Norolli, a Portuguese, who commanded
+the Rajah Scindeah’s artillery.</p>
+
+<p>He had not to wait long for the gratification of his
+curiosity. An action took place: the forces were
+warmly engaged, and Mr. L. walked about within
+musket-shot distance to observe the manœuvres of the
+two armies. The English had planted a battery on a
+rocky elevation, which made much havoc among the
+Mahratta forces. Between this battery on its flank
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_167">167</span>
+and an opposite cliff there was a deep ravine, which
+rendered all access from one height to the other impracticable:
+but a sloping ground, by making a
+circuit in the rear of the Mahratta forces, afforded
+a practicability of bringing field-pieces to the summit
+of the cliff to bear on the English battery from the
+Mahratta side.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. L. took an opportunity of addressing himself
+to General N., and pointed out to him the probability
+of silencing, or, at least, of annoying the English
+battery from the cliff in question; but the general
+treated his remark in a slighting manner, and, riding
+to another part of the field, took no farther notice of
+him. Mr. L. had seated himself on a hillock, still
+making his reflections, when an old Mahratta officer,
+who had heard the conversation between Mr. L. and
+the general of the artillery, and had partly understood
+what Mr. L. proposed should be done, approached
+him. “Well, sir,” said he, “what do you
+think of our artillery?”—“If I were a flatterer,” replied
+Mr. L., “I should say that it was well served;
+but, as I am not, you will pardon me if I think it
+bad.” The officer went on—“You see the day is
+likely to go against us—what would you do if you
+had the command?”—“Oh! as for the command, I
+don’t know,” rejoined Mr. L., “but this one thing I
+do know, that, if I had but two pieces of cannon, I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_168">168</span>
+would turn the day in your master’s favour.”—“How
+would you do that?” asked the officer: “perhaps I
+could put two field-pieces at your disposal.”—“If you
+could,” said Mr. L., “I would plant them on yonder
+height” (pointing at the same time to it), “and let
+my head answer for my presumption, if I do not effect
+what I promise.”</p>
+
+<p>The bearing of the Frenchman and his energetic
+manner of speaking, together with his evident coolness
+and self-possession on a field of battle, made a
+great impression on the Mahratta officer. “Come with
+me, young man,” said he, “I will conduct you to the
+rajah.”—“With all my heart,” replied Mr. L. When
+brought into his presence, Scindeah asked the officer
+what the stranger wanted, and the officer repeated the
+conversation that had just passed. “Well,” says
+Scindeah, “he does not ask for money, he only asks
+for guns: give them to him, and let them be served
+by some of my best gunners. The idea may be good:
+only be expeditious, or we may soon be where that
+infernal battery of the English can annoy us no
+longer.”</p>
+
+<p>Accordingly, without a moment’s delay, two field-pieces
+were dragged up by the back of the cliff to the
+spot pointed out, Mr. L. entrusting the command of
+one of them to another Frenchman, whose curiosity
+had brought him on the field also. The very second
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_169">169</span>
+shot that was fired at the English battery blew up an
+artillery waggon (caisson) full of powder. The explosion
+dismounted some of the cannon, killed several
+men, and created so much confusion, that the English,
+in consequence of it, eventually lost the battle, and
+were forced to retreat. Mr. L. had two or three of
+his men killed. “There! you may take your cannon
+back,” said he, as soon as the explosion took place;
+“I have nothing farther to do;” and he and his
+brother Frenchman walked away to watch the result
+of the mischief they had done.</p>
+
+<p>When the day was over, an officer of the rajah’s
+conveyed to Mr. Loustaunau his master’s request that
+he would attend on him at his tent. Mr. L. presented
+himself, and Scindeah received him with marks
+of great consideration. Addressing himself to Mr. L.,
+“You have done me, sir,” said he, “a most essential
+service to-day; and, as a small recompense for your
+gallantry and the military talent you have shown, I
+beg your acceptance of a few presents, together with
+the assurance that, if you like to enter my service,
+you shall have the command of a company immediately.”
+Mr. L. thanked him in proper language,
+and, declining the presents offered, said, “Your
+highness will excuse me if I refuse your gifts: I will,
+however, with pleasure accept the sword which I see
+among them, but nothing else. The offer of a commission
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_170">170</span>
+in your army I must equally decline, as I am
+bound to return to our ambassador, to whom I owe
+too many obligations to take any step without his
+permission.” Scindeah could not but approve of this
+reply; and Mr. L., making his bow, returned towards
+the place where he was lodged.</p>
+
+<p>When night came, and General Norolli, having
+made his dispositions, had also returned to his quarters,
+whilst yet on horseback, and, as if moved by jealousy
+to repress the exultation which he imagined Mr. L.
+might have indulged in, he called out in a loud and
+angry tone, “Where is Mr. Loustaunau, where is
+that gentleman?” Mr. L., who was standing not far
+off, approached, and, as the general dismounted, said,
+“Here I am, general, at your command.”—“I saw,”
+observed Mr. L. (interrupting himself whilst relating
+this part of his story to me) “that the general was in
+a rage, which appeared more plainly as he continued.”—“Who,
+sir, authorized you to present yourself to
+the rajah without my leave? don’t you know that all
+Europeans must be introduced by me?”—“General,”
+replied Mr. L., “I was summoned by his highness,
+and I went: if you are angry because I have done
+some little service to your master, I cannot help it.
+You are not ignorant that I pointed out to you first
+of all the commanding position which struck me as
+fitted for planting a battery: you refused to listen
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_171">171</span>
+to my suggestion; and, if it was afterward adopted
+by others, that is your fault, not mine.”—“Sir,”
+cried the general, irritated more and more by this
+remark, “you deserve to have this whip across your
+shoulders.”—“General,” retorted Mr. L., “you suffer
+your anger to get the better of your reason: if you
+have any whippings to bestow, you must keep them
+for your Portuguese—Frenchmen are not accustomed
+to take them.” The general’s fury now knew no
+bounds; he put his hand on one of the pistols in his
+girdle, intending to shoot Mr. L. “But I,” said
+Mr. L., “was ready; and, with my eyes fixed on
+him, would have seized the other, had he drawn it
+out, and I would have shot him; for, you know, in
+self-defence, one will not stand still to have a bullet
+through one’s body, without preventing it, if possible.
+However, some officers held the general’s arm, and
+shortly after I retired, and, remaining a day or two
+more in the camp, returned to the place where I had
+left our ambassador.</p>
+
+<p>“When I told him what had happened—‘Stay
+with me, Loustaunau,’ said he; ‘it is my intention
+to raise a few troops here, and, since you seem to like
+fighting, you shall be employed:’ but in a few weeks
+the ambassador was recalled to France, and he offered
+to take me with him, promising to get me employment
+at home. However, I considered that I had
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_172">172</span>
+better chances in remaining where I was, than in
+going to my native country, where birth, patronage,
+and the usages of good society, are necessary for a
+man’s advancement, all which I wanted.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Loustaunau, left to his own exertions, recollected
+the rajah’s offer; and on applying to him, received
+a commission in the Mahratta army. Eminently
+qualified by nature for military command, his
+advancement was rapid; and, after distinguishing
+himself in several actions, and showing likewise a
+very superior judgment in political affairs, he finally
+became general of Scindeah’s troops, although I could
+not ascertain in how short a time. His reputation
+spread rapidly through the territory, and his noble
+conduct and intrepidity must have been very generally
+known, since, on one occasion, after having been
+severely wounded in his left hand, two fingers of
+which he had lost, the commander of the English
+forces sent a flag of truce and his own surgeon with
+an offer of his professional assistance, fearing that
+Mr. L. might not have a European surgeon to attend
+him. Scindeah, in his despatches to him, styled him
+a lion in battle, and a lynx in council. He consulted
+him in difficult negociations with the East
+India Company’s servants; and, in acknowledgment
+of his services, he gave him a village as an appanage
+to his rank. Mr. L. married the daughter of a French
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_173">173</span>
+officer, by whom he had four or five children, one of
+whom is now living at Givet, in the department of the
+Ardennes.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. L. was fearless at all times, and inimical to
+despotism even in the centre of its worshippers.
+Scindeah had unjustly imprisoned an Armenian
+merchant, whose wealth he intended to confiscate for
+his own benefit. As the oppressive act was founded
+on no just grounds, and application had been made to
+General Loustaunau for his interposition, when he
+found that entreaties were of no avail, “one day,”
+said he, “I took fifty of my men, fellows <i lang="fr">de bonne
+volonté</i>, and, marching strait to the rajah’s palace at a
+time when I knew he was in his divan, I entered,
+walked up to him, and in a mild, but pretty determined
+tone, said, ‘Your highness, be not alarmed, I
+am come to ask a favour of you: you must release
+the Armenian merchant, as I have sworn to set him
+free.’ Scindeah saw that I meant not to trifle, and,
+assuming a friendly air, he complied with my request.
+The guards were astounded at my audacity, but they
+dared not stir, for I and my men would have sabred
+them instantly.”</p>
+
+<p>After having covered himself with glory, as the
+French express it, he obtained his congé; and, being
+resolved to return to France, he visited some of the
+English settlements in his way to the place of his
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_174">174</span>
+embarkation, where he was most honourably and hospitably
+treated. He always spoke of this period as
+the happiest of his life, and mentioned the names of
+some English gentlemen with the highest encomiums
+and most pleasing reminiscences.</p>
+
+<p>Having converted what property he could into
+money, he obtained bills on France, and set out for
+his native country. The revolution had broken out;
+and, on his arrival, his bills were all paid, but in
+assignats; so that in a few weeks he found himself
+almost penniless. Of this calamitous part of his history
+I could gather but few details. I have heard
+him say that some branch of the Orleans family
+assisted him. Certain it is that he had either money
+or friends yet left; for, with the wreck of his property,
+or by some other means, he established an iron-foundry
+near the place of his nativity. He was so close, however,
+to the frontiers of Spain, that, during the war
+with that country and France, in an incursion of the
+enemy, all his property was destroyed.</p>
+
+<p>How he got to Mahon, or for what purpose, I am
+equally ignorant: but, embarking from that port, he
+found his way to Syria, probably intending to make
+his way overland to India, there to reclaim his property.
+But his intellects must have been already
+somewhat disordered: for, when we heard him first
+spoken of in Palestine, in 1812 or 1813, he was described
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_175">175</span>
+as a man living almost on the alms of the
+Europeans, and generally to be seen with a bible
+under his arm, negligent of his person, housed in a
+hovel, and going, even then, by the sobriquet of the
+Prophet.</p>
+
+<p>At the time I am now speaking of, the bare mention
+of politics or catastrophes was sure to set him
+wandering on the prophetic writings, and then common
+sense was at an end. But I had known him for
+twenty years, when his lucid intervals were only
+occasionally interrupted by these hallucinations; and
+I had seldom met with a man who had such an independent
+character, such naturally noble sentiments
+couched in such appropriate language, and such an
+intuitive discernment of what was suitable in unlooked-for
+emergencies. He was bold as a lion; and, when
+in anger, had the physiognomy and expression of that
+noble animal. He had never served in diplomatic
+situations before his elevation, had never studied
+political economy, moral philosophy, literature, or
+anything else, that I could find; and yet, in all these,
+the innate dictates of his mind responded at once to
+the call, and he could see the right and wrong, the
+<i lang="fr">utile et decorum</i>, the expediency and the evil, the loveliness
+and the ugliness of every subject presented to
+him. He had a strong memory, and retained many
+of the passages of the best French authors by heart.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_176">176</span>
+He was handsome in his person, rather tall, and his
+demeanour was suitable to his station in life. In a
+word, he was born to “achieve greatness.”</p>
+
+<p>General L. had now lived five and twenty years on
+Lady Hester’s bounty. His family, consisting of two
+or three sons and some daughters, were left with not
+very bright prospects in France. Lady Hester Stanhope
+had at different times employed persons to assist
+them, and, to my knowledge, had sent 1000 francs
+through a merchant’s hands at Marseilles, besides
+other sums, of which I have heard her speak. She
+also paid for the education of one daughter some
+years. In 1825, one of the sons, who had by his
+military services obtained the rank of captain in Napoleon’s
+Imperial Guard, being left, by the fall of that
+Emperor, in inactivity, resolved to visit Syria, to see
+his father.</p>
+
+<p>General L.’s intellects were so far weakened, that
+nothing which happened to him personally seemed to
+affect him, only as it verified some of his favourite
+predictions, drawn from texts in the Bible. He therefore
+beheld his son’s arrival with indifference, as far as
+paternal affection went, but discovered in it other bearings,
+of immense importance in the political changes
+that were at hand. Not so Lady Hester Stanhope:
+she knew that the general had a right to the revenue
+of a whole village in the Mahratta country,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_177">177</span>
+which had been given to him by Scindeah; and she
+resolved to furnish Captain L. with money to enable
+him to go and recover his father’s possessions.</p>
+
+<p>The captain remained at Dar Jôon for some months:
+he had his horse, was lodged in a pavilion in the
+garden, and treated with every mark of respect.
+Restless, hasty in his temper, overbearing, and accustomed
+to the blustering manners of a camp, he occasionally
+got into difficulties with the natives, both
+Mahometans and Christians. Not aware of the necessity
+of much precaution in shunning checks of perspiration
+in hot climates, he one day caught a fever,
+which almost brought him to his grave. He recovered,
+however, and was convalescent, when his imprudence
+caused a relapse, and he died. He was buried in Lady
+Hester’s garden, where his tomb, ornamented with
+flowering shrubs, and entirely shaded by a beautiful
+arbour, still remains.<a id="FNanchor_18" href="#Footnote_18" class="fnanchor">[18]</a> The poor father never would
+believe in his death. “He is not interred,” he used
+to say, “but is still alive and on the earth: do not
+be grieved about him; in the year 1847 he will join
+me here. I and my lady shall then be made young
+again, and your little daughter is destined to be my
+future wife.” The poor old general, it was observed
+by us, seemed to have no greater pleasure than watching
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_178">178</span>
+our daughter whilst she watered her flowers or fed
+her <i>bulbuls</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The way in which Lady Hester herself sometimes
+sought to lighten the weight of the obligations she
+conferred on the general will serve to show the delicacy
+of her feelings. At different periods, several places
+had been chosen for his residence, according as he
+grew tired of one or the other: for he was a testy old
+man in some respects, and seemed to forget how much
+it was his duty not to put her ladyship to more
+trouble and expense than he could help. Once, when
+she had had a comfortable cottage fitted up for him in
+a village called Aynâaty (from taking in dudgeon
+something that happened to him), he suddenly quitted
+it, and went off to Beyrout. “He went off,” said
+Lady Hester, “with no less than five trunks full of
+clothes and other things, with two watches bought
+with the money I had given him, and with a good bag
+full of piasters: for he had little occasion to spend, as
+I sent him every two days fresh meat of my own
+killing, flour for his bread when it was wanting, sugar,
+tea, coffee—and everything, I may say, except milk
+and vegetables. He went to Beyrout, and there lived
+and talked away largely and foolishly, and gave out
+that he would sooner live with the devil than with
+such a woman as I was. After a time, his resources
+failed him, his friends grew cool, and he returned to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_179">179</span>
+Sayda, where he fastened himself on Monsieur Reynaud,
+who soon grew tired of keeping him, and little
+by little I heard he was reduced to great straits.”
+The fact is, he found no friend, except for an occasional
+invitation to dinner, and Lady Hester knew he
+must be in want; but she knew also, in the state of
+mind he was in, he would refuse assistance from her:
+she therefore made use of an expedient to furnish him
+with money.</p>
+
+<p>Sending for one of the Pasha’s Tartars, and putting
+a bag of gold into his hand, she told him he was to
+ride into Sayda, and proceed strait to the gate of the
+French khan (where Mr. Loustaunau was), dusty and
+sweating, as if from a long journey. There he was
+to inquire if they knew anything of a Frenchman, once
+a general in India; and, after apparently well ascertaining
+it was the man he was in search of, the Tartar
+was to desire to speak with him, and to say—“Sir,
+when on my road from Damascus, a Hindu mussulman
+on his pilgrimage to Mecca, who once served
+under you in India, but is now rich and advanced in
+years, learning that you were in these countries, and
+anxious to testify the respect which the natives of
+Scindeah’s territories still retain for you, has commissioned
+me to put this into your hands.”—“Having
+done so,” added Lady Hester Stanhope, “you are
+not to give him time to see what it is, but to ride
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_180">180</span>
+away.” The vile fellow promised faithfully to execute
+his commission, received in advance a recompense
+for his trouble, and then rode off with the money, and
+kept it. But Lady Hester, who was careful to ascertain,
+by indirect means, whether a Tartar had made
+his appearance at the khan, on learning his perfidy,
+caused it to be spread among the Pasha’s and the
+government Tartars; and they were so indignant at
+his little trustworthiness, a quality on which, from the
+nature of their employ, they are obliged to value
+themselves, that they turned him out of their corps,
+and he never dared to show his face again.</p>
+
+<p>To finish what remains to be said of this once
+shining character, but now the pensioner of an English
+woman, he had resided for the last ten years at a distance
+from Lady Hester Stanhope’s residence, and
+they had not even seen each other for five or six years.
+“I have been obliged to keep him at a distance,” said
+her ladyship, “for the last ten years, in order that people
+might not think I had taken care of him to make him
+trumpet my greatness: for you don’t know what harm
+that man has done me. He used to go about preaching
+that all the queens in Christendom were a pack of
+women of the town, and that I was the only real queen.
+He told everybody he would not change situations
+with the first prince in Europe; for the day would
+come when, through me, he should be greater than
+any of them.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_16" href="#FNanchor_16" class="label">[16]</a> An <i>ibryk</i> is a common earthenware jug with a spout to it,
+the usual drinking-vessel of the lower classes.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_17" href="#FNanchor_17" class="label">[17]</a>
+This Pasha was so afraid, in the midst of all his power, of being
+poisoned, that he had the dishes brought to his table under padlock.
+When he travelled, a horseman in his suite had the office assigned
+him of carrying the implement that makes such a distinguished figure
+in the farce of Pourceaugnac. When he was shaved, he always had some of
+his guards standing round the barber with their pistols cocked, and he
+himself had a drawn sabre lying across his lap. Fancy the situation of
+a man who, in the midst of these formidable preparations, is obliged to
+keep his hand steady.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_18" href="#FNanchor_18" class="label">[18]</a>
+In this same tomb Lady Hester herself was afterwards interred.</p>
+
+</div><!--end footnotes-->
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_181">181</span>
+<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span> <abbr title="Seven"><span class="allsmcap">VII.</span></abbr></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="small short">Lady Hester like the first Lord Chatham—Her recollections
+of Chevening—Her definition of insults—Her deliberate
+affronts—Her warlike propensities—Earl C—— Marquis of
+Abercorn—Logmagi—Osman Chaôosh—Letter from Colonel
+Campbell—George the Third’s flattering compliment to Lady
+Hester—Her Majesty Queen Victoria—Lord M.—Prophecy
+of a <i>welly</i>—Lady Hester’s poignant affliction—Her intractability—Her
+noble and disinterested benevolence.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2">December 21, 1837.—I had sat up until two in the
+morning, despatching letters to Europe, which I had
+written by Lady Hester’s dictation, through the channel
+of <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys, the French consul at Beyrout, who,
+alone, among the Europeans there, had contrived to
+remain on friendly terms with her. In my letter to
+him, Lady Hester required that I should tell him she
+was in a state of convalescence. Alas! she was far
+from being so; for, on going to her, I found her
+labouring under many bad symptoms, against which
+she contended with a spirit that seemed to brook no
+control—not even from nature herself. As she could
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_182">182</span>
+not talk, I read to her, out of the Speaker, a character
+of the first Lord Chatham. She recognized, and so
+did I, so many points of resemblance between herself
+and her grandfather, that she said, more than once,
+“That’s me.” At the words, “He reigned with unbounded
+control over the wilderness of free minds,” I
+observed that there was something contradictory in
+control and freedom. “No, there is not,” said she.
+“If you are walking on the road, and you inquire the
+way of some person you meet, he tells you the best
+road is in such a direction, and then takes his leave;
+you turn round, every now and then, as long as the
+person is in sight, to look at him to see if he points to
+you that you are going right; but you are free to go
+which way you will.”</p>
+
+<p>December 31.—I saw Lady Hester in the morning,
+after which I took a walk with my family: on my
+return, I went again to inquire how she was. One of
+her maids told me that, soon after I had left her, she
+suddenly burst into tears, and cried a great deal, they
+could not tell why; that she had called for Zezefôon
+to dress her, had, in a manner, rushed out of her bed-room,
+and had gone to the saloon, where, in consequence
+of her long confinement, she found all the sofa
+cushions piled up, and the sofa mattresses removed,
+so that she had not a place to sit down on; that then
+she had left the saloon abruptly, on seeing the state it
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_183">183</span>
+was in, and returned to her bed-room, where she gave
+a loose to her sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>My presence being announced, I was admitted.
+“Doctor,” said she, “to-night in my father’s house
+there used to be a hundred tenants and servants sitting
+down to a good dinner, and dancing and making
+merry. I see their happy faces now before my eyes:
+and, when I think of that and how I am surrounded
+here, it is too much for me. When you left me this
+morning, things of former times came over my mind,
+and I could not bear to sit here, so I went out to
+break the chain of my thoughts. I would have gone
+into the garden, if it had not rained.”</p>
+
+<p>I endeavoured to say something consolatory to her.
+“Everybody,” she continued, “is unkind to me. I
+have sought to do good to everybody, either by relieving
+their distresses or purifying their morals, and
+I get no thanks for my pains. I sometimes make
+reproaches to myself for having spent my money on
+worthless beings, and think it might have been better
+otherwise; but God knows best. I had hoped to find
+some persons whose minds might have been enlightened,
+and who would have felt the importance of
+what I tell them. But you even, of whom I had
+some hope, are as bad as the rest; and, if you assent
+to the truth of what I say, you make so many hums
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_184">184</span>
+and hahs that I don’t believe you care a farthing about
+it. I want nobody that has no conviction.”</p>
+
+<p>“I should think it a sin if I saw people acting
+foolishly, not to tell them of it. It does not signify
+who it is, you or the stable-boy; if I can make them
+aware of their folly, I have done my duty. Why do
+I scold you so much, but because I wish you to prepare
+yourself for the convulsions that will shortly take
+place. I always acknowledge your spotless integrity,
+and thank you for the care you bestow on my affairs,
+and in keeping things a little in order; but, in these
+times, something more is wanting: a man must be
+active, and prepared for great events. People are
+teaching their children to read and write, when they
+should be teaching them to drive a mule: for of
+what use are your reading men, who sit poring for
+hours over books without an object? I have a thorough
+contempt for them, and for all your merchants,
+and your merchants’ clerks, who spend their time between
+the counting-house and the brothel.”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester reverted again to Chevening, and
+spoke at great length of her grandmother Stanhope’s
+excellent management of the house, when she (Lady
+Hester) was a child. At all the accustomed festivals,
+plum puddings, that required two men to carry them,
+with large barons of beef, were dressed, &amp;c., &amp;c. All
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_185">185</span>
+the footmen were like gentlemen ushers, all the
+masters and mistresses like so many ambassadors and
+ambassadresses, such form and etiquette were preserved
+in all the routine of visits and parties. Every person
+kept his station, and precise rules were laid down for
+each inmate of the family. Thus, the lady’s maid was
+not allowed to wear white, nor curls, nor heels to her
+shoes, beyond a certain height; and Lady Stanhope
+had in her room a set of instruments and implements
+of punishment to enforce her orders on all occasions.
+There were scissors to cut off fine curls, a rod to whip
+with, &amp;c., &amp;c.</p>
+
+<p>No poor woman lay-in in the neighbourhood, but two
+guineas in money, baby linen, a blanket, some posset,
+two bottles of wine, and other necessaries, were sent
+to her. If any one among the servants was sick, the
+housekeeper, with the still-room maid behind her, was
+seen carrying the barley-water, the gruel, the medicine,
+&amp;c., to administer to the patient, according to
+the doctor’s orders. In the hopping time, all the
+vagrants and Irish hoppers were locked up every night
+in a barn by themselves, and suffered to have no communication
+with the household. A thousand pieces
+of dirty linen were washed every week, and the wash-house
+had four different stone troughs, from which the
+linen was handed, piece by piece, by the washerwomen
+from the scalder down to the rinser. In the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_186">186</span>
+laundry a false ceiling, let down and raised by pulleys,
+served to air the linen after it was ironed. There
+was a mangle to get up the table-linen, towels, &amp;c.,
+and three stoves for drying on wet days. The tablecloths
+were of the finest damask, covered with patterns
+of exquisite workmanship. At set periods of the
+year, pedlars and merchants from Glasgow, from Dunstable,
+and other places, passed with their goods.
+The housekeeper’s room was surrounded with presses
+and closets, where were arranged stores and linen in
+the nicest order. An ox was killed every week, and a
+sheep every day, &amp;c., &amp;c. In the relation of these
+details, which I spare the reader, as being, probably,
+what he has observed in many other families, Lady
+Hester by degrees recovered her self-possession, whilst
+they only served to impress more forcibly on my
+mind the sad contrast which reigned in everything
+about her between her former and her present condition.</p>
+
+<p>January 10-15, 1838.—The cough continued, attended
+by spasms in the limbs. Yet, although she was
+thus exhausted and harassed by continued suffering,
+the elasticity of mind she exhibited in the few intervals
+of ease she enjoyed was astonishing. The moment
+she had a respite from actual pain, she immediately
+set about some labour for the benefit of others;
+and the room was again strewed over with bundles
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_187">187</span>
+and boxes. But, in spite of these delusive appearances,
+I could not conceal from myself that a hectic spot occasionally
+marked the inroads which disease was now
+making on her lungs.</p>
+
+<p>January 17, 1838.—What a day of anxiety and
+sorrow for me, and of anguish for Lady Hester!
+From morning until midnight to see a melancholy
+picture of a never-dying spirit, in an exhausted frame,
+wrestling with its enemy, and daring even to set the
+heaviest infirmities of nature at defiance. Yet, who
+does not bend under the power of disease? Lady
+Hester held out as long as a human being could do;
+but at last her anguish showed that, like Prometheus
+bound, she was compelled to acknowledge the weight
+of a superior hand, and that resistance was vain.</p>
+
+<p>The reflections she made on her abandoned situation,
+neglected by her friends and left to die without one
+relation near her, were full of the bitterness of grief.
+In these moments, as if the excess of her indignation
+must have some object to waste itself upon, she would
+launch out into the most fierce invectives against me,
+and tell me I was a cannibal and a vulture that tore
+her heart by my insensibility.</p>
+
+<p>A day or two before, in defending myself against
+the accusation of coldness and want of feeling, I had
+inadvertently said that it was an insult to a person,
+whose intentions she could not but know were well
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_188">188</span>
+meaning, to heap so much abuse on him. To this
+her ladyship said nothing at the time; but to-day,
+being in a state of excitement, the word <em>insult</em> recurred
+to her recollection. “Do you not know,” she asked,
+“that people of my rank and spirit are incapable of insults
+towards their friends: it is only the vulgar who
+are always fancying themselves insulted. If a man
+treads on another’s toe in good society, do you think
+it is taken as an insult? It is only people like ——
+and —— who take such things into their heads. I never
+have hurt a person’s feelings in my life intentionally,
+except, perhaps, by my wit. But if people expect
+that I should not tell them the truth to their face,
+they are much mistaken; and if you or anybody else
+act like a fool, I must say so. Such people as Lord
+Melville and Mr. Pitt would stop, perhaps, until a
+person was gone out of the room to say, ‘That man is
+the most egregious ass I ever saw;’ but I, were he a
+king, must say it to his face. I might, if I chose,
+flatter and deceive you and a hundred others. There
+is no one whom I could not lead by the nose, if I chose
+to do it; I know every man’s price, and how to buy
+him: but I will not stoop to the baseness of making
+you run your head through a wall, even though I saw
+some advantage for myself on the other side. As for
+your saying, that’s your character, and that you can’t
+bear to be spoken to as I speak to you, what do you
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_189">189</span>
+talk to me of character for? Everybody has a character,
+and so they have a behind: but they don’t go
+about showing the one any more than the other. Fools
+are always crying out, ‘That’s my disposition;’ but
+what’s their disposition to other people more than
+their anything else?</p>
+
+<p>“Let us have no more of that stuff; for, though
+not a man, I shall no more put up with it than if I
+were; and I warn you that, if you repeat that word,
+you stand a chance of having something at your
+head.”</p>
+
+<p>Let not the reader imagine that this was all, or
+even one half of what her ladyship said on this occasion:
+it is only a tissue of the most striking sentences.
+Never had I seen her so irritated as that one expression
+of mine had made her. She went on in this
+merciless way for four hours; and, although I frequently
+attempted to soothe her by assurances and
+explanations, she continued in the same strain until
+evening, when she subsided into a gentler tone. Being
+now restored to a calmer temper, she seemed
+desirous to atone by kindness for the wound she
+had inflicted on my feelings, and wanted, amongst
+other things, to get ponies for my children to ride.
+The generosity of her nature was obvious in all this,
+and I resolved, whatever language she might make
+use of in future, never to take the slightest notice
+of it.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_190">190</span>
+This haughty assumption of superiority over others
+on almost all occasions was a salient feature in her
+character. It must have created her a host of enemies,
+during the period when she exercised so much power
+in Mr. Pitt’s time; and probably those persons were
+not sorry afterwards to witness her humiliation and
+downfall.</p>
+
+<p>Once, at Walmer Castle, the colonel of the regiment
+stationed there thought himself privileged to take his
+wife occasionally to walk on the ramparts of the
+castle. I do not know the localities, and am ignorant
+how far, in so doing, these two persons might infringe
+on the privacy of Mr. Pitt and Lady Hester Stanhope:
+but, without intimating by a note or a message
+that such a thing was disagreeable, she gave
+orders to the sentry to stop them when they came,
+and tell them they were not to walk there. Let
+any one put himself in the place of Colonel W.,
+and fancy how such an affront must have wounded
+his pride.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. B., a Frenchman, who for many years had
+been her secretary, and who afterwards held the post
+of French vice-consul at Damascus, paid her a visit
+at Jôon, and, in the leisure of the morning, took his
+gun and went out partridge-shooting. On his return
+to the house, he gave the birds he had shot to the
+cook, desiring they might be dressed for Lady Hester’s
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_191">191</span>
+dinner; but, when they were served up, to his astonishment,
+she ordered them to be thrown out of the
+window; observing that it was strange he should
+presume to do that in Syria which he would not dare
+to do in his native country; for she thought that, at
+the restoration of the Bourbons, all the ancient game-laws
+were revived. She had a secretary afterwards
+who was an Englishman, who also went out shooting,
+and to whom she expressed her notions in much the
+same way, and wondered where he got his licence to
+carry a gun. Yet in Syria, every person, from the
+European stranger to the lowest Mahometan slave, is
+at liberty to go after the game wherever he likes.</p>
+
+<p>If any one expected from her the common courtesies
+of life, as they are generally understood, he would be
+greatly disappointed. In her own way, she would show
+them, that is, mixed up with so many humiliations,
+and with such an assumption of personal and mental
+superiority in herself, that much was to be borne from
+her, if one wished to live amicably with her. Her
+delight was to tutor others until she could bring them
+to think that nobody was worthy of any favour but by
+her sufferance. Where she had the means, she would
+assume the authority of controlling even thought. Her
+daily question to her dependants was—“What business
+have you to suppose? what right have you to think? I
+pay people for their hands, and not their stupid ideas.”
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_192">192</span>
+She would say—“What business have people to
+introduce their surmises, and their ‘probably this,’ and
+‘probably that,’ and ‘Lady Hester Stanhope, no doubt,
+in so doing,’ and ‘the Pasha, as I conjecture, had
+this in view?’ how do they know what I intended, or
+what the Pasha thought? I know that newspapers
+every day take such liberties, and give their opinions
+on what ministers and kings intend to do; but nobody
+shall take such a liberty with me without my calling
+them out. My name is everything to me, and nobody
+shall say he presumes this was what I had in my
+mind, or that was what I intended to do. At least,
+if people must pick pockets, let them pick it of a clean
+pocket-handkerchief, and not of a dirty one. Others
+are not to be made responsible for their dirty opinions.”</p>
+
+<p>From her manner towards people, it would have
+seemed that she was the only person in creation
+privileged to abuse and to command: others had
+nothing else to do but to obey, and not to think.
+She was haughty and overbearing, impatient of control,
+born to rule, and more at her ease when she had
+a hundred persons to govern than when she had only
+ten. She would often mention Mr. Pitt’s opinion of
+her fitness for military command. Had she been a
+man and a soldier, she would have been what the
+French call a <i lang="fr">sabreur</i>; for never was any one so fond
+of wielding weapons, and of boasting of her capability
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_193">193</span>
+of using them upon a fit occasion, as she was. In her
+bed-room, or on her <i lang="fr">divàn</i>, she always had a mace,
+which was spiked round the head, a steel battle-axe,
+and a dagger; but her favourite weapon was the mace.
+When she took it up, which sometimes was the case if
+vociferating to the men-servants, I have seen them
+flinch and draw back to be out of the reach of her
+arm; and, on one occasion, a powerful Turk, a man
+about forty, of great muscular strength, and with a
+remarkable black beard, on her making a gesture as if
+to strike him, flew back so suddenly that he knocked
+down another who was behind him, and fell himself.
+But, though fearless and unruffled in every danger,
+Lady Hester Stanhope was magnanimous, gentle to
+an enemy in her power, and ever mindful of those who
+had done her any service. Her martial spirit would
+have made a hero, and she had all the materials of
+one in her composition.</p>
+
+<p>Two more anecdotes may serve to show how she
+sometimes rendered herself disliked. Once, at a
+cabinet dinner, Lady Hester Stanhope entered the
+room in a way so as to pass the Earl C. who was
+ushered in just at the same moment; and, as she did
+not bow or speak to him, Mr. Pitt said, “Hester, don’t
+you see Lord C.?” Lady Hester replied, “No, I saw
+a great chameleon as I came in, all in pigeon-breasted
+colours, if that was Lord C;” this was because he was
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_194">194</span>
+dressed in a pigeon-breasted coloured court-dress.
+“And,” she added, as she related the story, “I gave
+it him prettily once: I said his red face came from the
+reflection of red boxes; for, when at breakfast and
+dinner, he was always calling for his despatch-boxes,
+and pretending mysterious political affairs, although
+they were no more than an invitation to a party, or a
+present of a little Tokay, or something equally trivial.
+Lord C. had learned his manners, I suppose, from Lord
+Chesterfield, or some book or another. He attempted
+being pompous with his large stomach, and his garter
+on a bad leg, and his great whiskers sticking out as
+far as this,” (here Lady Hester put her fore-fingers
+indexwise to her cheeks to show how far) “and a
+forehead quite flat like the Bourbons. He would talk
+very loud in the lobby as he came in, or contrive to
+have his red box brought to him, as if he had papers
+of great importance in it.”</p>
+
+<p>“One day, at court,” continued Lady Hester, “I
+was talking to the Duke of Cumberland of Lord Abercorn’s
+going over to Addington, and saying I would
+give it to him for it, when Lord Abercorn happened to
+approach us. The prince, who dearly enjoyed such
+things, immediately cried out—‘Now, little bulldog,
+have at him.’ This was uttered at the moment I
+advanced towards him. You know, doctor, he had
+asked for the Garter just before Mr. Pitt went out,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_195">195</span>
+and, not having obtained it, had toadied Addington,
+and got it. I thought it so mean of him, after the
+numberless favours he had received from Mr. Pitt, to
+go over to Addington, that I was determined to pay
+him off. So, when I was close to him, looking down
+at the garter round his leg, I said—‘What’s that you
+have got there, my lord?’ and before he could answer,
+I continued—‘I suppose it’s a bandage for your broken
+legs:’ for Lord Abercorn had once had both his legs
+broken, and the remark applied doubly, inasmuch as
+it hit hard on Addington’s father’s profession. Lord
+Abercorn never forgot this: he and I had been very
+great friends; but he never liked me afterwards.”</p>
+
+<p>Tuesday, January 23, 1838.—I found Lady Hester
+to-day out of bed, seated on the ottoman. She wished
+me to talk or to read to her, so that she might not be
+forced to speak herself; but her cough, which was
+incessant, precluded the possibility of doing either.
+The accumulation of phlegm in her chest made her
+restless to a painful degree. Shortly afterwards, her
+spasms began, which caused her arms and sometimes
+her head to be thrown from side to side with jerks.
+Her irritability was excessive. Without consulting
+me, she had been bled the preceding night by a
+Turkish barber. Her conversation the day before
+had turned in a general manner on bleeding; and
+having ascertained my opinion that bleeding would not
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_196">196</span>
+be proper for her, she said no more, but took the
+opposite course.</p>
+
+<p>The fear of remaining in a recumbent posture made
+her get up from her bed, and her figure, as she stalked
+about the room in a flannel dress, having thrown off
+her pelisse and abah, was strange and singular, but
+curiously characteristic of her independence.</p>
+
+<p>The only newspaper she received was “Galignani’s
+Messenger,” which, whether I was in Syria or in
+Europe, I had for some years caused to be sent to her
+from Marseilles, and a file generally came by every
+merchant-vessel that sailed for Beyrout, which, on an
+average, was about once a month. Sometimes there
+was much irregularity in the departure of vessels, as
+in the winter season, and then, in the solitude of
+Mount Lebanon, one might remain ignorant of every
+event in Europe for six weeks and even two months
+together.</p>
+
+<p>She had latterly shown a particular desire to have
+those passages read to her which related to the Queen,
+either as describing her court, her rides, or any other
+circumstance, however trivial, of a personal nature.</p>
+
+<p>Wednesday, January 24.—Lady Hester sent to
+me to say that she could see nobody, and requested
+that I would do nothing, as the day was an unlucky
+one.</p>
+
+<p>January 25.—Although suffering in a manner that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_197">197</span>
+would have incapacitated any other person from undertaking
+any occupation, Lady Hester was busily
+employed in making up a mule-load of presents for
+Logmagi. “You see, doctor,” said she, “how I act
+towards those who serve me: this man neglects his
+business in town for me, and I, in return, try to make
+him comfortable. I have packed up a few coloured
+glass ornaments to stick up in his cupboards, and some
+preserves and sweetmeats to treat his old messmates
+with, who would eat him out of house and home, I
+believe, if I did not take care of him. Only think,
+too, how he beat his breast and cried, and what signs
+of sorrow he showed at my illness, the last time I saw
+him!</p>
+
+<p>“I must have that stupid fellow, Osman, in, to
+talk to him about new roofing the dairy, but I shall
+stick him behind the curtain. Poor man, his mother
+is very ill, and I think I must let him go to Sayda.
+He, Mahjoob, and Seyd Ahmed, may have asses
+when they go to town, but all those other lazy fellows
+shall walk: I won’t have one of them ride, unless
+they have more than eight or ten rotoles in weight to
+bring back, idle beasts as they are!”</p>
+
+<p>Now Osman’s mother might be ill, and no doubt she
+was; the dairy, too, might be the ostensible cause of
+his being called in; but it is also more than probable
+that, besides all this, she wanted Osman for other
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_198">198</span>
+purposes. The truth was, he was no stupid fellow,
+but a wily knave and a clever spy, and Lady Hester
+was often in the habit of employing him on secret
+missions—to find out the reason of any movement of
+the pasha’s troops for instance, or to get a clue to
+some intrigue of the Emir Beshýr’s. But she would
+say, “Osman is gone to town to see his sick mother;”
+and nobody dared to say otherwise.</p>
+
+<p>January 27.—To-day the secretary requested me to
+acquaint Lady Hester that he wished to see her on
+important business. He was admitted, and showed a
+letter from his father, the English consular agent at
+Sayda,<a id="FNanchor_19" href="#Footnote_19" class="fnanchor">[19]</a> signifying that, in the course of the day, he
+should be the bearer of a letter to Lady Hester
+Stanhope, which had been sent by Mr. Moore, Her
+Britannic Majesty’s consul at Beyrout, which he was
+charged to deliver into her ladyship’s own hands himself.
+I had retired when the secretary entered; but,
+when he was gone, Lady Hester sent for me, and I
+found her in a violent passion. “There is that man, the
+old Maltese,” said she, “coming to pester me with his
+impertinence, but I have sent off his son to meet him
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_199">199</span>
+on the road, and drive him back. If anything in the
+shape of a consul sets his foot within my doors, I’ll
+have him shot; and, if nobody else will do it, I’ll
+do it myself. See that he sets off this very instant,
+and tell him to return with the letter, without
+stopping.”</p>
+
+<p>I did so, and returned to Lady Hester. Conceiving
+that this letter was an answer she was expecting to
+one she had written to Sir Francis Burdett, about the
+property supposed to have been left her, her agitation
+and impatience rose to such a degree, that I thought
+she would have gone frantic, or that her violence
+would have ended in suffocation. She complained she
+could not breathe. “It’s here, it’s here,” she cried in
+extreme agitation, taking me by the throat to show
+me where, and giving me such a squeeze, that now,
+when I am writing, twenty-four hours after, I feel it
+still. I tried in vain to calm her impatience. I sent
+off a servant on horseback to hurry the secretary back,
+but he did not appear, and the day, until about four
+o’clock, was passed in this manner.</p>
+
+<p>To account for this extraordinary agitation, it must
+again be observed that, at the recurrence of the period
+of each steamboat’s arrival at Beyrout, Lady Hester
+anxiously expected an answer to her letter to Sir
+Francis Burdett; for it was on the strength of this
+property supposed to have been left her that she had
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_200">200</span>
+intimated to some of her creditors her expectation of
+being soon enabled to satisfy all their demands. It
+was in reliance on this, too, that she had invited me
+to come over. And not doubting in the least the
+truth of the information secretly conveyed to her by
+some one of her friends, it may be supposed that a
+packet to be delivered into nobody’s hands but her own
+was readily conjectured to relate to this business.</p>
+
+<p>About four o’clock, Mr. Abella, the English agent,
+his son, and the servant, made their appearance. The
+secretary was called in. “Tell your father I shall
+not see him; and, doctor, go and take the letter, and
+bring it to me,” was Lady Hester’s exclamation. I
+went to Mr. Abella, but found him determined not to
+part with it, unless he gave it into Lady Hester’s own
+hand. I urged upon him the impossibility of his doing
+so, as she had seen nobody for some weeks; at last, on
+his still persisting, we became somewhat warm on the
+matter. This was better than going to Lady Hester
+to ask her what was to be done; for her answer probably
+would have been to desire two of her stoutest
+Turks to go with sticks, and take it from him by
+force. At last, Mr. Abella gave up his trust, upon
+condition that I would write a paper representing that
+he had done it forcibly; in such a fright was he lest
+Mr. Moore should turn him out of his place.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of being an answer from Sir Francis Burdett,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_201">201</span>
+the letter was from Colonel Campbell, signifying
+that, in consequence of an application made to the
+English government, by Mâalem Homsy, one of Lady
+Hester Stanhope’s creditors, an order had come from
+Lord Palmerston to stop her pension, unless the debt
+was paid.</p>
+
+<p>It might have been supposed that the double disappointment
+of not hearing from Sir Francis Burdett
+and of receiving such a missive from Colonel Campbell
+would have considerably increased her anger: but,
+on the contrary, she grew apparently quite calm,
+gently placed the letter on the bed, and read the
+contents:—</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">
+<i>Colonel P. Campbell, Her Majesty’s Consul-general for</i><br>
+<i>Egypt and Syria, to Lady Hester Stanhope.</i><br>
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right r2">
+Cairo, Jan. 10, 1838.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent2">Madam,</p>
+
+<p class="indent5">I trust that your ladyship will believe my
+sincerity, when I assure you with how much reluctance
+and pain it is that I feel myself again<a id="FNanchor_20" href="#Footnote_20" class="fnanchor">[20]</a> imperatively
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_202">202</span>
+called upon to address you upon the subject of the
+debt so long due by you to Mr. Homsy.</p>
+
+<p>The Government of the Viceroy has addressed that
+of Her Majesty upon the subject, and, by a despatch
+which I have received from Her Majesty’s Principal
+Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, I am led to
+believe that a confidential friend of your ladyship will
+have already written to you to entreat you to settle
+this affair.</p>
+
+<p>Your ladyship must be aware that, in order to procure
+your pension from Her Majesty’s Government, it
+is necessary to sign a declaration, and to have the
+consular certificate, at the expiration of each quarter.</p>
+
+<p>I know that this certificate has hitherto been signed
+by <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys, the consul of France at Beyrout; but,
+in strict legality, it ought to be certified by the British,
+and not by any foreign consul; and, should your
+ladyship absolutely refuse the payment of this just
+claim, I should feel myself, however deeply I may
+regret it, forced to take measures to prevent the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_203">203</span>
+signature of the French, or any other consul but the
+British, being considered as valid, and consequently
+your bill for your pension will not be paid at home.
+I shall communicate this, if your ladyship’s conduct
+shall oblige me so to do, to <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys and the other
+foreign consuls of Beyrout, in order that your certificate
+may not be signed—and also send this under
+flying seal to Mr. Moore, Her Majesty’s consul at
+Beyrout, in order that he may take the necessary
+steps to make this known to those consuls, if your
+ladyship should call on them to sign the quarterly
+certificate for your pension.</p>
+
+<p>I trust your ladyship will be pleased to favour me
+with a reply, informing me of your intentions, and
+which reply will be forwarded to me by Mr. Moore.</p>
+
+<p>I beg your ladyship will be assured of the pain
+which I experience in being obliged to discharge this
+truly unpleasant duty, as well as of the respect with
+which I have the honour to remain, your ladyship’s
+most obedient humble servant,</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+<span class="smcap r2">P. Campbell,</span><br>
+Her Majesty’s Agent for Egypt and Syria.</p>
+</div><!--end blockquote-->
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>When she had finished, she began to reason on the
+enormity of the Queen’s and her Minister’s conduct.
+“My grandfather and Mr. Pitt,” said she, “did something,
+I think, to keep the Brunswick family on the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_204">204</span>
+throne, and yet the grand-daughter of the old king,
+without hearing the circumstances of my getting into
+debt, or whether the story is true (for it might be
+false), sends to deprive me of my pension in a foreign
+country, where I may remain and starve. If it had
+not been for my brother Charles and General Barnard,
+the only two who knew what they were about when
+the mutiny took place against the Duke of Kent at
+Gibraltar, she would not be where she is now; for her
+father would have been killed to a certainty.”</p>
+
+<p>She mused for some time, and then went on.
+“Perhaps it is better for me that this should have
+happened: it brings me at once before the world, and
+let them judge the matter. It would have looked too
+much like <i>shucklabán</i>” (the Arabic for charlatanism—and
+Lady Hester was accustomed now to interlard
+her conversation with many Arabic words) “if I had
+to go and tell everybody my own story, without a
+reason for it: but now, since they have chosen to
+make a bankrupt of me, I shall out with a few things
+that will make them ashamed. The old king<a id="FNanchor_21" href="#Footnote_21" class="fnanchor">[21]</a> wrote
+down on the paper, ‘Let her have the greatest pension
+that can be granted to a woman:’—if he were to
+rise from his grave, and see me now!”</p>
+
+<p>“Did I ever tell you what he said to Mr. Pitt one
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_205">205</span>
+day, on Windsor Terrace? The king and all the
+princes and princesses were walking, and he turned
+round to him—‘Pitt,’ says he, ‘I have got a new
+minister in your room.’ Mr. Pitt immediately replied—‘At
+your majesty’s pleasure; and I shall be happy
+that your majesty has found one to relieve me from
+the burden of affairs: a little retirement and fresh
+air will do me good.’ The king went on, as if finishing
+his sentence, and without heeding what Mr. Pitt
+had said—‘a minister better than yourself.’ Mr. Pitt
+rejoined—‘your majesty’s choice cannot be but a wise
+one.’ The king resumed—‘I tell you, Pitt, I shall
+have a better minister than you, and, moreover, I
+shall have a good general.’ The raillery began to
+grow puzzling, and Mr. Pitt, with all his courtly
+manners, was at a loss to know what it meant. So he
+said, ‘Do, pray, condescend to tell me who this unknown
+and remarkable person is, that I may pay him
+the respect due to his great talents and your majesty’s
+choice.’ The king relieved him from his embarrassment:
+‘<em>There</em> is my new minister,’ said he, pointing
+to me, whom Mr. Pitt had under his arm. ‘There is
+not a man in my kingdom who is a better politician
+than Lady Hester: and’ (assuming an air of seriousness,
+which his manner made quite touching) ‘I have
+great pleasure in saying, too, there is not a woman
+who adorns her sex more than she does. And, let
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_206">206</span>
+me say, Mr. Pitt, you have not reason to be proud
+that you are a minister, for there have been many
+before you, and will be many after you; but you have
+reason to be proud of her, who unites everything that
+is great in man and woman.’ Doctor, the tears came
+in Mr. Pitt’s eyes, and how the court ladies did bite
+their lips!</p>
+
+<p>“The <em>what what what?</em> certainly did the old king
+harm, in point of dignity, when no subject of conversation
+interested him; but he sometimes was more
+serious, and could assume a manner and a tone befitting
+a king. A peer, who had never known the Duke
+of Cambridge, told me that, on the return of the Duke
+from the continent, the king presented him to H.R.H.
+with this short but fine compliment—‘This is my son,
+my lord, who has his first fault to commit.’ How fond
+the king was of him and the Duke of York!<a id="FNanchor_22" href="#Footnote_22" class="fnanchor">[22]</a> He was
+a fine man, and with a person so strong, that I don’t
+think there was another like him in England.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_207">207</span>
+“The king liked me personally. I recollect once,
+at court, when we were standing, as he passed round
+the circle, he stopped at Harriet E., my cousin, and
+said to her something about her dress; and then,
+coming to me, he remarked how well I dressed myself,
+and told me to teach H. E. a little. She was so
+vexed that she cried: but it was her own fault; for,
+with a good person, good fortune, and fine dresses, she
+never could get a husband.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose the Queen is a good-natured German
+girl. Did you ever see Lord M——? he has got fine
+eyes; and, if he is fattened out, with a sleek skin
+and good complexion, he may be a man like Sir
+Gilbert, and about his age: such men are sometimes
+still loveable. He used to be a prodigious favourite
+with some of the handsomest women in London: so
+that his friends used to say, when he married Lady
+M., though she was not a bad-looking woman—‘Poor
+fellow! what will he do? you know he can’t like her
+long?’ I recollect seeing her and Lady —— sitting
+at a party on the top of the stairs, like two figures in
+a pocket-book—both little creatures; those that you
+call delicate.</p>
+
+<p>“Lord M. is a very handsome man. His eyes are
+beautiful, and he has spent forty years of his life in
+endeavouring to please the women. I recollect, the
+last time I saw him, he was behind Sir G. H., as
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_208">208</span>
+they came into Lord Stafford’s. I had dined there,
+<i lang="fr">en famille</i>, and there was a party in the evening. I
+was in the second room, and the Prince was standing
+by the fire, showing his behind, as usual, to everybody,
+and there was Lord M., always looking about
+after somebody whom he did not find perhaps for
+three or four hours. They say he is filled out: he
+was slim when I knew him. Doctor, he is a very
+handsome man; but he must be sixty, or more.”</p>
+
+<p>Ever and anon, Lady Hester Stanhope would revert
+to Colonel Campbell’s letter. “Yes,” she said;
+“if he feels regret at being obliged to write it, I will
+say to him, ‘No doubt, he feels pain at having to do
+with one of the most blackguard transactions I ever
+knew;’ but I dare say he feels nothing of the sort.”
+Then, after a pause, <a id="chg2"></a>she added, “I think I shall take
+the bull by the horns, and send a letter to the Queen.
+If getting into debt is such a crime, I should like to
+know how the Duchess of K—— got into debt.</p>
+
+<p>“Doctor, would you believe it? a <i>welly</i>” (in Arabic,
+a sort of soothsayer) “foretold what has happened to
+me now so exactly, that I must relate the story to
+you. He was sitting in a coffee-house one day, with
+one of my people, and had taken from the waiter a
+cup of coffee; but, in carrying it to his mouth, to
+drink it, his hand stopped midway, and his eyes were
+fixed for some time on the surface of the liquor in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_209">209</span>
+silence. ‘Your coffee will get cold,’ said my servant:—the
+<i>welly</i> heaved a deep sigh. ‘Alas!’ said he, ‘I
+was reading on the surface of that cup of coffee the
+fate of your lady, the <i>meleky</i>. There will rise up evil
+tongues against her, and a sovereign will try to put
+her down; but the voice of the people will cry aloud,
+and nations will assemble to protect her.’ Now, doctor,”
+said Lady Hester, “does not that mean just
+what has happened? Is not the Queen trying to put
+me down, and going to deprive me of my pension?—and
+you will see, when I have written my letter, how
+many persons will turn on my side. But isn’t it very
+extraordinary how that man in a coffee-house knew
+what was going to happen?—yet so it is: they have
+secret communications with spirits. A glass, or something,
+is held before their eyes, which nobody else can
+see; and, whether they can read and write or not,
+they see future events painted on it.”</p>
+
+<p>January 30, 1838.—Lady Hester was still very ill;
+the convulsive attacks returning now regularly every
+day. She began to be sensible that fits of passion,
+however slight, did her injury, and she was more
+calm for a continuation than I had ever known her to
+remain since I had been here. But a fresh occurrence,
+trifling in its nature, although she gave much importance
+to it, excited her anger considerably to-day,
+and did her mischief in proportion. She had reason
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_210">210</span>
+to suspect that her secretary had been endeavouring
+to ascertain whether she was consumptive, and how
+long she was likely to live. To dispel such a suspicion,
+she made a great effort, got up, and went and
+sat in the garden. Before she left her room, her wailings
+were for some moments heart-rending. “Oh,
+God, have mercy! oh, God, have mercy!” she cried;
+“only keep those beasts away: who is to take care of
+me, surrounded as I am with those horrible servants?—only
+take care they don’t rob me.”</p>
+
+<p>While she remained in the garden, her chamber
+was put to rights (a process which it much required,
+in consequence of her long confinement); and, at her
+earnest request, I superintended the performance.
+“Overlook them,” she said, “or they will rob me.”
+But oh! what a sight!—such dust, such confusion,
+such cobwebs! Never was a lady’s room seen before
+in such a condition: bundles, phials, linen, calico,
+silk, gallipots, clothes, étuis, papers, were all lying
+about on the floor, and in the corners, and behind and
+under the scanty furniture; for all this while she had
+been afraid to get the chamber put into order, lest her
+servants should take advantage of the opportunity to
+plunder her.</p>
+
+<p>When she returned to her room from the garden,
+she was raving. “You had better leave me to die,”
+she cried, “if I am to die; and, if I am not, oh!
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_211">211</span>
+God, only let me crawl to my own country” (by her
+own country she meant Arabia, among the Koreýsh),
+“and there, with not a rag on me, I may be fed by
+some good-natured soul, and not such cannibals as
+these servants! What are they good for? I will be
+obeyed; and you are not a man, to see me treated in
+this manner.”</p>
+
+<p>Thus she went on, walking up and down her room,
+until she worked herself up into a state of madness.
+I was afraid she would rupture a blood-vessel. All
+my attempts to pacify her were in vain—indeed they
+only excited her the more. Seeing her in this way,
+I left the room, and sent Fatôom to her; but, before
+Fatôom could get there, she rang her bell violently,
+and I heard her say, “Where’s the doctor?—where’s
+the doctor?” so I returned again to her. “Don’t
+leave me;” she cried; and she expressed her sorrow
+for the excess of her passion. “I am much obliged
+to you, very much obliged to you, for the trouble you
+take on my account; but you must not be angry
+with me. Perhaps, if I get worse, I shall ask you to
+let Mrs. M. come and sit with me.” Soon after, as if
+her very violence had relieved her, she <a id="chg3"></a>grew calmer.</p>
+
+<p>Up to this time she had never seen my wife, since
+her second visit to Syria; nor my daughter nor the
+governess at all. I had, since her illness, said more
+than once that they would be happy to come and sit
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_212">212</span>
+with her by day or by night, to relieve the tedium of
+her solitary situation. But her dismantled room, her
+ragged clothes, her altered appearance—and, above
+all, her pride, compromised as it was by these unfortunate
+circumstances—always made her turn off the
+subject, although her secret feelings must have often
+prompted her to avail herself of the solace thus frankly
+and cordially offered to her. The exclamation by
+which she usually evaded the proposal was, “Oh!
+how I hate everything Frankified! how I hate everything
+Frankified!” or, “I must not see them until I
+get into my saloon.” After about half an hour I left
+her. “I must see nobody this evening,” she added;
+“so good bye!”</p>
+
+<p>I went home, and, for the first time, told my family
+how ill Lady Hester was. Alas! I had not dared to
+do so before: she had enjoined me not. “To say I
+am ill,” she would observe, “would be bringing a host
+of creditors upon me, and I should not be able to get
+food to eat.” Consequently, I had kept them and
+everybody, as much as I could, in ignorance of the
+real state of her health; indeed, there was too much
+truth in what she said not to make me see the mischief
+such a disclosure would entail. She had now
+only twenty pounds left in the house to provide for
+the consumption of two months; and, as her pension
+was stopped, there was every probability she would be
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_213">213</span>
+left penniless, with the exception of a few dollars
+which I had by me. Yet, in spite of all this, she
+commissioned me, a day or two before, to give 150
+piasters to a leper, 150 to a distressed shopkeeper, and
+some other small benefactions to other pensioners on
+her inexhaustible bounty.</p>
+
+<p>It may be said that any one, like myself, might
+have represented, from time to time, the necessity of
+a little more economy—I did so once: but I received
+such a peremptory injunction never to give my advice
+on that subject again, that I took good care how I
+committed myself a second time. She fired up, and
+said, “You will give me leave to judge what I ought
+to do with my own money. There are various ways
+of spending: you may think it best to be just before
+being generous; but I, with my character and views,
+must be even munificent, and trust to God, as I
+have hitherto done, for helping me on in my difficulties.
+Never touch on that subject again: I will
+have no human being interfere with me as to what I
+am to do with my money.”</p>
+
+<p>All I can say is that, like her grandfather, she was
+so intractable, that I never yet saw the mortal who
+could turn her an inch from her determinations. It
+was easy to lead the current of her bounty into one’s
+own pocket; for I believe any person who knew her
+foibles might have kept it flowing in that direction
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_214">214</span>
+until he had enriched himself. It was only necessary
+to encourage her dreams of future greatness, to say
+the world was talking of her, to consider her as the
+associate of the <i>Mahedi</i>, the Messiah of nations, to
+profess a belief in visions, in aërial beings, in astrology,
+in witchcraft, and to bear witness to apparitions
+in which her coming grandeur was prognosticated,
+and then she would refuse nothing: but that was
+not my forte, and I never did so. I went to her with
+a small patrimony; was with her, off and on, for
+thirty years; and left her somewhat poorer than I
+went.</p>
+
+<p>But it is not to be supposed that knaves, such as
+some I have alluded to above, were the only objects of
+her bounty. No; the widow, the orphan, the aged,
+the proscribed, the sick, the wounded, and the houseless,
+were those she sought out in preference: and
+time will show, when gratitude can speak out, the
+immeasurable benevolence of her nature.</p>
+
+<p>It may not be useless to observe here that many
+stories have been circulated of Lady Hester’s harshness
+to petitioners who presented themselves at her
+door, which, if explained, would wear a very different
+aspect. Sometimes a suppliant, apparently unworthy of
+her commiseration, would gain admittance to her presence,
+and be dismissed with a handful of piasters;
+and sometimes another, known to be a fit object of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_215">215</span>
+benevolence, would receive nothing but a rude repulse.
+Lady Hester said to me, “Do you suppose,
+doctor, I don’t know that many people think I fool
+away my money in giving it to adventurers? that
+others say I am capricious? that some call me mad?
+Why, let them: I am not bound to give reasons for
+what I do to anybody. The good I do, first of all, I
+don’t wish to be known: and, again, many times the
+publicity of an act of charity would be injurious to
+him it was intended to serve. I’ll give you an instance.
+There was a merchant at Acre, who was <i>avanized</i><a id="FNanchor_23" href="#Footnote_23" class="fnanchor">[23]</a> by
+Abdallah Pasha, to whom he was obnoxious, until all
+his property was squeezed out of him, and nothing was
+left but a house, of which he was not generally known
+to be the proprietor—for, had it been known that
+the house was his, the Pasha, who fancied he had reduced
+him to beggary, would have persecuted him
+until he had got that also. The man wished to sell
+his house, and then to retire into Egypt; he therefore
+came to me, and told me his story, begging my assistance.
+As I was obliged to use an interpreter, who, I
+feared, would talk of any act of kindness of mine for
+the man, it appeared to me that the best thing I could
+do was to turn the applicant roughly out of doors,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_216">216</span>
+which I did at once, bawling out as he went, that I
+did not want to be pestered with beggars. Well, my
+strange harshness, of course, was talked of, and of
+course was repeated to the Pasha, who, thinking the
+object of his oppression was now an object of contempt
+also, was perfectly satisfied, and left the man, as he
+supposed, to utter ruin and degradation. But, after a
+few days, I privately sent to the poor distressed merchant,
+provided a purchaser for his house, smoothed
+the difficulties in the way of the sale, and, furnishing
+him from my own purse with a sum of money sufficient
+to begin the world with again, I shipped him off with
+his family to Egypt.”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester was indeed generous and charitable,
+giving with a large hand, as Eastern kings are represented
+to have given. She would send whole suits of
+clothes, furnish rooms, order camels and mules to convey
+two or three quarters of wheat at a time to a
+necessitous family, and pay carpenters and masons to
+build a poor man’s house: she had a munificence
+about her that would have required the revenue of a
+kingdom to gratify. Hence, too, sprung that insatiable
+disposition to hoard—not money, but what money
+could buy: she seemed to wish to have stores of whatever
+articles were necessary for the apparel, food, and
+convenience of man. Beds, counterpanes, cushions,
+carpets, and such like furniture, lay rotting in her
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_217">217</span>
+store-rooms. Utensils grew rusty, wine spoiled;
+reams of paper were eaten by the mice, or mildewed
+by the damp; carpenters’ work lay unserviceable from
+an over-supply; mats rotted; candles, almonds,
+raisins, dried figs, cocoa, honey, cheese—no matter
+what—all was laid by in destructive profusion; and
+every year half was consumed by rats, ants, and other
+vermin, or otherwise spoiled. One store-room, which
+was filled with locked-up trunks, full of what was
+most valuable, had not been entered for three years:
+and, oh! what ruin and waste did I not discover!</p>
+
+<p>When I told her of all this, and suggested that it
+would be better to give them to her poor pensioners,
+she said—“Such things never cause me a moment’s
+thought: I would rather they should have been used
+to some good purpose; but, if I have got such rascals
+about me, why, let the things all rot, sooner than
+that they should profit by them. Money can replace
+all that; and, if God sends me money, I will
+do so; if he does not, he knows best what should
+be: and it would not give me a moment’s sorrow to
+lie down in a cottage with only rags enough to keep
+me warm. I would not, even then, change places
+with Lord Grosvenor, the Duke of Devonshire, the
+Duke of Buckingham, or any of them: they can’t do
+what I can; so of what use are all their riches?
+I have seen some of them make such a fuss about the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_218">218</span>
+loss of a ten guinea ring or some such bauble:—not
+that they cared for it, but they could not bear to lose
+it. But if I want to know what is passing at Constantinople,
+or London, or anywhere, I have nothing
+to do but to turn my thoughts that way, and in a
+quarter of an hour I have it all before me, just as it is;
+so true, doctor, that if it is not actually passing, it
+will be in a month, in three months—so true: isn’t it
+extraordinary?”...</p>
+
+<p>Upon some occasions, her munificence wore the appearance
+of ostentation. She would bestow on strangers,
+like dervises, sheykhs, and fakyrs, large sums of money,
+and yet drive hard bargains with those about her
+neighbourhood; and would sometimes make presents,
+apparently not so much to comfort those who received
+them as to display her own superiority and greatness
+over others.</p>
+
+<p>I have said, in a preceding chapter, that she used
+to give new suits of clothes to her people on Byràm
+day, and at Easter, according to their religion: but it
+should be mentioned that, on those days, every servant
+was called in, and received forty piasters; and
+one thousand piasters were divided by Logmagi among
+the persons in Sayda who in any way were occasionally
+useful to her or her people. These were the porter of
+the French khan and the janissary there; the porters
+of the town-gate; the harbour-master; the gardener
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_219">219</span>
+who supplied vegetables; the fisherman who sent her
+choice fish, &amp;c. Two hundred piasters were paid
+annually to old Jacob, a tailor; fifty here and there to
+the imàms of particular mosques; as much to the mistress
+of the bath to which she sent her maids to be
+washed. Mr. Loustaunau generally had about five
+hundred piasters a quarter. Of many of her benefactions
+I never knew anything. Had I kept a list of
+the sums which, besides these customary donations,
+she gave to the distressed, few would wonder that she
+was so beloved and so generally lamented. Thus, when
+the <i>ferdy</i> and <i>miri</i>, two onerous taxes, fell due, she
+commonly paid them for such of her servants as were
+burdened with families, or whose means were scanty:
+she did the same when unusual contributions were
+levied, as during the conscription. On the 8th of
+December, I find a note that I gave fifty piasters and
+a counterpane to a poor shepherd boy, labouring under
+anasarca from an indurated spleen, a most common
+complaint in the country, the effect of protracted agues;
+and eighty to an old man, who had some years before
+been her <i>asackjee</i>. To Logmagi mostly fell the distribution
+of all these sums, and it was only occasionally
+that I was the almoner to this truly noble
+and disinterested woman; else I should have been
+able to have cited more examples.</p>
+
+<p>January 31.—Being Wednesday, it was a rule with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_220">220</span>
+Lady Hester Stanhope to shut herself up from Tuesday
+at sunset until the sunset of Wednesday, during
+which time she saw nobody, if she could avoid it,
+did no business, and always enjoined me to meddle
+in no affairs of hers during these twenty-four hours.
+Wednesday was an unlucky day with her, a <i lang="la">dies
+nefastus</i>. After sunset, I waited on her, and found
+her languid, moaning, and still visibly suffering from
+her yesterday’s exertion; for it appeared, although
+I had not seen her, that she had walked about
+her garden, forcing her strength so far as to deceive
+the gardeners, who had given out that she would soon
+be as well as ever; and this was what, no doubt,
+she aimed at, for the purpose of confounding the
+secretary.</p>
+
+<p>Reminding her of the wish she had expressed to
+have Mrs. M.’s company, I now proposed that she,
+my daughter, and the governess, should sit with her
+by turns, suggesting that, by this means, much of
+the disagreeable service of the maids, whom she constantly
+complained of, might be dispensed with. But
+to this she answered, “No, doctor, it will not do:
+you must tell them how very much obliged to them
+I am for their kind offers and intentions, but that
+their presence will only be an embarrassment to me.
+You don’t consider the matter in its true point of view,
+as you never do anything. In the first place, it kills
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_221">221</span>
+me to talk; I can’t fatigue myself by giving them information
+about the country, and be a Pococke: and,
+as for giving them good advice, the world is so turned
+topsy-turvy, that everything one says is lost on everybody.
+Then, as for being of any use to me, they
+could be of none: if I wanted anything, they don’t
+know where it is; and how are they to tell the nasty
+wretches, who only speak Arabic? Besides, I am not
+sure their <i>nijems</i> would suit me; and then they
+would do me more harm than good. Poor little
+Eugenia! I had thought that I might derive some
+consolation from looking on her innocent face whilst
+she sat working at my bedside; but some one told me
+her star perhaps would not agree with mine: is it so,
+doctor? I am like Mr. Pitt: he used to say, ‘I
+hear that man’s footsteps in the passage—I can’t bear
+it; do send him away to town, or to Putney:’ so
+it is with me. There was my grandfather, too—how
+he felt the effect of the peculiar star of those people
+who did not suit him!—he could bear nobody near
+him, when he was ill, but Lady Chatham, and an old
+woman who had been a sort of woman of the town:
+he sent all his children to Lyme Regis; and even
+his tutor, Mr. Wilson, he could not bear. I know
+the reason of it now, from my recollection of them,
+but I did not at the time. My grandfather was born
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_222">222</span>
+under Mars and Venus; Lady Chatham was born
+under Venus, and so was the old woman, but both in
+different <i>burges</i> [houses]: and that is why their sympathies
+were the same.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_19" href="#FNanchor_19" class="label">[19]</a> The English consular agent at this time was Signor Abella, whose
+father was a Maltese: hence Mr. Abella was known as El Malty. The noble
+family of Testaferrata and Abella is the stock from which Signor Abella
+is descended; but in Turkey, <i lang="la">Stemmata quid faciunt</i>?</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_20" href="#FNanchor_20" class="label">[20]</a>
+At the word “again,” Lady Hester made the following remarks:—“He
+never addressed me on the subject, neither has any one else. Nearly
+two years ago, there was a report in the Bazar that my debts had been
+spoken of to the King; that my pension was to be seized; that I was to
+be put under consular jurisdiction; and a set of extravagant things
+that nobody ever heard the like; and certainly those who had ventured
+to charge themselves with such a message would have found that I was a
+cousin of Lord Camelford’s.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">“Another version was, that the King talked very good sense upon the
+subject, and had taken my part, and had been much surprised that I
+had been so neglected by my family, to whom he said some sharp and
+unpleasant things. There the matter rested, and I heard no more of it,
+until Colonel Campbell’s letter.”</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_21" href="#FNanchor_21" class="label">[21]</a>
+ Lady Hester means George <abbr title="Three">III.</abbr></p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_22" href="#FNanchor_22" class="label">[22]</a>
+The Duke of York’s behaviour is incomparable; he is their great
+and only comfort and support at the Queen’s house, and without
+his manly mind and advice neither the Queen nor Princesses would
+be able to bear up under their present distress.—<cite>Diaries and
+Correspondence</cite>, <abbr title="page">p.</abbr> 20, <abbr title="volume">v.</abbr> 4.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote">It is pleasing to find in persons so entirely different in every
+respect a corresponding testimony to the merits of an excellent prince.</p>
+
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_23" href="#FNanchor_23" class="label">[23]</a>
+ To <i>avanize</i> is the expression used throughout the Levant to
+signify oppressive and forcible exactions of money from individuals,
+without right or claim.
+
+</div><!--end footnotes-->
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_223">223</span>
+
+<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span> <abbr title="Eight"><span class="allsmcap">VIII.</span></abbr></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="small short">Lady Hester’s system of astrology—Sympathies and antipathies—People’s
+<i>nijems</i> or stars—Mesmerism explained—Lord
+Suffolk—Lady Hester’s own star—Letter to the Queen—Letter
+to Mr. Speaker Abercrombie—Messieurs Beck and
+Moore—Letter to Colonel Campbell—The Ides of March—Lady
+Hester’s reflections on the Queen’s conduct to her—Letter
+to Sir Edward Sugden—What peers are—Junius’s
+Letters—Spies employed by the first Lord Chatham—Mr.
+Pitt’s opinion of the Duke of Wellington—Lady Hester’s
+letter to his Grace, &amp;c.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2">In order to render intelligible to the reader many
+passages which have occurred, and will occur again,
+in Lady Hester’s conversations, respecting what she
+called people’s <i>nijems</i> or stars, it may not be amiss
+to give an outline of her system of astrology, and
+of the supposed influence that the position of the stars
+in the heavens at our nativity has on our future fate
+and on our sympathies. I must preface what follows
+by observing that she had a remarkable talent for
+divining characters by the make of a person. This
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_224">224</span>
+every traveller will testify who has visited her in
+Syria; for it was after she went to live in solitude
+that her penetration became so extraordinary. It was
+founded both on the features of the face and on the
+shape of the head, body, and limbs. Some indications
+she went by were taken from a resemblance to animals;
+and, wherever such indications existed, she
+inferred that the dispositions peculiar to those animals
+were to be found in the person. But, independent
+of all this, her doctrine was, that every creature is
+governed by the star under whose influence it was
+born.</p>
+
+<p>Every star has attached to it two aërial beings, two
+animals, two trees, two flowers, &amp;c.; that is, a couple
+of all the grand classes in creation, animal, vegetable,
+mineral, or etherial, whose antipathies and sympathies
+become congenial with the being born under the same
+star. She would say, “My brother Charles vomited
+if he ate three strawberries only: other people, born
+under the same star as his, may not have such an insurmountable
+antipathy as his was, because their star
+may be imperfect, whilst his was pure; but they will
+have it, more or less. Some persons again will have
+as much delight in the smell of particular flowers as
+cats have in the smell of valerian, when they sit and
+purr round it.</p>
+
+<p>“The stars under which men are born may be one
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_225">225</span>
+or more. Thus Mr. H*****, an English traveller,
+who came to see me, was born under four stars, all
+tending to beauty, but of no good in other respects.
+His forehead was as white as snow; his mouth” (I
+think she said) “was good, with a handsome small
+black beard; but his stars were otherwise dull: for
+you know the stars in the heavens are not always
+bright and twinkling, but sometimes heavy and
+clouded. It is like engravings—some of them are
+proofs, and those are perfect. Some persons may
+have a good star, but it may be cracked like a glass,
+and then, you know, it can’t hold water.</p>
+
+<p>“The influence of stars depends, likewise, on whether
+they are rising, or in their zenith, or setting;
+and the angle at which they are must be determined
+by calculations, which good astrologers make very
+readily. But a clever man will, from his knowledge
+of the stars, look even at a child and say, ‘That child
+will have such and such diseases, such and such virtues,
+such and such vices;’ and this I can do: nay,
+what is more, I can give a description of the features
+of any person I have never seen, if his character is
+described to me, and vice versa. There is a learned
+man at Damascus, who possesses the same faculty in
+an extraordinary degree. He knew nothing of me
+but by report, and had never seen me: but a friend of
+his, having given him a description of my person and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_226">226</span>
+features, he noted down my virtues, vices, and qualities
+so exactly, that he even said in what part of my body
+I had got a mole, and mentioned the small mark on
+my shoulder, where Mr. Cline removed a tumour.
+There’s for you? do you believe these things, or do
+you not?</p>
+
+<p>“A man’s destiny may be considered as a graduated
+scale, of which the summit is the star that presided
+over his birth. In the next degree comes the good
+angel<a id="FNanchor_24" href="#Footnote_24" class="fnanchor">[24]</a> attached to that star; then the herb and the
+flower beneficial to his health and agreeable to his
+smell; then the mineral, then the tree, and such other
+things as contribute to his good; then the man himself:
+below him comes the evil spirit, then the <a id="chg4"></a>venomous
+reptile or animal, the plant, and so on; things
+inimical to him. Where the particular tree that is
+beneficial or pleasurable to him flourishes naturally,
+or the mineral is found, there the soil and air are
+salubrious to that individual; and a physician who
+understood my doctrines, how easily could he treat his
+patients!—for, by merely knowing the star of a person,
+the simples and compounds most beneficial to him in
+medicine would be known also.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_227">227</span>
+“How great the sympathies and antipathies are in
+stars that are the same or opposite I have told you
+before in my grandfather’s case, in Mr. Pitt’s, and in
+my own. Lord Chatham, when on a sick bed, could
+bear three people only to wait on him—Lady Chatham,
+Sarah Booby, and somebody else. My grandmamma’s
+star and Sarah Booby’s star were the same—both
+Venus—only grandmamma’s was more moderate; she
+could keep it down. Mr. Pitt, when he was ill at
+Putney, had such an aversion to one of the footmen,
+that he was nervous when he heard his step; for you
+know people, when they are sick, can hear a pin drop:
+he said to me, ‘Hester, do send that fellow to town.’
+I did not let him know why he was sent to town, but
+I got him off as quickly as possible: he was, notwithstanding,
+a good servant, clean, and had otherwise
+good qualities; but Mr. Pitt’s and his star were
+different. As to myself, since I have been here, I
+had a professed French cook, called François—the
+people named him <i>Fransees el Franjy</i>. His skill was
+undoubted; yet, whenever he dressed my dinner, I
+was always sending for him to complain, and sometimes
+threw the dish in his face: a sweetmeat from his
+hand turned bitter in my mouth. But, what is most
+extraordinary of all, Miss Williams’s star was so disagreeable
+to me that I could not bear her to be near me
+when I was ill:—if I was in a perspiration, it would
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_228">228</span>
+stop the moment she came into the room. You know
+how many good qualities she had, and how attached
+she was to me, and I to her: well, I always kept her
+out of my sight as much as I could, when anything
+was the matter with me.</p>
+
+<p>“Such is the sympathy of persons born under the
+same star, that, although living apart in distant places,
+they will still be sensible of each other’s sufferings.
+When the Duke of York died, at the very hour, a
+cold sweat and a kind of fainting came over me, that
+I can’t describe. I was ill beyond measure, and I
+said to Miss Williams, ‘Somebody is dying somewhere,
+and I am sure it is one of my friends: so I
+made her write it down. Some time after, when she
+was poking over a set of newspapers, she came to me,
+and said, ‘It’s very singular, my lady; but, the time
+you were so very ill, and could not account for it, corresponds
+exactly with the date of the Duke of York’s
+death—the hour, too, just the same!’ Now, doctor,
+wasn’t it extraordinary? You drawl out ‘Y—e—s,’
+just as if you thought I told lies: oh, Lord! oh,
+Lord! what a cold man!</p>
+
+<p>“The proof of sympathy between the stars of two
+persons, or, in other words, of the star of another
+being good for you, is, when a person puts his finger
+on you and you don’t feel it. Zezefôon, when Mademoiselle
+Longchamp touches her with her fingers in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_229">229</span>
+examining the Turkish dress, shudders all over: that
+is a proof that her star is not good for her, and yet
+Miss L. uses more kind expressions to her than anybody;
+but that makes no difference; there is no sympathy
+in their stars.</p>
+
+<p>“Animal magnetism is nothing but the sympathy
+of our stars. Those fools who go about magnetizing
+indifferently one person and another, why do they
+sometimes succeed, and sometimes fail?—because, if
+they meet with those of the same star with themselves,
+their results will be satisfactory, but with opposite stars
+they can do nothing. Some people you may magnetize,
+some you cannot; and so far will the want of sympathy
+act in some, that there are persons whom it
+would be impossible to put in certain attitudes: they
+might be mechanically placed there, but their posture
+never would be natural; whilst others, from their
+particular star, would readily fall into them. Oh!
+if I had your friend, Mr. Green,<a id="FNanchor_25" href="#Footnote_25" class="fnanchor">[25]</a> here, I could give him
+some useful hints on choosing models for his lectures.</p>
+
+<p>“There are animals, too, under the same star with
+human beings. I had a mule whose star was the same
+as mine; and, at the time of my severe illness, this
+mule showed as much sensibility about me, and more,
+than some of the beasts who wait on me. When that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_230">230</span>
+mule was first foaled, I had given orders to sell the
+foal and its mother; but, happening to see it, I
+countermanded the order immediately. It received a
+hurt in its eye, and when, with my hand, I applied
+some eye-water with camphor in it, which, of course,
+made the eye smart, it never once turned its head
+away, or showed the least impatience of what I was
+doing. When this mule was dying some years afterwards,
+she lay twenty-four hours, every minute seeming
+to be going to breathe her last; but still life
+would not depart. They told me of this, and I went
+to the stable. The moment she saw me, she turned
+her eyes on me, gave an expressive look, and expired.
+All the servants said she would not die until my star,
+which was hers, had come to take her breath: isn’t
+it very extraordinary? Serpents never die, whatever
+you can do to them, until their star rises above the
+horizon.<a id="FNanchor_26" href="#Footnote_26" class="fnanchor">[26]</a></p>
+
+<p>“Some can do well only when under the guidance
+of another person’s star. What was Lord Grenville
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_231">231</span>
+without Mr. Pitt? with him to guide him he did
+pretty well; but, as soon as Mr. Pitt was dead, he
+sunk into obscurity: who ever heard of Lord Grenville
+afterwards? So again Sir Francis Burdett has never
+been good for anything since Horne Tooke’s death.
+So long as Napoleon had Josephine by his side he was
+lucky: but, when he cast her off, his good fortune left
+him. You know you sent me her portrait: well, it
+was a good engraving, and I have no doubt was a likeness.
+I observed in her face indications of much
+falsity, and a depth of cunning exceedingly great: it
+was her <i>sâad</i> (luck) that held him up. You may see
+so many examples of such good fortune depending on
+men’s wives. Mahomet Ali owes all to his wife—a
+woman without a nose. What saved the Shaykh
+Beshýr but the sâad of the Syt Haboos? Hamâady
+told the Emir Beshýr, ‘You will never do anything
+with the Shaykh Beshýr until you get rid of her, and
+then the Shaykh is in your power.’ So what did he
+do? he sent his son—the little Emir Beshýr, as they
+call him—who surrounded her palace with twenty
+horsemen, and, when she attempted to escape, drove
+her into her own courtyard, and stabbed her: her
+body was cut in pieces, and given to the dogs to eat.</p>
+
+<p>“What is to account for some people’s good fortune
+but their star? There was Lord Suffolk, an
+ensign in a marching regiment, and thirteenth remove
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_232">232</span>
+from the title—see what an example he was! It was
+predestined that he should arrive at greatness, although,
+when the news was brought him that he was
+come to the title, he had not money enough to pay for
+a post-chaise: but nothing could hinder what his good
+star was to bring him. Lady Suffolk, the daughter
+of a clergyman of a hundred a-year, was a very clever,
+shrewd woman, and filled her elevated station admirably.”</p>
+
+<p>I have embodied thus much in Lady Hester Stanhope’s
+own words of what may give a tolerable idea of
+her notion of planetary influence. What her own
+star was may be gathered from what she said one day,
+when, having dwelt a long time on this, her favourite
+subject, she got up from the sofa, and, approaching the
+window, she called me to her—“Look,” said she, “at
+the pupil of my eyes; there! my star is the sun—all
+sun—it is in my eyes: when the sun is a person’s
+star, it attracts everything.” I looked, and replied
+that I saw a rim of yellow round the pupil.—“A
+rim!” cried she; “it isn’t a rim—it’s a sun; there’s
+a disk, and from it go rays all round: ’tis no more a
+rim than you are. Nobody has got eyes like mine.”<a id="FNanchor_27" href="#Footnote_27" class="fnanchor">[27]</a></p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_233">233</span>
+Lady Hester Stanhope, in a letter she wrote to
+Prince Pückler Muskau, describes her system briefly
+as follows; and she desired me to keep a copy of it,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_234">234</span>
+that I might not, as she said, substitute my own ideas
+for hers.</p>
+
+<p>“Every man, born under a given star, has his
+aërial spirit, his animal, his bird, his fruit-tree, his
+flower, his medicinal herb, and his dæmon. Beings
+born under any given star may be of four different
+qualities and forms, just as there may be four different
+qualities of cherries, having little resemblance one to
+another, but being nevertheless all cherries. Added
+to this, there may be varieties in the same star, occasioned
+by the influence of other stars, which were
+above the horizon in particular positions at the hour
+of a man’s birth: just as you may say that a ship
+is more or less baffled by certain winds, though she is
+standing her course. Again, a man being born under
+the same star with another man, whilst that star is in
+one sign of the zodiac, changes somewhat the character
+and appearance when in another sign of the
+zodiac: just as two plants which are alike, when one
+grows where there is always shade and the other where
+there is constantly sunshine, although precisely of one
+and the same kind, will differ slightly in appearance,
+odour, and taste.</p>
+
+<p>“A man born under a certain star will have, from
+nature, certain qualities, certain virtues and vices,
+certain talents, diseases, and tastes. All that education
+can do is merely artificial: leave him to himself,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_235">235</span>
+and he returns to his natural character and his
+original tastes. If this were better known, young
+people would not be made to waste their time uselessly
+in fitting them for what they never can be.</p>
+
+<p>“I have learned to know a man’s star by his face,
+but not by astrological calculations, as perhaps you
+fancy; of that trade I have no knowledge. I have
+been told that the faculty which I possess is much
+more vague than the astrological art, and I believe
+it: but mine is good for a great deal, though not for
+calculating the exact epoch of a man’s maladies or
+death.</p>
+
+<p>“You will ask me how it is possible to know mankind
+by looking at their features and persons; and so
+thoroughly too. I answer—a gardener, when he sees
+twenty bulbs of twenty different flowers on the table
+before him, will he not tell you that one will remain
+so many days under ground before it sprouts, then it
+will grow little by little, very slowly, and in so many
+days or weeks will flower, and its flowers will have
+such a smell, such a colour, and such virtues: after
+so many days more, it will begin to droop and fade,
+and in ten days will wither: that other, as soon as it
+is out of the ground, will grow an inch and a half in
+every twenty-four hours: its flowers will be brilliant,
+but will have a disagreeable smell; it will bloom for
+a long time, and then will wither altogether in a day
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_236">236</span>
+and why may not I, looking on men, pronounce on
+their virtues, qualities, and duration in the same way?
+This may not be well explained, but a clever person
+will divine what I mean.”</p>
+
+<p>Such were, in the main, the opinions of Lady
+Hester on astrology, to which several travellers have
+alluded, but which, from defective information, they
+have hitherto misrepresented. It will be seen that
+there was at least method in her belief. We will
+now return from this digression.</p>
+
+<p>Our narrative broke off in the middle of a conversation
+on the evening of January 31, 1838.</p>
+
+<p>Tea was ordered; but so simple a process as getting
+tea ready was now a painful business. If it did not
+come immediately, Lady Hester grew so impatient,
+that it was distressing to see her agitation. She
+would then ring for a pipe, and perhaps send it back
+to be fresh filled or changed four or five times in succession,
+each one being, for some trifling reason, rejected.
+Alas! it was not the tea nor the pipes that
+were in fault; it was Colonel Campbell’s letter that
+had given a stab to her heart, from which she never
+recovered; and, in proportion to the apparent calm
+which she endeavoured to assume, when speaking on
+that subject, did the feeling of the supposed indignity
+which she had received prey on her spirits and on
+her pride.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_237">237</span>
+She reverted to the letter. “The thing to be
+considered,” she said, “is whether I shall write a
+letter to the Queen, and ask the Duke of Wellington
+to give it to her, or whether I shall put it in the
+newspapers: for I am afraid, if I send it to him, he
+will not give it to her; or, if he does, they will say
+nothing about it. I should like to ask for a public
+inquiry into my debts, and for what I have contracted
+them. Let them compare the good I have done in
+the cause of humanity and science with the D——s
+of K——’s debts. When I am better, I’ll set all
+this to rights. I wonder if Lord Palmerston is the
+man I recollect—a young man just come from College,
+that was hanging about, waiting to be introduced to
+Mr. Pitt. Mr. Pitt used to say, ‘Ah! very well;
+we will ask him some day to dinner.’ Perhaps it is
+an old grudge that makes him vent his spite. He is
+an Irishman, I think.”</p>
+
+<p>February 1.—To-day Lady Hester was much the
+same as on the preceding days: her pulse was low;
+her lungs were loaded with phlegm; aphthæ had
+shown themselves on her tongue; her nails were
+cracked from the contraction of the surrounding integuments;
+the tips of her fingers were cold; her back,
+as she sat up in bed, was bent; her bones almost protruded
+through the skin, from being obliged to lie
+always on one side. Speaking of her inability to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_238">238</span>
+sleep, except in some particular position, she observed
+that she was like those little figures of tumblers;
+place her as you would, she rolled over to the left side,
+as if there was a weight of lead there.</p>
+
+<p>After the usual preliminaries of smoking a pipe and
+a little conversation, she dictated her letter to the
+Queen and to Mr. Abercrombie, speaker of the House
+of Commons.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p class="p2 center">
+<i>Lady Hester Stanhope to the Queen.</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right r2">
+Jôon, February 12, 1838.</p>
+
+<p>Your Majesty will allow me to say that few things are
+more disgraceful and inimical to royalty than giving
+commands without examining all their different bearings,
+and casting, without reason, an aspersion upon
+the integrity of any branch of a family who had faithfully
+served their country and the house of Hanover.</p>
+
+<p>As no inquiries have been made of me what circumstances
+induced me to incur the debts alluded to, I
+deem it unnecessary to enter into any details upon
+the subject. I shall not allow the pension given by
+your royal grandfather to be stopped by force; but I
+shall resign it for the payment of my debts, and with
+it the name of English subject, and the slavery that
+is at present annexed to it: and, as your Majesty has
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_239">239</span>
+given publicity to the business by your orders to consular
+agents, I surely cannot be blamed in following
+your royal example.</p>
+
+<p class="right r2">
+<span class="smcap">Hester Lucy Stanhope.</span></p>
+</div><!--end blockquote-->
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p class="p2 center">
+<i>Lady Hester Stanhope to Mr. Speaker Abercrombie.</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right r2">Jôon, February 12, 1838.</p>
+
+<p class="indent5">Sir,</p>
+
+<p>Probably the wheel-horse has forgotten his driver,
+but the latter has not forgotten him.<a id="FNanchor_28" href="#Footnote_28" class="fnanchor">[28]</a> I am told that
+the chief weight of the carriage of state bears upon
+you; if so, it must be a ponderous one indeed, if I can
+judge by a specimen of the talent of those who guide it.</p>
+
+<p>You, who have read and thought a great deal upon
+men and manners, must be aware that there are situations
+almost unknown in Europe from which persons,
+in what is called a semi-barbarous country, cannot
+extricate themselves with honour without taking a
+part either for or against humanity: besides, there
+are extraordinary gusts of knowledge—of extraordinary
+information—which, if you do not take advantage of
+them at the moment, are lost to you for ever. I have,
+therefore, exceeded my pecuniary means, but always
+with the hope of extricating myself without the assistance
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_240">240</span>
+of any one; or at least (and ever before my
+eyes, should the worst come to the worst) with that of
+selling the reversion of what I possess. Your magnificent
+Queen has made me appear like a bankrupt
+in the world, and partly like a swindler; having given
+strict orders that <em>one</em> usurer’s account must be paid, or
+my pension stopped, without taking into consideration
+others who have equal claims upon me. Her Majesty
+has not thrown the gauntlet before a driveller or a
+coward: those who are the advisers of these steps
+cannot be wise men.</p>
+
+<p>Whatever men’s political opinions may be, if they
+act from conscientious motives, I have always respected
+them; and you know that I have had friends in all
+parties. Therefore, without any reference to the present
+or past political career of ministers, or her Majesty’s
+advisers, their conduct would appear to me,
+respecting myself, identically as it was, gentlemanlike
+or blackguard. But, having had but too strong a
+specimen of the latter by their attempting to bully a
+Pitt, and to place me under consular control, it is
+sufficient for me to resign the name of an English
+subject; for the justice granted to the slave of despotism
+far exceeds that which has been shown to me.
+Believe me, with esteem and regard, yours,</p>
+
+<p class="right r2">
+<span class="smcap">Hester Lucy Stanhope.</span></p>
+</div><!--end blockquote-->
+
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_241">241</span>
+Friday, February 2.—To-day, I found her ladyship
+busied in sorting out certain articles of apparel,
+which had just before been brought home for herself:
+they had been made by the wife of Lufloofy, the
+person at Sayda who generally lodged English travellers.
+As the fair sex may like to know what the
+texture of ladies’ under-garments is in the East, these
+were made of half cotton and half silk, and, to the
+appearance and touch, not unlike crape. Some women
+have them all silk. Either kind is favourable for
+absorbing perspiration, and, under any circumstances,
+never strikes cold to the body.<a id="FNanchor_29" href="#Footnote_29" class="fnanchor">[29]</a></p>
+
+<p>There had arrived, also, from Marseilles six cases of
+claret, two of brandy, one of rum, twelve baskets of
+champagne, one case of Kirsch water; and from Leghorn
+six cases of Genoese <i lang="fr">pâte</i>, two Parmesan cheeses,
+some Bologna sausages, pots of preserve, one barrel of
+salmon and tunny, one ditto of anchovies, brooms,
+scuppets, perfumery, two chests of tea, and numberless
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_242">242</span>
+other good things, to meet the wants of her expected
+guest, the Baroness de Fériat, who was coming from
+the United States. It was sad enough that Lady
+Hester herself, with abundance of choice provisions
+and wines, was unable to partake of any. However,
+when samples of them were brought in, as the cases
+were opened one after another, to be shown her, her
+usual (what shall I call it?) greediness of manner
+manifested itself. She tasted everything, and swallowed
+a great deal: the natural consequence of which
+was that she threw herself back in her bed, gasping
+for breath, and suffering horribly. On these occasions,
+her favourite plan was to relieve the succession of
+momentary symptoms by a host of palliatives, never
+leaving her stomach empty or her digestive organs at
+rest, and always fancying that it was want of nourishment
+that generated uneasiness or caused the oppression
+on her chest, from both of which she never was
+free; nor would she listen to any arguments that
+tended to show she was in error.</p>
+
+<p>February 4, Sunday.—This morning it was discovered
+in my house that a silver spoon had been lost.
+I had a man-servant and a boy, the former a Greek,
+the latter a Mahometan. The Greek had one of the
+most sinister countenances I ever beheld: he was the
+same man who had accompanied Mr. Moore and Mr.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_243">243</span>
+Beck to the Dead Sea,<a id="FNanchor_30" href="#Footnote_30" class="fnanchor">[30]</a> and had been sent to me from
+Beyrout by the innkeeper there: he was a knave, a
+drunkard, and a liar. Suspicion fell on him, and he,
+to throw it on others, first accused the milk-girl, and
+then the water-carrier.</p>
+
+<p>Theft, in houses in Turkey, where many are suspected,
+generally leads to the punishing of them
+all; and Logmagi suggested that he should apply the
+korbàsh to all three, to elicit the truth. However, I
+thought it more just to resort to the European way,
+saying if the spoon were not found, the two servants
+must pay for it, not doubting the innocence of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_244">244</span>
+water-carrier, a hard-working fellow of good repute.
+Logmagi objected to this. “You must flog that
+Greek,” said he, “or you will lose, one by one,
+everything of value you possess.”</p>
+
+<p>Here the matter rested, as the morning had been
+fixed for answering Colonel Campbell’s letter: so I
+wrote from her ladyship’s dictation the following
+laconic <a id="chg5"></a>epistle to him, and the friendly one to Mr.
+Moore, British consul at Beyrout. When I had
+finished them, I asked Lady Hester what she would
+have me put at the close, and how she chose to subscribe
+herself. “Say nothing,” replied she: “how
+many times I have said I could never call myself the
+humble servant of any body. I hate and detest all
+those compliments so unmeaning and so false: but to
+Mr. Moore you may express my esteem and regard.
+I know I shall have a great liking for Mrs. Moore, if
+ever I see her: is she so very handsome as they say?
+When you go to Beyrout, you must tell her that I
+consider it a duty to like her: she does not know
+why, no more do you.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p class="p2 center">
+<i>Lady Hester Stanhope to Colonel Campbell.</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right r2">
+Jôon, February 4, 1838.</p>
+
+<p class="indent5">Sir,</p>
+
+<p>I shall give no sort of answer to your letter of the
+10th of January (received the 27th), until I have
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_245">245</span>
+seen a copy of her Majesty’s commands respecting
+my debt to Mr. Homsy, or of the official orders from
+her Majesty’s Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs,
+as also of Mr. Homsy’s claim, as well as of the statement
+sent to England—to whom, and through whom—in
+order that I may know whom I have to deal
+with, as well as be able to judge of the accuracy of
+the documents.</p>
+
+<p>I hope in future that you will not think it necessary
+to make any apologies for the execution of your duty;
+on the contrary, I should wish to recommend you all
+to put on large Brutus wigs when you sit on the woolsack
+at Alexandria or at Beyrout.</p>
+
+<p class="right r2">
+<span class="smcap">Hester Lucy Stanhope.</span></p>
+</div><!--end blockquote-->
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p class="center">
+<i>Lady Hester Stanhope to Mr. Moore, British Consul at</i><br>
+<i>Beyrout.</i><br>
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right r2">
+Jôon, February 4, 1838.</p>
+
+<p class="indent5">Sir,</p>
+
+<p>The sacrifice which I have made of your acquaintance
+and your society, that you might stand quite
+clear of everything that affects me, appears to be to
+little purpose. You will have some very disagreeable
+business to go through, as you will be made Colonel
+Campbell’s honourable agent, and he the agent of the
+wise Lord Palmerston, and he the agent of your magnificent
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_246">246</span>
+Queen. There is Colonel Campbell’s answer,
+which I leave open for your perusal, as he did his.</p>
+
+<p>If in the end I find that you deserve the name of a
+true Scotchman, I shall never take ill the part that
+you may have taken against me, as it appears to be
+consistent with your duty in these dirty times.</p>
+
+<p>I remain with truth and regard, yours,</p>
+
+<p class="right r2">
+<span class="smcap">Hester Lucy Stanhope.</span></p>
+</div><!--end blockquote-->
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Besides these letters, I wrote others for England
+and for Beyrout—in all about a dozen. What with
+waiting and listening to her conversation, I was with
+her five hours before dinner and five hours after. I
+had to seal and put covers to all these; and just at
+the moment when I was about to retire to my study,
+a little room set apart for me in her house, to do this,
+Lady Hester stopped me, and returned to the subject
+of the silver spoon. After some consideration, she
+recommended also the use of the korbàsh.<a id="FNanchor_31" href="#Footnote_31" class="fnanchor">[31]</a></p>
+
+<p>“How am I to live,” cried she, “with thirty servants
+in my house, and such a man as you are that
+can’t say boh! to a goose? How do you expect they
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_247">247</span>
+will mind me, if you don’t keep them under?
+Hamâady is coming to-morrow to Jôon: he must be
+sent for, and shall interrogate the rascal; I warrant
+you, he’ll soon bring it to light.”</p>
+
+<p>When I left her for dinner, she had said to me,
+“Send me word a quarter of an hour before you
+return to say you are coming.” This, in my hurry to
+get through so much writing for her, I had neglected
+to do; and it, therefore, served now as the text for a
+new grievance. “Didn’t I say,” she asked me, “let
+me know a quarter of an hour beforehand when you
+are ready to come to me? that quarter of an hour
+was everything to me: I wished to have more candles
+brought in on account of your eyes, to have the paper
+and ink got ready, and to collect my thoughts; but
+no! everybody must do as they like, and poor I be
+made the sacrifice.—I <em>will</em> live by the rule of grandeur.”</p>
+
+<p>Then she called her maids in, one after another,
+poured on them a torrent of abuse for their laziness,
+dirt, and insolence. My heart sickened to think what
+would be the consequence of all this to herself; for I
+knew very well that her whole frame, the next morning,
+would be debilitated from such excitement: yet
+all this time her passion was sublimely eloquent, and,
+sick though she was, terrible. Her maids tumbled
+over each other from fright, and the thunder that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_248">248</span>
+rolled in the sky (for a storm was raging at the time)
+was but a faint likeness of her paroxysm. When it
+was over, we drank tea, and at half-past one separated
+for the night.</p>
+
+<p>February 5. The weather was still stormy. Snow
+fell in abundance on the higher chains of Mount
+Lebanon, where it lay apparently very thick.</p>
+
+<p>When I paid my morning visit, Lady Hester held
+out her hand to me the moment I approached her
+bedside. “I said too much last night,” she observed;
+“think no more about it, doctor; but you know my
+irritability, and you must bear with it.” She was
+pale, languid, and extenuated: her hands and arms
+were jerked in convulsive flings. Strong electrical
+shocks could not have shaken her so much. Alas!
+I sympathised too deeply with her wrongs not to
+forget all her ebullitions of anger the moment they
+were over.</p>
+
+<p>When she found herself a little easier, she asked me
+to explain to her Julius Cæsar’s calendar, which she
+had on some occasion lighted on in Ainsworth’s dictionary.
+“When I was a girl,” said she, “I knew
+all the constellations in the heavens, and was so quick
+at astronomy, that they took my books and maps
+away, fearing I should give myself up to it, to the
+neglect of my other studies. I had it all before my
+eyes, just like a pocket-handkerchief. What day are
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_249">249</span>
+the ides of March?” I told her. “I think,” she
+continued, “the word Ides must be derived from
+<i>âayd</i>, [Arabic: عيد].” I guessed at once what was passing in
+her mind. It was an illusion with her that her destiny
+and Cæsar’s, or her character and his, had some
+resemblance: and, when she mentioned Brutus-wigs in
+her letter to Colonel Campbell, it had a reference to the
+stabs they were giving her from England in depriving
+her of her pension, and putting insults upon her.</p>
+
+<p>She was deeply wounded in her pride by the treatment
+she had received from home. “The Queen,”
+she would say, “should have desired her ministers to
+write to me, and say, ‘It grieves me that you should
+have exceeded your income, and incurred debts, which
+you know, when complaints are made to me, I cannot
+countenance; endeavour to pay them by instalments,
+and all may yet be well,’ or something to that effect—
+* &emsp; * &emsp; *  &emsp; *  &emsp; *  &emsp; *
+But no! she shall have my pension, and, if they
+make me a bankrupt, why, let them pay the usurers
+themselves.”</p>
+
+<p>February 9.—I did not see Lady Hester the whole
+of the preceding day: she had sent me a message to
+say she did not wish to trouble me. I attributed this
+to the state of the weather; for the wind was high,
+the atmosphere wet and cold, and everything about
+the residence uncomfortable. To go from my house
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_250">250</span>
+to Lady Hester’s, I was obliged to wear high wooden
+clogs and a thick Greek capote with a hood to it.
+Umbrellas, from the gusts of wind, were out of the
+question. The ground was like soap. But it was not
+the weather that made her decline my visit: she had
+been closeted with a doctor of the country from Dayr
+el Kamar, the son of that <i>Metta</i> of whom mention has
+been made in a former part of these pages as having
+bequeathed his family as a legacy to her. He was come,
+as it was supposed, to give his opinion on her case.
+I took no umbrage at this. Lady Hester and I differed
+<i>toto cœlo</i> on medical points; and she told me very often,
+after discussions of this sort, that she had invited me
+to come this time, not as her physician, but as a friend;
+one in whom she had confidence to settle her debts.</p>
+
+<p>The muleteers had been sent on the 7th of February
+to Mar Elias, to bring away the effects which had been
+lying there, rotting and spoiling, since Miss Williams’s
+death. I accompanied them to superintend the moving,
+as also to pay a visit to General Loustaunau. Heavens!
+what waste was I witness to! In one closet was a
+beautiful wax miniature of Mr. Pitt, a portrait of the
+Duke of York, some other pictures, stationery, glass,
+china, medicines, &amp;c., enough for a family. In one
+room were carpets, cushions, counterpanes, mattresses,
+pillows, all completely destroyed by mould and damp.
+In a store-room were large japan canisters with tea,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_251">251</span>
+preserves, sugar, wine, lamps, &amp;c. From another room,
+(the roof of which had fallen in at the time of the
+great earthquake,) had disappeared, according to Lady
+Hester’s account, 3 cwt. of copper utensils, in cauldrons,
+boilers, saucepans, kettles, round platters, called <i>sennéyah</i>,
+and many other things. A leather portmanteau
+lay with the lock cut out; a trunk had its hinges
+wrenched off; and both were emptied of their contents.
+Everywhere proofs of pillage were manifest, and the
+village of Abra was notoriously thriving by it. For
+ten years this plundering system had been going on,
+and yet what still remained would have almost filled a
+house. Among other things were papers and boxes
+of seeds, roots, dried plants, and a variety of such
+matters, which Lady Hester had collected: “for,”
+she would say, “the importance of people’s pursuits
+is judged in a different way by different individuals.
+For example, Sir Joseph <a id="chg6"></a>Banks would think I had
+done wonders if I found a spider that had two more
+joints than another in his hind-leg; and Sir Abraham
+Hume would embrace me if I had got a coin not in
+his collection; but I have hoarded up something for
+everybody. And yet, whether I have done good for
+humanity or for science, those English give me credit
+for nothing, and never even once ask how I got into
+debt.”</p>
+
+<p>February 10.—I spent four hours with Lady Hester
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_252">252</span>
+Stanhope this evening. She was very ill, and greatly
+convulsed during the greater part of the time:—she
+moaned a good deal—yet, in the intervals of ease that
+she got, she had two baskets of good things packed up
+as a present to an old French widow, and two for an
+infirm old man, her pensioner, residing at Sayda.</p>
+
+<p>Monday, February 13.—Lady Hester to-day dictated
+the following letter to Sir Edward Sugden:—</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2 center">
+<i>Lady Hester Stanhope to Sir Edward Sugden.</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right r2">
+Jôon, February 12, 1838.</p>
+
+<p class="indent5">Sir,</p>
+
+<p>Born an aristocrat (for this assurance I received
+from your father, whom it appeared to annoy as much
+as it delighted me), with these genuine feelings it will
+not be necessary for me to make any excuses for
+bringing so abruptly before you a subject, which relates
+to this cause as well as that of justice.</p>
+
+<p>I will not bore you with long details; for it will be
+sufficient for you to know that after my arrival in the
+East I was not regarded by any class of persons with
+the same eyes of suspicion as strangers generally are.
+I have had it in my power, without making use of
+intrigue or subterfuge on my part, or hurting the
+religious or political feeling of others in any way, to
+hear and investigate things which had never yet been
+investigated. This fortunate circumstance does not
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_253">253</span>
+relate to those who profess Islamism alone, but to all
+the curious religions (not sects) which are to be found
+in the different parts of the East. Not that I have
+learned the secrets of one religion to betray them to
+another—on the contrary, I have observed an inviolable
+silence with all; but it has served to enlighten,
+as well as consolidate my own ideas, and given me an
+opportunity of seeking corroboratory evidence of many
+wonderfully important and abstract things, which has
+been hitherto very satisfactory.</p>
+
+<p>The revolutions and public calamities, which often
+take place in what is called a semi-barbarous country,
+call for great presence of mind and energy, and a
+degree of humanity and liberality unknown in Europe.
+To have unfortunate sufferers starving at your gate
+until you have had an opportunity of inquiring into
+their private life and character, and of investigating
+how far it is likely to endanger your own life, or risk
+your property, in receiving them—these reflections are
+not made in the East. One takes one’s chance; and if
+one wishes to keep up the character of either an Eastern
+monarch or an Eastern peasant, you must treat even an
+enemy in misfortune <i lang="fr">avec les mêmes égards</i> that you
+would do a friend. Starting upon this principle (which
+is, indeed, a natural one, and was always mine), there
+were times in which I have been obliged to spend more
+money than I could well afford, and this has been the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_254">254</span>
+cause of my incurring debts; not that I owe a farthing
+to a poor peasant or a tradesman, but all to usurers
+and rascals, that have lent their money out at an
+exorbitant interest. You may judge of their conscience.
+In the last levy of troops, made about two
+months ago by Ibrahim Pasha, some rich peasants
+gave 100 per cent. for six months for money to buy
+off their sons who were conscripts.</p>
+
+<p>I often abuse the English; and for why? because
+they have nearly lost their national character. The
+aristocracy is a proud, morose, inactive class of men,
+having no great fundamental principles to guide them,
+and not half the power that they give to themselves—very
+little more worthy of being trusted by their Sovereign
+than by the people—full of ideas, all egotistical,
+and full of their own importance and weight in a
+country, which may differ from an ounce to a pound
+in twenty-four hours by the wavering political line of
+conduct that they may observe during that time, and
+which neither secures the confidence of the people, nor
+the friendship of their Sovereign. And these columns
+of state may be reckoned a sort of ministers without
+responsibility, but who ought to be willing at all times
+to make every possible sacrifice for the honour of the
+crown and for the good of the people in cases of
+emergency and misfortune.</p>
+
+<p>Had I been an English peer, do you suppose I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_255">255</span>
+would have allowed the Duke of York’s debts to
+remain unpaid? I should have laid down a large sum,
+and have engaged my brethren to have done the same.
+If I had not succeeded, I should have broken my
+coronet, and have considered myself of neither greater
+nor smaller importance than the sign of a duke’s
+head in front of a public-house. But, ever willing to
+come forward with my life and property, I should
+expect that the Sovereign would treat me with
+respect, * * * * * *</p>
+
+<p>I have been written to by the Consul-General for
+Egypt and Syria, Colonel Campbell, that, if I do not
+pay <em>one</em> of my numerous creditors, I shall be deprived
+of my pension. I should like to see that person come
+forward who dares to threaten a Pitt! Having given
+themselves a supposed right over the pension, they
+may take it all. In the early part of my life, there
+was nothing I feared so much as plague, shipwreck,
+and debt; it has been my fate to suffer from them all.
+Respecting my debts, of course I had expectations of
+their being settled; but if I was deceived in these
+expectations, I kept in view the sale of my pension,
+as well as of an annuity of £1500 a-year, left me by
+my brother, if the worst came to the worst. The
+importance of the plan I was pursuing must, as you
+can easily imagine, have appeared most arbitrary,
+from my coolly deliberating that the moment might
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_256">256</span>
+arrive when I should make myself a beggar; but I
+should have done my duty. What sort of right,
+then, had the Queen to meddle with my affairs, and
+to give orders, in total ignorance of the subject,
+upon the strength of an appeal from a man whose
+claims might be half fabulous, and to offer me the
+indignity of forbidding a foreign consul to sign the
+certificate that I was among the number of the living,
+in order to get my pension into her hands? * *
+I have written a few lines on the subject, and there is
+my final determination:—“I shall give up my pension,
+and with it the name of an English subject, and
+the slavery that is entailed upon it.” I have too
+much confidence in the great Disposer of all things,
+and in the magnificent star that has hitherto borne
+me above the heads of my enemies, to feel that I have
+done a rash act. I can be anything but ignoble, or
+belie the origin from which I sprang.</p>
+
+<p>I have been assured by those not likely to deceive
+me, that a large property has been left me in Ireland,
+which has been concealed from me by my relations.
+I have put this business into the hands of Sir Francis
+Burdett; but should I in future require a law opinion
+upon the subject, <em>the little aristocratical rascal</em> (whose
+acquaintance I was about to make when a child, had
+not a democratical quirk of my father’s been the
+reason of shutting up his family for some time in the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_257">257</span>
+country, and preventing the execution of your father’s
+intention of presenting you to me) will not, I hope,
+take it ill that I should apply to his superior talents
+for advice.</p>
+
+<p>There is a horrible jealousy respecting the friendship
+that exists between me and Mr. Henry Guys,
+the French Consul at Beyrout. His grandfather, a
+learned old gentleman, was in constant correspondence
+with the great Lord Chesterfield. It is natural, therefore,
+that his son, the present Mr. Guys’ father, should
+feel interested about me when I first came into the
+country, and Mr. Henry Guys has always put into
+execution his father’s friendly intentions towards me.
+He is a very respectable man, and stands very high in
+the estimation of all classes of persons: and, as at
+one time there was no English consul or agent at
+Sayda, the French agent sent a certificate of my life
+four times a-year to England. At the death of this
+man, Mr. Guys sent it himself. If you honour me
+with a reply, I request you to address your letter to
+him (<i lang="fr">aux soins de <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> le Chevalier Henri Guys, Consul
+de France à Beyrout</i>), notwithstanding he has been
+named for Aleppo; as it is the only way I am likely
+to receive my letters unopened, or perhaps at all.</p>
+
+<p class="right">
+Believe me, with esteem and regard, yours,<br>
+<br>
+<span class="smcap r2">H. L. Stanhope.</span></p>
+</div><!--end blockquote-->
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_258">258</span>
+I was much exhausted to-day. I had written six
+hours to her dictation the preceding day, and now sat
+talking until midnight; but, from the late hour at
+which I left her, it was as usual impossible for me to
+note down even a hundredth part of what she said.
+For example, it is now nearly one o’clock in the
+morning; and much as I could wish, whilst my recollection
+is fresh, to make a few memorandums of the
+many things she has been saying, my eyelids droop,
+and I am forced to lay down my pen: yet one anecdote
+I must try to commit to paper. In reading over
+the letter to Sir Edward Sugden, she made the following
+remark: “The peers in England may be compared
+to doctors who have made their fortunes: if they continue
+to practise, they do it out of regard to some
+particular families, or from humane motives. They
+know better than those who are sick what is good for
+them, because they have had long practice; and, if
+their sons are no doctors, they have heard so much
+talk about the matter, that they sit in a corner, and
+watch the effect of the medicine.”</p>
+
+<p>I was struck with the resemblance of Lady Hester’s
+style to Junius’s in her letter to Sir Edward. This
+led me to reflect, as I had observed on many occasions,
+that Lady Hester’s language was the counterpart of
+her grandfather’s, whether Lord Chatham might not
+have been the author of Junius’s Letters; but it has
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_259">259</span>
+since been suggested to me that there would be an
+absurdity in such a supposition (for I had no opportunity
+of consulting books where I was), because some of
+the most eloquent passages of Junius are his panegyrics
+on Lord Chatham, and it is not likely that he would
+have been guilty of writing a eulogium on himself;
+however, I mentioned it to her. She answered, “My
+grandfather was perfectly capable and likely to write
+and do things which no human being would dream
+came from his hands. I once met with one of his
+spies,” continued she, “a woman of the common class,
+who had passed her life dressed in man’s clothes: in
+this way she went, as a sailor, to America, and used
+to write him letters as if to a sweetheart, giving an
+account of the enemy’s ships and plans in a most
+masterly way, in the description of a box of tools, or
+in something so unlike the thing in question that no
+suspicion could be had of the meaning of the contents.
+This woman by accident passed me at a watering-place,
+whilst I was sitting near the sea-side
+talking to my brother, and stopped short on hearing
+the sound of my voice, which was so much like my
+grandfather’s that it struck her—and there is nothing
+extraordinary in this: I have known a horse do the
+same thing. My father had two piebald horses: they
+were very vicious, and hated one of the grooms so,
+that, one day, whilst he was taking them out for
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_260">260</span>
+exercise, one threw him, and the other flew at him,
+and attempted to strike him with his fore-feet; but, as
+he could not succeed, the other, that had run off,
+turned back, seized the groom with his teeth, and bit
+him and shook him: that very horse went blind, and
+got into an innkeeper’s hands, who made a post-horse
+of him. One day, on the high road, I saw him, and
+made an exclamation to somebody who was with me.
+The horse, although blind, knew my voice, and
+stopped short, just like the woman. I too was struck
+with the woman’s manner; and, without saying anything,
+went next morning at daylight, before anybody
+was about, to the same spot, and, finding the woman
+there again, inquired who and what she was. A conversation
+ensued, and the woman was delighted, she
+said, to behold once again something that reminded
+her of her old employer. As for the ministers of the
+present day, she observed, they are good for nothing:
+when I went to prefer my claim for a pension, one
+called me Goody-two-shoes, and told me to go about
+my business.</p>
+
+<p>“A government should never employ spies of the
+description generally chosen—men of a certain appearance
+and information, who may be enabled to mix
+in genteel society: they are always known or suspected.
+My grandfather pursued quite a different
+plan. His spies were among such people as Logmagi*
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_261">261</span>
+*—a hardy sailor, who would get at any risk into a
+port, to see how many ships there were, and how
+many effective men—or a pedlar, to enter a camp—and
+the like. This was the way he got information as
+to the state of the armament at Toulon: and such a
+one was the woman I have just told you about, who
+knew me by the sound of my voice.</p>
+
+<p>“There were two hairdressers in London, the best
+spies Buonaparte had. A hairdresser, generally speaking,
+must be a man of talent—so must a cook; for a
+cook must know such a variety of things, about which
+no settled rules can be laid down, and he must have
+great judgment.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you think I did not immediately perceive that
+those four Germans we met at —— were spies?—directly.
+I never told B**** and Lord S**** because
+they would have let it out again: François was
+the only one who knew it besides myself. He took an
+opportunity one day of saying to me, when nobody
+was by, ‘My lady, one of those Germans....’—‘Yes,
+yes, François, I understand you,’ answered I, before
+he had said three words: ‘you need not put me on
+my guard, but I am much obliged to you.’—‘Why,
+my lady,’ said François, ‘when I was one day standing
+sentry at Buonaparte’s tent, there was one of those
+very gentlemen I have seen go in and out: I recollect
+his face perfectly.’ François was right, doctor: there
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_262">262</span>
+they were—there was the sick one, and the learned
+one, and the musician, and the officer—for all sorts of
+persons.</p>
+
+<p>“You recollect, when we were at Constantinople,
+one day I went to meet the Count de la Tour Maubourg
+on the banks of the Bosphorus, and he intimated
+to me that I had kept him waiting. ‘Yes,’
+said I, ‘there was a spy following my boat: I knew
+him directly, and wanted to prevent his dogging me.’
+‘Pooh! nonsense,’ replied Mr. de la T. M.: but we
+had not talked for half an hour, when, lo! there he
+was, taking a look at us. Next day, when I saw
+Mr. Canning, ‘Oh! Lady Hester,’ said he, ‘how did
+you spend your day yesterday?’—‘Why,’ answered
+I, ‘your spy did not spoil it.’—‘Ah!’ rejoined he,
+laughing—for he perceived at once it was of no use to
+make a mystery of what he had done—‘you should
+not do such things—I must write it home to government.’—‘Yes,’
+said I, ‘I’ll write a letter, too, in this
+way:—My lord, your excellent young minister, to
+show his gallantry, has begun his diplomatic career
+by watching ladies in their assignations, &amp;c., &amp;c.’ and
+then I laughed at him, and then I talked seriously
+with him, till I worked on his feelings in a way you
+can’t think!</p>
+
+<p>“Spies, as I said before, should never be what are
+called gentlemen, or have the appearance of such; for,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_263">263</span>
+however well they may be paid, somebody else will
+always pay them better;—unless fortune should throw
+in your way a man of integrity, who, from loyalty or
+a love of his country, will adventure everything for
+the cause he is engaged in: such a man is another
+sort of a thing!”</p>
+
+<p>February 14.—Being Wednesday, I was, as usual,
+deprived of the honour of seeing Lady Hester until
+night; I therefore remained with my family, and,
+having recovered the lost spoon, which my servant
+produced out of fear of Hamâady’s examination, pretending
+to have found it, I took the opportunity of
+settling his wages and turned him away.</p>
+
+<p>After sunset I waited on her. She was in low
+spirits. “I am very weak,” said she. “Look at my
+veins—they did not use to be so: look at my arms,
+too—mere skin and bone.” She pointed to the state
+of her room: “See how filthy it is again already,”
+she observed; “and if I say a word, those wretches
+seem not to mind me—they snub me, doctor.”</p>
+
+<p>She attempted to dictate the letter she proposed
+writing to the Duke of Wellington, but was unable.
+We drank tea. “Do you know,” she said, “when
+old Malti” (this was the name Mr. Abella, the
+English agent, was generally designated by) “came
+in such a hurry, the other day, with Colonel Campbell’s
+letter, and made such a fuss about delivering it
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_264">264</span>
+with his own hand, people fancied I was going to
+die, and that he was come up to seal my effects the
+moment the breath should be out of my body. But,
+if I do die, they sha’n’t seal anything of mine, I’ll
+take care of that; for I am no longer an English subject,
+and therefore they have nothing to do with me.”</p>
+
+<p>Again she asked me to take my pen and paper, and
+returned to the Duke of Wellington’s letter. “I
+can’t collect my ideas,” she said: “one while I am
+thinking of what Mr. Pitt said of him; then of the
+letter he wrote when invited down to the country ball;
+then of what he is now: so put down your paper, and
+ring for a pipe. The duke is a man self-taught, for
+he was always in dissipation. I recollect, one day,
+Mr. Pitt came into the drawing-room to me—‘Oh!’
+said he, ‘how I have been bored by Sir Sydney
+coming with his box full of papers, and keeping me
+for a couple of hours, when I had so much to do!’ I
+observed to him that heroes were generally vain:
+‘Lord Nelson is so.’ ‘So he is,’ replied Mr. Pitt;
+‘but not like Sir Sydney: and how different is
+Arthur Wellesley, who has just quitted me! He has
+given me details so clear upon affairs in India! and
+he talked of them, too, as if he had been a surgeon of
+a regiment, and had nothing to do with them; so that
+I know not which to admire most, his modesty or his
+talents: and yet the fate of India depends upon them.’
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_265">265</span>
+Then, doctor, when I recollect the letter he wrote to
+Edward Bouverie, in which he said that he could not
+come down to the ball which Bouverie had invited
+him to, for that his only corbeau coat was so bad he
+was ashamed to appear in it, I reflect what a rise he
+has had in the world. Bouverie said—‘You would
+like to dance with him amazingly, Lady Hester: he is
+a good fellow.’</p>
+
+<p>“He was at first, doctor, nothing but what hundreds
+of others are in a country town—a man who
+danced, and drank hard. His star has done every
+thing for him; for he is not a great general.<a id="FNanchor_32" href="#Footnote_32" class="fnanchor">[32]</a> He is
+no tactician, nor has he any of those great qualities
+that make a Cæsar, or a Pompey, or even a Buonaparte.
+As for the battle of Waterloo, both French
+and English have told me that it was a lucky battle
+for him, but nothing more. I don’t think he acted
+well at Paris: nor did the soldiers like him.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_266">266</span>
+Thursday, February 15.—This morning, the letter
+to the Duke of Wellington was written.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p class="p2 center">
+<i>Lady Hester Stanhope to the Duke of Wellington.</i></p>
+
+<div class="blockquot">
+<p class="right r2">
+Jôon, February 13, 1838.<br>
+</p>
+
+<p class="indent5">My dear Duke,</p>
+
+<p>If you merit but half the feeling and eloquent praise
+I heard bestowed upon you shortly before I saw you
+for the first time, you are the last man in the world
+either to be offended or to misconstrue my motives in
+writing to you upon the subject in question, or not to
+know how to account for the warmth of the expressions
+I may make use of, which are only characteristic
+of my disposition.</p>
+
+<p>Your Grace’s long residence in the East will have
+taught you that there is no common rate character in
+England an adequate judge what manner of living best
+answers among a semi-barbarous people, and how little
+possible it is to measure one’s expenses where frequent
+revolutions and petty wars are carried on without any
+provision for the sufferers, from its being considered
+the duty of every one to assist them as his humanity
+may dictate or as his circumstances may afford.</p>
+
+<p>Acre besieged for seven months! some days, 7,000
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_267">267</span>
+balls thrown in in twenty-four hours!—at last, taken
+by storm, and little more than 200 of the garrison remaining!—then
+the wretched inhabitants, who expected
+to find succour from their old friends in the
+country, finding their backs turned upon them in the
+dread and awe they stood in of Ibrahim Pasha; nay,
+it is very strange to say that the Franks likewise held
+back in a most extraordinary manner. Therefore,
+these unhappy people had no resource but in me, and
+I did the best I could for them all. Mahomet Ali,
+Ibrahim Pasha, Sheriff Pasha, all set at me at once, in
+order to make me give up certain persons, who immediately
+would have lost their heads for having fought
+well in the cause which they were engaged in. I opposed
+them all round single-handed, and said that I
+neither protected these persons in the English or
+French name, but in my own, as a poor Arab, who
+would not give up an unhappy being but with his own
+life; that there was no other chance of making me
+bend by any other means than by attempting mine.
+In this manner I saved some unfortunate beings,
+whom I got rid of by degrees, by sending them back
+to their own country, or providing for them at a distance
+in some way or another. Can you, as a soldier,
+blame me for what I have done? I should have acted
+in the same way before your eyes to the victims of
+your own sword. Then the host of orphans, and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_268">268</span>
+widows, and little children, who, to feed or clothe for
+nearly two years, took away all the ready money with
+which I ought in part to have paid my debts, and
+caused new ones!—yet I am no swindler, and will not
+appear like one. Your Queen had no business to
+meddle in my affairs. In due time, please God, I
+should have known how to arrange to satisfy everybody,
+even if I left myself a beggar. If she pretends
+to have a right to stop my pension, I resign it altogether,
+as well as the name of an English subject; for
+there is no family that has served their country and
+the crown more faithfully than mine has done, and I
+am not inclined to be treated with <i lang="fr">moins d’égards</i>
+than was formerly shown to a gentleman-like highwayman.</p>
+
+<p>I have been every day in expectation of a reply from
+Sir F. Burdett respecting a large property which is
+said to have been left me in Ireland, and which has
+been concealed from me for many years. In case of
+its coming into my hands, I shall still not keep my
+pension, in order to cut off every communication with
+the English Government, from whom only proceed
+acts of folly, which any moment may rebound upon
+an individual. I chose Sir Francis Burdett to look
+into my affairs, because I believe him to be a truly
+conscientious honest man. Although we always disagreed
+upon politics, we were always the best friends,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_269">269</span>
+and it appears to me that he is beginning to see things
+in their proper light. * * * *
+All that I have to entreat of your Grace is to allow
+me to appear in the light in which I really stand—attached
+to humanity, and attached to royalty, and
+attached to the claims that one human being has upon
+another. Nor can I allow myself to be deemed an
+intriguer; because I have said here, in all societies,
+that persons who abet those who attempt to shake
+the throne of Sultan Mahmoud shake the throne of
+their own sovereign, and, therefore, commit high
+treason: and among that class of persons I do not
+choose to rank myself. Nor am I to be reckoned an incendiary,
+when I seek to vindicate my own character,
+that never was marked with either baseness or folly:—it
+may have been, perhaps, with too little consideration
+for what are called by the world my own interests,
+and which I, in fact, despise, or at least only
+consider in a secondary point of view. There is
+nobody more capable of making the Queen understand
+that a Pitt is a unique race than your Grace: there is
+no trifling with them.</p>
+
+<p>I have sent a duplicate of the enclosed letter to Her
+Majesty to my Lord Palmerston, through the hands
+of the English Consul, Mr. Moore. If it has not
+reached her safe, I hope that you will see that this
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_270">270</span>
+one does: or otherwise I shall put it in the <cite>Augsburg
+Gazette</cite>, or in an American newspaper.<a id="FNanchor_33" href="#Footnote_33" class="fnanchor">[33]</a></p>
+
+<p class="center">* &emsp; * &emsp; * &emsp; * &emsp; *</p>
+
+<p class="right r2">
+<span class="smcap">Hester Lucy Stanhope.</span></p>
+</div><!--end blockquote-->
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>At eleven at night I joined her at tea in her bed-room.
+She then asked me to read all the letters over,
+to see if anything wanted correction. After that,
+calling for her old parchment-covered blotting-book,
+she took them one by one, and folded them herself,
+“in order,” as she said, “to give me instructions on
+that head.” Generally speaking, she never seemed
+more happy than when she had a huge packet of
+despatches to put up: I dare say it reminded her of
+former times.</p>
+
+<p>She began—“Now, doctor, a letter to a great man
+should fold over exactly to the middle—thus. Lord!
+what counting-house paper have you got here?—this
+will never do” (it was the thin paper common in
+France as letter-paper). I told her it was the very
+best there was in the house, and added, to quiet her,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_271">271</span>
+that thick paper, when fumigated in quarantine, as
+this must be, generally seemed to me to suffer more
+than thin; which is the fact. “Humph—ah! well,
+it is too late now to alter it; so it must go as it is.”
+She then folded the cover with great exactitude;
+but, looking round her, she cried, “There, now,
+that black beast has not given me the seal!” (ding,
+ding). “Zezefôon, where’s the seal?” Zezefôon was
+the only servant who was permitted to touch the seal,
+and she always had orders to put it away carefully,
+so that the other maids should not know where it
+was, for fear they should lend it to some rascal, (like
+Girius Gemmel, she would say,) who would put her
+signature to some forged letter or paper: and Zezefôon,
+as is customary with uneducated persons, hid it
+very often so carefully that she could not find it herself.
+After turning books and papers upside down, at
+last she produced it.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst melting the wax in the candle, Lady
+Hester went on:—“Doctor, you never now can seal a
+letter decently: you once used to do it tolerably well,
+but now you have lost your memory and all your
+faculties, from talking nothing but rubbish and
+empty nonsense to those nasty women; and that’s
+the reason why you never listen to anything one
+says, and answer ‘yes,’ and ‘no,’ without knowing
+to what.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_272">272</span>
+I gave her the letters in succession to seal, until
+exhausted by the effort—for now the least thing was
+too much for her—she fell back in her bed. She
+roused herself again, and said, “Now let’s direct
+them: where is the one to the Queen? Write
+Victoria Regina—nothing else—in the middle ... that
+will do very well. Whose is that?—the
+Speaker’s: very well. I wonder if it <em>is</em> the brother
+I used to play driving horses with; for there were
+several brothers. Now, look for his address—James—ah!
+that’s him: direct ‘To the Right Hon.
+Speaker’ ... no, stop: put ‘To the Right Hon.
+James Abercrombie, with three et ceteras, Carlton
+Gardens.’”</p>
+
+<p>The next letter was the Duke of Wellington’s.
+Lady Hester said, “Let me see—he’s a field marshal—ah,
+never mind: you must begin—‘To His
+Grace the Duke of Wellington, K.G.’” I accordingly
+did so, and, not knowing how much more was coming
+to complete the superscription, I put it all, for fear of
+wanting room, into one line. Her eye was on me as
+I wrote. “What’s that?—show it me?” she cried out;
+and, taking the letter in her hands, she put on her
+spectacles. What an exclamation burst from her!
+“Good God, doctor! are you mad?—what can you
+mean?—what is this vulgar ignorance, not to know
+that ‘His Grace’ should be in one line, and ‘The
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_273">273</span>
+Duke of Wellington, K.G.’ in the other: what people
+will he fancy I am got among! why, the lowest clerk
+in the Foreign Office would not have made such a
+blunder: this is your fine Oxford education!” and
+then she gave a deep sigh, as if in utter despair, to
+think that a letter should go forth from her hands so
+different in paper, seal, and address, from those of
+her early days, when she reigned in Downing Street,
+co-equal with Mr. Pitt. Now it was a rickety old
+card-table, a rush-bottomed chair, a white pipe-clay
+inkstand, wax that would not be used in a counting-house
+in Cheapside; and both the Sultaness and her
+vizir (for so I shall presume to style her and myself),
+fitting their spectacles on their noses, equally blind,
+equally old, and almost equally ailing.</p>
+
+<p>I finished the address to the Duke. “How many
+et ceteras have you put?” asked Lady Hester:—“what!
+only two? I suppose you think he’s a
+nobody!” The remaining letters were directed without
+farther trouble, but, by some unaccountable
+blunder, Sir Edward Sugden was made a Sir Charles
+of. A long deliberation ensued, whether the letter to
+Her Majesty should be enclosed in a cover to Lord
+Palmerston, or whether it should be left to be seen by
+the English consul at Beyrout, to frighten him.</p>
+
+<p>It was now three o’clock in the morning. I quitted
+Lady Hester, and had Ali Hayshem, the confidential
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_274">274</span>
+messenger, called out of his bed. I repeated to him
+Lady Hester’s instructions as follows:—“You are to
+take this packet, and start at sunrise precisely—not
+before, and not after—and to take care you deliver
+the letters into <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys’s hands before sunset: for it
+is Friday, and Friday is an auspicious day. There
+are ten piasters for your two days’ keep, and let no
+one know where you are going, nor for what.”</p>
+
+<p>Ali was accustomed to this business—laid his hand
+on his head to signify that should answer for his
+fidelity—made a low salàam—went to the cook for his
+five bread-cakes—turned in again upon his libàd—pulled
+his counterpane over his body, face and all, and,
+I dare say, was punctual to his hour and his instructions.
+Men of this sort, who are generally chosen
+from the peasantry, are invaluable as foot-messengers.
+With a <i>naboot</i> or small bludgeon, well knobbed at
+one end, and with a few bread-cakes in their girdle,
+they will set off at any hour, in any weather, for any
+place, and go as quick as a horseman. They sleep
+anywhere and anyhow, and deliver their messages and
+letters with exceeding punctuality. Ali was a handsome
+fellow, the picture of health, fearless of danger,
+and a great favourite with Lady Hester, to whose service
+he was devoted; therefore, at every Byràm, Ali
+was sure to be seen in a new suit of clothes, the envy
+of the men, and the admiration of all the girls of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_275">275</span>
+Jôon: but he knew how to make a proper use of his
+money. Already he had begun to trade with some
+success in silk, advancing small sums in the winter to
+the poor women who breed silkworms, for which he
+received silk in payment: this he resold in the city;
+and those who may chance to meet with Ali ten years
+hence might find in him a warm tradesman, smoking
+his pipe in the midst of his obsequious dependants,
+and dignified with the title of Shaykh or Maalem.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_24" href="#FNanchor_24" class="label">[24]</a>
+ Lady Hester one day said, “I have a little angel under my command,
+the angel of my star—such a sweet little creature!—not like those
+ridiculous ones who are fiddling in Italian pictures. What fools
+painters are, to think angels are made so!”</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_25" href="#FNanchor_25" class="label">[25]</a>
+Mr. Joseph Green, lecturer on anatomy at the Royal Academy.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_26" href="#FNanchor_26" class="label">[26]</a>
+There is a passage in an interesting domestic tale recently
+published (<cite>The History of Margaret Catchpole</cite>, by the <abbr title="Reverend">Rev.</abbr> Mr.
+Cobbold), which has a strange coincidence with the superstitious belief
+of the Syrians, considering how widely the English are separated from
+them. It is as follows: “He told me he was the most venemous snake in
+the country. His bite is attended with swelling and blackness of the
+body, and, <em>when the sun goes down</em>, death ensues.”—<abbr title="Volume two, page">Vol. ii., p.</abbr>
+188.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_27" href="#FNanchor_27" class="label">[27]</a>
+I once showed Lady Hester Stanhope Raphael’s Madonna della
+Seggiola, to hear what she would say about it. “The face,” she
+observed, “is congruous in all the lineaments; they all belong to the
+same star; but I don’t like that style of face—that is not the star
+that pleases me;” and she returned me the engraving, with some signs
+of impatience. I imagined, as there was a maid in the room, that she
+did so, lest the girl should report that she adored the Virgin Mary. I
+then showed her a painting of the Nozze Aldobrandini. “Ah!” said she,
+after examining it, “that figure,” pointing to the one farthest on
+the spectator’s right hand, “is the star I like, only the eyes do not
+belong to that countenance: if the eyes were as they ought to be, that
+figure would be charming.” There was much truth in the observations she
+made on the blunders of artists and sculptors in giving incongruous
+features to their works. An ordinary observer has only to look at the
+statues of the ancients, and he will find that the forehead, nose,
+mouth, ears, and limbs of a Minerva, are such as he will see in grave
+and dignified women, totally different from the same features in a
+Diana or a Venus. Each temperament, each class of beings in nature, has
+its external marks, which never vary in character, but only in degree.
+But painters are accustomed to make a selection of what they suppose
+the most perfect Grecian lines, and to clap them on to a body, whether
+it be for a muse, an amazon, a nymph, or a courtezan: this is obviously
+false. “There are some women who are born courtezans,” Lady Hester
+would say, “and whatever their station in life is, they must be so.
+Thus, Lady —— was so by nature; from the time she first came out, she
+had the air of a woman of the town: Mademoiselle de ——, who married
+one of the ——, nothing could have ever altered her. There was a woman
+for great passions! it was almost indecent to be where she was.”</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_28" href="#FNanchor_28" class="label">[28]</a>
+This alludes to the childhood of Lady Hester Stanhope, when she
+had played at horses with Mr. Abercrombie.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_29" href="#FNanchor_29" class="label">[29]</a>
+Lady Hester one day showed me fourteen of these articles of
+ladies’ apparel, six or seven of which were in slits and holes, so that
+a maid-servant in England would not have accepted them as a gift: she
+said her maids had torn them by their rough handling in dressing her.
+I had them sent to my house, and they were all mended. She expressed
+herself as grateful for this little service to my daughter and the
+governess, as if she had been a pauper clothed at their door!</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_30" href="#FNanchor_30" class="label">[30]</a>
+I was once speaking of the great results which might be expected
+from Messrs. Beck and Moore’s successful investigation of the natural
+phenomena of the Dead Sea: but Lady Hester damped my admiration of
+those gentlemen’s hazardous undertaking, by exclaiming that all English
+travellers were a pack of fools, and that they entirely neglected the
+objects that ought to be inquired into. “There are none of them,” said
+she, “that know half as much as I do. I’ll venture to say they never
+heard of the forty doors, all opening by one key, in which are locked
+the forty wise men who expect the Murdah. Didn’t I tell you the story
+the other day?” I answered, if she had, I must have forgotten it,
+which was fortunate, as I was always reluctant to show my dissent from
+her opinions; having, by experience, learned how necessary it was to
+proceed cautiously in doing so. “Yes, so it is,” rejoined Lady Hester:
+“I talk for half a day to you, wasting my breath and lungs, and there
+you sit like a stock or a stone—no understanding, no conviction!”</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_31" href="#FNanchor_31" class="label">[31]</a>
+The korbàsh is a thong of the raw hide of the buffalo or
+rhinoceros, about the length of a hand-whip, and cut tapering in a
+similar form. In the hand of a powerful flagellant it becomes an
+instrument of great torture.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_32" href="#FNanchor_32" class="label">[32]</a>
+There is a strong resemblance between Lady Hester’s character of
+the Duke of Wellington and that of Frederick the Great of Prussia: for
+see what Lord Malmesbury says of the latter, in his <cite>Diaries and
+Correspondence</cite>, <abbr title="volume one, page">vol. i., p.</abbr> <span class="lock">8:—</span></p>
+
+<p class="footnote">“His <em>fort</em> is not so much his courage, nor what we generally
+understand by conduct; but it consists in a surprising discernment,
+in the day of battle, how to gain the most advantageous ground, where
+to place the proper sort of arms, whether horse or foot, and in the
+quickest <i lang="fr">coup d’œil</i> to distinguish the weak part of the enemy.”</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_33" href="#FNanchor_33" class="label">[33]</a>
+ Several lines are here wanting, owing to a half sheet of paper
+having been lost in the confusion created by fumigating papers in
+quarantine. They were highly complimentary to his grace, and their
+omission is to be regretted.
+
+</div><!--end footnotes-->
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_276">276</span>
+<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span> <abbr title="Nine"><span class="allsmcap">IX.</span></abbr></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="small short">Lady Hester in an alcove in her garden—Lucky days observed
+by her—Consuls’ rights—Mischief caused by Sir F. B.’s
+neglect in answering Lady Hester’s Letters—Rashes common
+in Syria—Visit of an unknown Englishman—Story of Hanah
+Messâad—Lady Hester’s love of truth—Report of her death—Michael
+Tutungi—Visit from the Chevalier Guys—His
+reception at Dayr el Mkhallas—Punishment of the shepherd,
+Câasem—Holyday of the Korbàn Byràm—Fatôon’s <i lang="fr">accouchement</i>—Lady
+Hester’s aversion to consular interference—Evenings
+at Jôon—Old Pierre—Saady.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2">Friday, February 16, 1838.—About two in the
+afternoon, on going to pay my visit to Lady Hester
+Stanhope, I proceeded to her bed-room, thinking, as
+usual, to find her there, but was told by her maids
+she was gone into the garden. The day was overcast,
+and there was every appearance of rain. I found her
+standing in one of the garden-walks, leaning on her
+stick (such as those which elderly ladies were accustomed
+formerly to use in England, and perhaps may
+now), and pale as a ghost. “Doctor,” said she, “I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_277">277</span>
+have got out of my room that those beasts may clean
+it? but, if you don’t go to them, they’ll steal everything.”
+After expressing my fears that she had
+chosen a bad day to come out, I left her. I saw her
+room put into as much order as the confusion in it
+would admit of. It was crowded with bundles one
+upon another, as before, which she dared not put into
+any other part of the house, lest they should be
+stolen.</p>
+
+<p>Independent of her desire to be more clean and
+comfortable, I guessed at once why she had left her
+bed-room to go into the garden. It was the struggle
+which the sick often make—the resolution of an unsubdued
+spirit, that finds corporeal ailments weighing
+down the body, whilst the mind is yet unsubdued. It
+was Friday too, the day in all the week she held as
+most auspicious.</p>
+
+<p>When I returned into the garden, I found her
+lying on a sofa, in a beautiful alcove, one of three or
+four that embellished her garden, and an attendant
+standing with his hands folded across his breast, in an
+attitude of respect before her. At these moments, she
+always wore the air of a Sultaness. In this very
+alcove, how often had she acted the queen, issued her
+orders, summoned delinquents before her, and enjoyed
+the semblance of that absolute power, which was
+the latent ambition of her heart! Hence it was that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_278">278</span>
+she at last got rid of all European servants, because
+they would not submit to arbitrary punishments, but
+would persist in raising their voices in self-justification.
+With the Turks it was not so. Accustomed, in the
+courts of governors and Pashas, to implicit obedience
+and submission, they resigned themselves to her rule
+as a matter of course. In transferring, however, their
+servility to her, as their mistress, they also transferred
+the vices and dangers which servility engenders:
+namely, lying, theft, sycophancy, intrigue, and
+treachery.</p>
+
+<p>Saturday, February 17.—During the whole of this
+day I did not see Lady Hester, and I was not sorry
+for it. Her thoughts were now constantly running
+on the inexplicable silence of Sir Francis Burdett.
+“He is a man of honour,” she would say. “I suppose
+he has to write to Ireland, and to the right and
+left about my property; or perhaps they have got
+hold of him, too;—who knows? I am sure something
+must have happened.” As each succeeding steamboat
+arrived, a messenger was sent to Beyrout, but
+still no answer. Then she reflected what she should do,
+if Sir Francis at last should furnish her with proofs
+that no property had been left her:—beggary stared
+her in the face. In the mean time she had no means
+of raising a single farthing before the first of March,
+when she could draw for £300. But of this sum £200
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_279">279</span>
+were due to Mr. Dromacaiti, a Greek merchant at
+Beyrout, who had lent her money at an exorbitant
+interest, but on her word, and this, therefore, she
+would pay, I knew, if possible. During all this time,
+my family remained in almost total ignorance of what
+was going on within Lady Hester’s walls as much as
+if they had been living in China. I was also, as I
+have said above, obliged to conceal, in a great measure,
+her illness from them. They rode and walked out on
+the mountains, fed their bulbuls, enjoyed the fine climate,
+and wondered what made me look so thin and
+careworn: for thought and care preyed on my spirits,
+and I wasted away almost as perceptibly as Lady
+Hester herself.</p>
+
+<p>Sunday, February 18.—To-day Lady Hester was
+sitting up in the corner of her bed-room. Her look
+was deadly pale, and her head was wrapped up in
+flannels, just like her grandfather the last day he appeared
+in the House of Lords. Without intending it,
+everything she did bore a resemblance to that great
+man.</p>
+
+<p>Ali had returned from Beyrout without a letter.
+“Did Ali Hayshem,” she asked me, “set off at sunrise
+on Friday? I am glad he did. Do you know, I
+once sent Butrus to Beyrout to fetch money; and I
+said to him, ‘If you get in on Monday night, don’t
+come away on Tuesday or Wednesday; for those are
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_280">280</span>
+unlucky days; loiter away those two days, and be
+here on Thursday night. However, he paid no attention
+to my instructions, and on Wednesday evening
+he made his appearance. ‘Why did you come before
+Thursday?’ I asked him. He answered, ‘That the
+bag of money having been delivered to him, he had
+brought it immediately, and you see, Mylady, here it
+is: nobody, thank God! has robbed me.’—‘That
+does not signify,’ I told him; ‘you will see there is
+no <i>bereky</i> [blessing] in it.’ Do you know, doctor, I
+paid the people’s wages immediately, and it was well
+I did; for some ten or twelve thousand piasters, chest
+and all, disappeared the next day. ‘There, look!’
+said I to him; ‘I told you that money never would
+turn to account.’”</p>
+
+<p>The conversation reverted to Colonel Campbell’s
+letter. “I have told the secretary,” said she, “to tell
+his father, that, if he dares make his appearance here
+again, I’ll send a bullet through his body. Not one
+of them shall lay their vile hands on me or mine. I
+have strength enough to strangle him, and I would
+do it, though it should cost me my life. As for Mr.
+Moore, he may perhaps have a <i lang="la">habeas corpus</i> by him;
+but it is good for twenty-four hours only, and I should
+know how to manage. Consuls have no right over
+nobility; they may have over merchants, and such
+people: but they never shall come near me, and I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_281">281</span>
+would shoot the first that dared to do it. The English
+are a set of intermeddling, nasty, vulgar, odious
+people, and I hate them all. The very Turks laugh
+at them. Out of ridicule, they told one, if he was so
+clever, to straiten a dog’s tail. Yes, he might straiten
+and straiten, but it would soon bend again; and they
+may bend me and bend me, if they can, but I fancy
+they will find it a difficult matter: for you may tell
+them that, when I have made up my mind to a thing,
+no earthly being can alter my determination. If they
+want a devil, let them try me, and they shall have
+enough of it.</p>
+
+<p>“When the steamboat came, and brought no letter
+to-day from Sir Francis Burdett, you thought I
+should be ill on receiving the news: but I am not a
+fool. I suppose he is occupied with his daughter’s
+legacy, or with parliamentary business.”</p>
+
+<p>I had received a letter from a lady, which I had
+occasion to read to her. When I had done, and
+she had expressed her thanks for the flower-seeds sent
+her, she added, “What I do not like in Mrs. U.’s
+letter is that foolish way of making a preamble about
+her not liking to leave so much white paper in all its
+purity, and all those turns and phrases which people
+use. That was very well for a Swift or a Pope, who,
+having promised to write to somebody once a fortnight,
+and having nothing to say, made a great number
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_282">282</span>
+of points to fill up the paper; but a letter that
+has matter in it should be written with a distinct
+narration of the business, and that’s all. Do you
+think such people as Mr. Pitt or Lord Chatham, my
+grandfather, liked those nonsensical phrases? No,
+they threw the letter aside, or else cast their eyes over
+it to see if, on the other page, there was anything to
+answer about.”</p>
+
+<p>February 19.—I was riding this morning with my
+family beyond the village, which is separated by a deep
+valley from Lady Hester’s residence, when I saw two
+servants on the verge of the opposite hill, vociferating—“Come
+directly, come instantly!” and waving their
+white turbans. I reflected that, if I put my horse into
+a gallop, the people of the village would immediately
+conclude that Lady Hester was dying; and the news
+(as news always gains by distance) would be the next
+day at Sayda that she was dead: I therefore continued
+the same pace; and, although the servants redoubled
+their signs and cries, I steadily retraced my steps.
+When I had dismounted, I was told her ladyship was
+in a deplorable way, unlike any thing they had ever seen.
+I hurried to her bed-room. She was sitting on the
+side of her bed, weeping and uttering those extraordinary
+cries, which I have before compared to something
+hardly human. She clasped her hands and
+exclaimed repeatedly, “Oh God! oh, God! what
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_283">283</span>
+misery! what misery!” When she was a little
+calmed, and I could collect from her what was the
+matter, she told me that, having fallen into a doze,
+she awoke with a sense of suffocation from tightness
+across her chest, and, being unable to ring or call, she
+thought she should have died: “thus,” said she, “am
+I treated like a dog, with nobody to administer to my
+wants;” and so she went on in the usual strain. I
+was suffering at this time from the nettlerash, but
+treated it lightly, and thought Lady Hester would do
+so too: until, having unluckily alluded to it, a fresh
+source of uneasiness was inadvertently started. “Good
+God, doctor!” she cried, “to come out of doors with
+a nettlerash on you! go to your house immediately;
+get to bed, keep yourself warm, and remain there
+until it is cured. After four or five days, take such
+and such things; then go to the bath, then take some
+bark, &amp;c., &amp;c. How many persons have I known go
+mad and die from it! You treat it as nothing? why,
+you will drive me crazy. In God’s name, never mind
+<em>me</em>; only go and take care of yourself. You will act in
+your own usual inconsiderate manner, and I shall have
+to bury another in this house. Oh, God! oh, God!
+what am I doomed to!” and then followed fresh cries
+and fresh lamentations.</p>
+
+<p>Could Sir Francis Burdett have seen all this, and
+have known that five words of a letter, sent a month
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_284">284</span>
+or two sooner, in answer to her inquiries about the property
+she thought was left her, would have probably
+saved all this excitement, he would have found reason
+to reproach himself for his long silence. I knew the
+workings of her mind full well, and that her proud
+spirit, wounded by the general neglect she met with,
+vented itself in tears, seemingly, for other causes than
+the real ones. I recollected a succession of similar
+scenes about twenty years before at Mar Elias, when
+she was expecting letters from the Duke of Buckingham;
+but then she was sounder in bodily health, and
+could better bear such convulsive paroxysms of grief:
+now, she was labouring under pulmonary disease, was
+old, was in distress, and the consequences might prove
+fatal.</p>
+
+<p>I left her before dinner. “Good by, doctor!” she
+said, in a kind tone: “I cannot tell you how much I
+am obliged to you for everything you do for me; and
+send me a servant twice a day to let me know how you
+are. I shall be uneasy about you: I can’t help it:
+from my childhood I have been so. How many times
+in my life have I spent days and days in trying to
+make others comfortable! I have been the slave of
+others, and never got any thanks for it.”</p>
+
+<p>I went to my house, collected all the money that
+remained, which was about eleven pounds, and sent it
+to her to meet the current expenses of the household:
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_285">285</span>
+for so she wished, that I might not be annoyed, she
+said, and have the rash driven in on my brain.</p>
+
+<p>I experienced no ill effects from the nettlerash. Few
+persons, new to the climate of Syria, escape a rash of
+some description, sometimes pustular, sometimes
+miliary, but most frequently in the form called prickly
+heat, which generally attacks them in summer or
+autumn, and is truly distressing by the pricking sensation
+it produces on the skin, as if thousands of needle-points
+were penetrating the cuticle. Little is required
+in such cases but cool diet, fruit, and diluents. I
+performed my quarantine of four days, in compliance
+with Lady Hester’s wishes, and then returned to my
+customary mode of life.</p>
+
+<p>Saturday, February 24.—As I had anticipated, a
+report had become very general in Beyrout and in the
+Mountain that Lady Hester was dead, and I received
+a letter from <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys acquainting me with it. This
+report was confirmed by an English gentleman, who
+presented himself at my gate this day after breakfast.
+I was carpentering at the time, and went down the
+yard to him with my hatchet and chisel in my hand.
+He seemed not to know what to make of me, dressed
+as I was in Turkish clothes, with a beard, and with
+my sleeves turned up like a mechanic. He held out a
+letter to me, addressed in a fair hand to Lady Hester:
+I told him this was not her gate, and that a little
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_286">286</span>
+beyond he would find it. He said he had heard she
+was dead: I assured him that was not the case, but
+that she was greatly indisposed. I regretted to myself
+that I could not ask him in, or enter into conversation
+with him; but Lady Hester had exacted from me a
+solemn promise that I never would hold any parley
+with English travellers, until I had first conferred
+with her on the subject, and had described them, so
+that she might obtain the necessary indications to
+enable her to guess what their business was, or until
+she had read their letter of introduction, if they bore
+one. So he quitted me, first asking whether I was an
+Englishman; to which I answered that I left him to
+judge. He appeared to be about twenty-one years of
+age: he had with him for his servant a Ragusan,
+whom my servant knew, and who, he assured me, was
+a drunken reprobate. Short as the stop at the gate
+was, the Ragusan found time to tell the other that he
+had famous wages: I think it was eight dollars a
+month. Now I gave mine, who was also a European,
+four, which was considered good pay, the rate being,
+in Lady Hester’s house, from one to three. Europeans,
+however, always get more than people of the
+country, and have more wants to satisfy. How many
+travellers are obliged, on their landing in these countries,
+to take fellows into their service without a
+character, outcasts of society, and who in England
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_287">287</span>
+would hardly be allowed to see the outside of a
+gaol!</p>
+
+<p>Of this English gentleman Lady Hester never spoke
+to me, nor did she ever even allude to his visit: he
+did not see her, and, I presume, continued his road;
+but, if these pages ever meet his eye, he may be
+assured that he would have met with a hospitable
+reception, had she been well enough to receive him, or
+had I been at liberty to entertain him.</p>
+
+<p>Whilst at dinner, a servant came to say Lady
+Hester would be glad to see me in the evening. I
+found her weak and wan: her cheeks were sunken,
+and her voice was less distinct than usual; for never
+was there a person who spoke generally with so clear
+an enunciation. Logmagi was with her. Instead of
+receiving her welcome, and those obliging expressions
+which she usually employed even after the most
+trifling ailment, she addressed me harshly, and seemed
+to take pains to mortify me by using slighting expressions
+in Arabic that Logmagi might understand what
+she said. The theme of her conversation was the debasement
+of men who suffered themselves to be controlled
+by their wives. Although to mortify people
+was one of her constant practices through life, whether
+in action, correspondence, or conversation, yet it never
+was done to gratify any malignant feelings of her own,
+but from a fearless disregard of the conventional rules
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_288">288</span>
+of civilized society, where she hoped to rescue an individual
+from debasement, or counteract the machinations
+of designing and wicked men. On this principle it is
+true, likewise, that she would deliberately inflict those
+incurable insults which cover a man with a sort of
+shame for life; as may be shown, for example, by the
+case of Mr. Hanah Messâad, the son of the British
+agent at Beyrout, one of whose whiskers and eyebrows
+was shaved off before the whole village, for having
+made an assertion then supposed to be false, but which
+was afterwards, by her own confession to me, admitted
+to be true.</p>
+
+<p>Hanah, or John Messâad, a handsome young man,
+a native of Beyrout, and the son of a former English
+vice-consul, was interpreter and secretary to Lady
+Hester for some time, and her ladyship has since bestowed
+great praise, in my presence, on his capacity,
+usefulness, and knowledge of languages. There was
+in her service also Michael Tutungi, son of an Armenian,
+who had been under-dragoman, as I understood,
+to the English embassy at Constantinople. Messâad,
+it was thought, was jealous of Michael.</p>
+
+<p>It was reported in the family that Michael had
+been seen under a tree in very close conversation with
+a peasant girl, and the report was traced to Messâad.
+Now, the Emir Beshýr affected, or really felt, a great
+horror of all licentiousness, and never failed to bastinado
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_289">289</span>
+severely every man detected, in his principality,
+in any such conduct. Lady Hester knew what imputations
+might be cast on her establishment, if such
+things were left unnoticed; and, fearing that Messâad’s
+intrigues (of which she thought this report but
+a link) might injure Michael’s character, and destroy
+his prospects of getting a place in the English embassy
+at Constantinople, to which he had some pretensions
+from his father’s services, she resolved to save him by
+making a signal example of Messâad.</p>
+
+<p>She, therefore, ordered all the villagers from Jôon
+to be assembled on the green in front of her house,
+and sent for Mustafa, the barber, from Sayda, with
+two or three other tradesmen to be witnesses. Seating
+herself on a temporary divan, with all the assembly in
+a circle around her, not a soul dreaming what was
+going to take place, and Michael and Messâad standing
+in respectful attitudes, with their arms crossed,
+and covered, down to the fingers’ ends,<a id="FNanchor_34" href="#Footnote_34" class="fnanchor">[34]</a> with their
+benyshes, by her side, she began: “That young
+man,” said she, pointing to Michael, “is accused of
+irregularities with” (here she mentioned the girl’s
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_290">290</span>
+name, and the place and time of the meeting). “Now,
+if any one of you knows him to have been guilty of
+similar actions, or if, from his general conduct, under
+similar circumstances, any one of you thinks the thing
+probable, speak out, for I wish to do justice. Messâad
+is his accuser: they are both my people, and
+equally entitled to impartiality.” As nobody answered,
+she appealed to them all again, and all replied
+they did not believe it.</p>
+
+<p>She then turned to Messâad, and said: “Sir, you
+have accused this young man, who is about to be
+launched into the world, and has only his good name
+to help him on, of abominable things: where are your
+witnesses?” Messâad, frightened out of his senses,
+replied, “that he had no witnesses; that he had seen,
+with his own eyes, what he had asserted, and, therefore,
+knew it to be so: but, as he was alone, it must
+rest on his own word.” Her ladyship told him his
+word would not do against the concurring testimony
+of all the servants, and of a whole village; and she
+added, in a judge-like tone, “As your mouth and
+your eye have offended, the stigma shall remain on
+them. Servants, seize and hold him; and, barber,
+shave off one side of his mustachios and one eyebrow.”</p>
+
+<p>This was done. Michael was kept about a month
+or two, in order that the protection he enjoyed might
+seal his unblemished reputation, and then was packed
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_291">291</span>
+off to Constantinople. “Thus,” said Lady Hester,
+“I saved a young man from destruction. Messâad
+has now a good place under the Sardinian consul at
+Beyrout; his eyebrows and mustachios are grown
+again; he has married, and has a family; and I dare
+say the Sardinian consul, if he knows anything of the
+story, thinks not a bit the worse of him.”</p>
+
+<p>The above are the words in which Lady Hester, on
+the 20th of January, 1831, related this singular
+punishment, inflicted with the best intentions on poor
+Messâad. One evening, in 1837, when writing a
+letter to the same Messâad, for certain commissions
+which he had to execute for her ladyship, who was in the
+habit of employing him to buy pipes, cloth, and sundry
+other articles found in the shops at Beyrout, she spoke
+to me as follows. “You know, doctor, all that affair
+about Michael and Messâad, and how I had one side
+of his face shaved. Well, I found out afterwards
+that what Messâad had said was every bit of it true.
+I have made it up to him since as well as I could:
+he does not want abilities, and kept my house in excellent
+order whilst he was with me.”</p>
+
+<p>But this was not the first time Lady Hester had
+resorted to this singular mode of punishment; some
+years before, a chastisement for similar frailties, not
+unlike that which Messâad underwent, as far as regarded
+the eyebrows, fell to the lot of a peasant girl
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_292">292</span>
+in her ladyship’s service at a village called Mushmôoshy.
+This was in the year 1813. How fallible
+are the most clearsighted persons is the only comment
+which can be made on such unintentional errors!</p>
+
+<p>For those who were not exempt from the common
+weaknesses of our nature she was a dangerous person
+to hold intercourse with. “Live at a distance from
+my lady,” General Loustaunau used to say to
+Mrs. M. (when she wanted to remove from Mar
+Elias to Dar Jôon, in order to be near me); “live
+at a distance, or you will find, to your cost, that
+her neighbourhood is a hell.” But be it said, to her
+honour, that it was from an unfeigned horror of everything
+mean, dishonest, or vicious, she so resolutely
+refused to keep terms with people who suffered themselves
+to be led into the commission of such acts; and
+her indignation descended with equal impartiality on
+friends and foes when they happened to deserve it.
+Her disposition to utter the truth, whether painful or
+disagreeable, overruled all other considerations.</p>
+
+<p>Few people conversed with her, or received a letter
+from her, without being sensible of some expression or
+innuendo, which they were obliged to treat as a joke
+at the moment, but which was sure to leave its sting
+behind. Of upwards of a hundred letters which I
+have penned for her at her dictation to correspondents
+of every rank in life, there were few which did not
+contain some touch of merited sarcasm or reproof;
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_293">293</span>
+except those which were expressly written to alleviate
+distress, or encourage the hopeful efforts of modest
+worth. Never was there so inflexible a judge, or one
+who would do what she thought right, come what
+would of it. <i lang="la">Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum</i>, might have
+been written on her escutcheon.</p>
+
+<p>Sunday, February 25.—Having recovered her tranquillity,
+she was to-day all kindness. I mentioned to
+her the report rife in Beyrout respecting her death,
+as <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys had written it. She observed on it, “If
+I do die, those consuls, thank God, can have nothing
+to do with me! I am no English subject, and they
+have no right to seal up my effects. Why do I keep
+some of my servants, although I know them to be
+desperate rascals, but because they have one or two
+qualities useful to me? It would not do for every one
+to run the risk, but it will for me, who know how to
+manage them. For example: I have got two that I
+can depend upon for shooting a man, or giving a
+consul a good blow, if he dares to set his foot within
+my doors, so as to prevent his ever coming again;
+and such are what I want just now.”</p>
+
+<p>She turned over in her mind how she could raise
+a little money, and bethought herself of Mr. Michael
+Tutungi, the Armenian, of Constantinople, who had
+formerly served her in the capacity of dragoman. To
+him she had written in 1836, offering him the same
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_294">294</span>
+situation he had held before, and, on his promise to
+come, had forwarded to him 500 dollars for the expenses
+of his journey and for some commissions: but
+he subsequently declined the engagement, neither had
+he executed the commissions. She therefore desired
+me to draw a bill on him, payable to <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys’s order,
+and to request <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys to discount it; for, during
+my nettlerash, Lady Hester had given away the
+greatest part of the 1,190 piasters to a family ruined
+by the earthquake. It was in vain to represent to
+her that she was in want of the money herself: “I
+can’t help it,” she would say; “I am not mistress of
+myself on such occasions.”</p>
+
+<p>Tuesday, February 27.—Lady Hester got up, went
+into her garden, and felt better. She had at last
+found out that repletion, arising even from what would
+be called small quantities of food and drink in health,
+was very injurious in sickness; and she had grown
+more moderate in her diet, not swallowing one liquid
+upon another, nor eating four or five times a day.
+Honey and butter mixed was now what she derived
+most benefit from, and spermaceti linctuses. The
+moment she found anything soothed her cough, she
+immediately sent off an order to Beyrout for an immense
+quantity of it, or to Europe, if at Beyrout it
+was not to be had: she was never satisfied that her
+medicine-chest was full enough. It will hardly be
+credited that of Epsom salts she had a cask full, of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_295">295</span>
+the size of a firkin. She masticated aniseeds as a
+remedy against dyspepsia, and smoked them sprinkled
+on the tobacco of her pipe: of course, they were very
+injurious to her, but it was idle to remonstrate.</p>
+
+<p>February 29.—Lady Hester’s first topic of conversation
+to-day was her maids. “What a <i>hywán</i>
+[beast] is that <i>Sâady</i>!” she said: “when she awakes
+in the morning, she crawls on all-fours exactly like an
+animal. I am convinced she is nothing more: her
+back is only fit to carry a pair of panniers.” I agreed
+with her ladyship, and told her what I had seen her
+do the day before. With one springing lift she raised
+from the floor to her head a circular <i>mankàl</i> or chafingdish,
+two feet in diameter, and piled up with live
+coals—and, without holding it, but merely balancing
+it on her head, she stooped perpendicularly, and
+seized with her two hands another mankàl of baked
+earth of equal size, filled with live coals also, and,
+lifting it, carried them both at once into the drawing-room
+to warm the apartment. These are the feats of
+dexterity and strength in which Syrian women excel,
+and in which they far surpass all European maids.</p>
+
+<p>March 1.—Monsieur Henry Guys, the French
+consul, having been advanced to the superior situation
+of Aleppo, and being about to quit our part of the
+country, arrived unexpectedly at Jôon to take his
+leave. It was Tuesday, and just after sunset, when
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_296">296</span>
+he entered the gate. Lady Hester had, about a
+quarter of an hour before, hurried me away from
+her, as the sun was going to set, and it would have
+been unlucky, had I left her a minute after the sun
+was down. “I shall not see you to-morrow,” said
+she, “as it will be Wednesday:” therefore, when she
+was told that Monsieur Guys was come, it discomposed
+her very much, and she sent word that, whatever
+his business was, she could not see him until
+after sunset next day.</p>
+
+<p>As <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys was thus transferred to me for twenty-four
+hours, I took the opportunity of letting him
+know how disquieted I felt at having such great
+responsibility on my shoulders, whilst Lady Hester
+was so ill, and surrounded by a set of servants whom
+I considered as so many cut-throats.</p>
+
+<p>My position was extremely uncomfortable. Should
+Lady Hester die, I foresaw that I should be exposed,
+alone as I was, to many difficulties and dangers. The
+Druze insurrection afforded every facility to an
+assassin or robber for putting himself beyond the
+reach of justice: since, in about five or six hours, he
+could find a sure refuge from capture. He revived
+my spirits by assuring me I need be under no alarm.
+“All of them are known,” said he, “and have their
+families and relations hereabouts: that one circumstance
+must always be a check upon them. If they
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_297">297</span>
+were not natives of the province, then I should say
+you were not safe among them. As for Lady Hester,
+you know her determined character—if she is resolved
+to keep them, you cannot help it. There is one,”
+added he, “whom I could wish not to be here; I
+thought him gone a year ago:” this was the one whom
+Lady Hester relied on for sending a bullet through
+the consul’s body.</p>
+
+<p>There is a large stone edifice of great extent, distant
+about three-quarters of a mile, as the crow flies, from
+the village of Jôon, more like a fortress than the
+peaceable habitation of cenobites. It is the monastery
+of <i>Dayr el Mkhallas</i>, or the Saviour, and contains about
+fifty friars of the Greek Catholic church, which repudiates
+the pope, recognizing as its spiritual head its
+own patriarch. <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys enjoyed the unlimited confidence
+of these people as the well-tried and efficient
+friend of the Catholic church throughout Syria; and it
+was no sooner known that he was in the neighbourhood,
+than the superior of the monastery gave him to
+understand that a visit from him would be received as
+a great honour by the monks. <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys devoted the
+morning to this gratifying object, and his reception
+was in the highest degree flattering. When he arrived
+at the foot of the Mount, on the summit of which the
+monastery stands, he was saluted by a merry chime of
+church-bells, and then the whole body of the friars,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_298">298</span>
+with the cross borne before them, came out in procession
+to meet him. The greatest ceremony was observed
+on the occasion, and sherbet, coffee, pipes,
+aspersion of rose-water, and homage, were lavished on
+him, not less in the hope of securing a continuation of
+his good offices, than as expressive of gratitude for
+past kindnesses: for no man holding official rank in
+Syria has ever enjoyed more popularity, or obtained
+more general consideration, than the Chevalier Guys.
+Descended from an ancient family of Provence, in
+which the consular rank may be almost said to have
+become hereditary, the Levant saw, at the beginning
+of the present century, the rare occurrence of three
+brothers holding consulships at the same time.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner, <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Guys was summoned by Lady
+Hester Stanhope, and I availed myself of the opportunity
+it afforded me of remaining at home for the
+evening. The next morning he departed before I was
+up; but, being anxious to ascertain his opinions of
+Lady Hester’s situation, I mounted my horse, and,
+by taking a short but somewhat dangerous path down
+the mountains, I overtook him. Nothing particular,
+however, had transpired in their conversation, which
+lasted for four hours; but he told me that he was
+shocked to find her so much altered, and that he had
+never heard such a hollow sepulchral cough. He
+added that, frequently during the time he was with
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_299">299</span>
+her, she fell back on the sofa from exhaustion. She
+spoke, too, a good deal, and in rather an odd way, of
+extraordinary sights she had seen, of two apparitions
+that had appeared to her, and of serpents near Tarsûs,
+which go in troops devouring all before them, and with
+a tone of conviction as if she believed it all. “What
+does it mean,” he asked me—“and why do you let
+her smoke so much?”</p>
+
+<p>March 2.—Lady Hester was now getting better
+slowly, but, as usual, her strength no sooner began to
+return than it brought out all the unmanageable points
+of her character in full relief. Something happened
+in the house which ruffled her, and produced a discussion
+between us, I hardly know how; but it ended by
+her calling me a crabbed old fool: upon which I observed,
+that I never heard such expressions from the
+lips of ladies before. This set her off upon her inexhaustible
+theme of fearless speaking. “If you were a
+duke,” said she, “I would use exactly the same expressions.”—“Your
+ladyship’s talents,” I ventured
+to observe again, “are inexpressibly great, but, without
+questioning that, I only lament the intemperate
+use of them.” Taking up this observation, she dwelt
+at great length upon the “sweetness of her temper,”
+and I made my peace at last, by saying that a physician
+should be the last person to complain of the
+irritability of his patients. Apophthegms of this
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_300">300</span>
+submissive character were never lost upon her, provided
+they were true, as well as apologetic; so pipes
+were ordered, and we entered into an armistice for the
+rest of the evening.</p>
+
+<p>A curious but characteristic incident occurred about
+this time. In the ravines of the mountains, where the
+few living creatures that are to be found may be supposed
+to be drawn into closer communion by a common
+sense of loneliness, a shepherd named Câasem, who
+was nearly fifty years old, formed a <i lang="fr">liaison</i> with a
+village girl, whose occupation consisted in leading a
+cow about in the solitary green nooks where any scanty
+herbage was to be secured. The circumstance reached
+Lady Hester’s ears before it was known to anybody
+else, and she immediately ordered the man to be flogged
+at break of day, with instructions that nobody should
+tell him why or wherefore. “He will know what it
+is for,” she exclaimed; then turning reproachfully to
+Logmagi, to whom the execution of the order was
+entrusted, she added:—“How is it you leave me to
+be the first to discover these disgraceful acts, giving
+the Emir Beshýr an excuse to say that I encourage
+depravity in my servants, when it is your duty to
+know everything that passes about my premises?”
+Logmagi went, gave the shepherd a beating, and sent
+him about his business. Lady Hester used to justify
+severities of this description on the ground that it prevented
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_301">301</span>
+the recurrence of similar licentiousness, and
+“kept the fellows in order.”</p>
+
+<p>March 5.—This being the vigil of the <i>Korbàn
+Byràm</i>, or the Mahometan Easter, which is their
+great holyday, Lady Hester, who had previously given
+her orders to a person who had some reputation as a
+pastrycook, despatched at twelve at night three servants,
+each with a <i>sennýah</i>, or round tray, on which
+they were to bring back from Sayda by daylight the
+<i>baklâawy</i>, <i>mamool</i>, and <i>karýby</i>, three delicious sorts of
+sweet cakes, which are scarcely exceeded in delicacy
+by the choicest pastry of Europe.</p>
+
+<p>At noon, the servants, dressed in all their new
+finery, sat down to a copious dinner composed of the
+most luxurious Eastern dishes. But there was no
+wine; for, whatever transgressions these people may
+commit in that way in private, they never touch wine
+in public. Logmagi and some others were known not
+to be much troubled with such scruples, when they
+could indulge themselves in secret: but Logmagi
+always excused himself on the score of being a Freemason,
+which is held in Turkey to be equivalent to a
+jovial fellow who does not care much what he does.
+The women, also, had their own feast, and a piece of
+gold the value of twenty piasters was presented to each
+of the servants. The day was literally abandoned to
+pleasure; but what a contrast do the sober manners of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_302">302</span>
+Mahometans form to those of Europeans? Gambling
+and noisy revels are out of the question in the tranquil
+and easy delights in this simple race. Dancing is
+generally confined to the boys, or to some buffoon who
+gets up and wriggles about to the music of a small
+tambourine, beaten with a single stick and producing
+a dull sound, which they consider musical, and which
+habit renders not disagreeable even to European ears.
+Every man smokes his pipe; and a good story-teller
+(for such a one is rarely wanting in a party of a dozen,)
+relates some traditionary tale, which absorbs for the
+time all the faculties of his hearers. The cook was
+one of this sort, a Christian of the village of Abra, a
+shrewd fellow, who went by the name of <i>Dyk</i>, or the
+Cock, from his rather strutting air, or from the vigorous
+exercise of his authority over his wife, whom
+he beat every now and then to keep her in proper discipline—a
+redeeming quality in the eyes of Lady
+Hester, who otherwise would have dismissed him from
+her service.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester’s astrological powers were put to a
+practical test to-day. Fatôom, one of her maid servants,
+whose name has frequently occurred in these
+pages, required my medical services, under the following
+circumstances. About six years before, having, in
+league with Zeyneb, a black girl, and some men of the
+village, robbed her mistress of several valuable effects,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_303">303</span>
+she was turned away: but, upon exhibiting great
+repentance, she was taken back again. Lady Hester
+found no difficulty, as may be supposed, in extracting
+from her a confession of the system of plunder that
+had been carried on, and the names of her accomplices.
+“I could hang them all,” was her constant expression
+in speaking of them. Fatôom had been in her ladyship’s
+service ten or eleven years, and was not yet
+twenty; and, being very pretty, and decked out in the
+finery to which she was enabled to help herself by her
+share of the plunder, she had vanity enough, when she
+was turned away, to hope that she should get at least
+an aga for a husband: but she was disappointed, and
+was obliged to put up with a small farmer. She consequently
+came back a married woman, in poor plight
+as to circumstances, with the prospect of having her
+difficulties aggravated by a speedy increase to her
+cares. On this day, 5th March, Fatôom complained
+of pains. There was not a moment to be lost: the
+midwife was instantly sent for; Fatôom was hurried
+away to her mother’s in the village, and, before the
+expiration of a quarter of an hour, she gave birth to a
+boy.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as Lady Hester learned the result, she
+requested me to go and see her. I found Fatôom
+sitting on a mattress on the floor (for nobody in the
+East has a bedstead) with from fifteen to twenty
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_304">304</span>
+women squatted around her, the midwife supporting
+her back, and the child lying by her, covered with a
+corner of the quilt. Fatôom, very yellow, looked as
+if she had been in a great fright, and was astonished
+there was so little in it. After feeling her pulse, and
+delivering to her mother a basket of good things, such
+as lump sugar, six or eight sorts of spices, &amp;c., with
+which it is customary to make the caudle upon these
+occasions, as also a new counterpane, and two silk
+pillows, for her lying-in present, I took a glance at
+the village gossips. There they were, holding forth
+much in the same way as the peasantry in other
+countries, with this difference, that here my presence
+was no restraint, and the minutest details of the recent
+event were discussed with as little reserve as if they
+had been talking of the ordinary incidents of the day.</p>
+
+<p>Having returned to Lady Hester with an account
+of what I had seen, she immediately set about casting
+the infant’s nativity, first ascertaining accurately the
+hour at which he was born—a quarter before two.
+“He will have,” said she, “arched eyebrows, rolling
+eyes, and a nose so and so: he will be a devil, violent
+in his passions, but soon pacified: his fingers will be
+long and taper, without being skinny and bony:” and
+thus she went on, in a manner so impressed with
+faith and earnestness, that it is not to be wondered at
+how persons of good judgment have lent their ears to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_305">305</span>
+astrologers, where the study has been fortified by a
+previous knowledge of man, his temperaments, and
+the innate and external characteristics of passions, of
+virtue, and of vice. She gave him the name of Selim,
+and sent word to say his star agreed with hers very
+well. This was good news for Fatôom, as it was equivalent
+to Lady Hester’s taking charge of the infant.</p>
+
+<p>The cradle had already been prepared: it was of
+wood, painted green, something like a trough, and
+perforated at the bottom, as is usual in the East. A
+tube of wood with a bowl to it, exactly of the form of a
+tobacco-pipe, is tied to the child’s waist, a rude but
+ingenious contrivance to save trouble to the nurse, the
+bowl serving as the immediate recipient, and the tube
+passing through the side of the cradle.<a id="FNanchor_35" href="#Footnote_35" class="fnanchor">[35]</a></p>
+
+<p>March 7.—This being Wednesday, Lady Hester,
+as usual, was invisible. What she did on these mysterious
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_306">306</span>
+days I never heard: for a person once away from
+her might as well divine how the man in the moon
+was employed as guess how she was passing her time.</p>
+
+<p>Thursday, March 8.—I saw Lady Hester about
+four o’clock: she was in a very irritable state: she
+complained bitterly, as usual, of her servants—of their
+neglect, ignorance, and heartlessness: she said she
+would rather be surrounded by robbers; for there is
+some principle amongst thieves. “Oh!” she exclaimed,
+“that I could find one human being who knew his
+Creator!”</p>
+
+<p>She went on:—“I have had a very bad night, and
+whether I shall live or die, I don’t know: but this I
+tell you beforehand, that, if I do die, I wish to be
+buried, like a dog, in a bit of earth just big enough to
+hold this miserable skin, or else to be burnt, or thrown
+into the sea. And, as I am no longer an English
+subject, no consuls, nor any English of any sort, shall
+approach me in my last moments; for, if they do, I
+will have them shot. Therefore, the day before I die,
+if I know it, I shall order you away, and not only
+you, but everything English; and if you don’t go, I
+warn you beforehand, you must take the consequences.
+Let me be scorched by the burning sun<a id="FNanchor_36" href="#Footnote_36" class="fnanchor">[36]</a>—frozen by the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_307">307</span>
+cold blast—let my ashes fly in the air—let the wolves
+and jackals devour my carcase;—let”—here the
+agitation she was in, and which had kept increasing,
+brought on a severe fit of coughing, and it was a
+quarter of an hour before she could recover strength
+enough to speak again. Her exhaustion reduced her
+to a little calm.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner I saw her again, but now her irritability
+had passed away. “Take your chair,” said she,
+“here by the bed—turn your back to the window to
+save your poor eyes from the light—never mind me:
+there—I am afraid I have overworked them by so
+much writing. But I know, if you did not write for
+me, you would be writing or reading for yourself:
+you are just like my sister Griselda.”</p>
+
+<p>She went on:—“You are angry with me, I dare
+say, because I told you I would not have you near me
+when I am dying: but I suppose I may do as I please.
+No English consul shall touch me or my effects: no:
+when I was going, sooner than that, I will call in all
+the thieves and robbers I can find, and set them to
+plunder and destroy everything. But I shall not die
+so:—I shall die as <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Elias and Isaac did; and,
+before that, I shall have to wade through blood up to
+here” (and she drew her hand across her neck), “nor
+will a spark of commiseration move me. The <i>bab el
+tobi</i> [gate of pardon] will then be shut; for neither
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_308">308</span>
+king, nor priest, nor peasant, shall enter when that
+hour comes. You and others will then repent of not
+having listened to my words.”</p>
+
+<p>Saturday, March 10.—Let us take this night as a
+sample of many others, to show sometimes what was
+doing in a solitary residence on Mount Lebanon, in
+which the vivid fancies of European writers had conjured
+up an imaginary mode of existence wholly
+different from the sad reality. From eight o’clock at
+night until one in the morning, Lady Hester Stanhope
+had kept the house in commotion, upon matters
+which would seem so foreign to her rank, her fortune,
+and her supposed occupations, that, when enumerated,
+they will hardly be believed. First, there was a deliberation
+of half an hour to decide whether it would
+be best to send the mules on the next day or the day
+after for wheat: then several servants were to be
+questioned, one after another, in order to compare
+their conflicting testimony, whether her fields of barley
+had come up, and how high, and what crops they promised;
+next, whether the oranges, now fit to be
+gathered, should be put under the gardener’s care, or
+into a store-room in the house. Then ensued a conversation
+with me, whether Fatôom was not playing some
+deep game in pretending to be separated from her
+husband; and so on, with a score of other topics
+equally unimportant, but with all of which she worried
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_309">309</span>
+herself so effectively, that it seemed as if she wilfully
+sought refuge in such petty annoyances, for the sake
+of escaping from secret heart-burnings, which she did
+not choose to betray. In this way she had the secretary
+called up twice from his bed, and the bailiff
+once, keeping the rest of the servants in continual
+motion, whilst I was obliged, in civility, to sit and
+listen to it all.</p>
+
+<p>Old Pierre had been sent for from Dayr el Kamar.
+As a person who figures occasionally in these domestic
+scenes, I must make the reader a little acquainted
+with his history. In the year 1812, when Lady
+Hester was travelling from Jerusalem along the coast
+towards Damascus, we reached Dayr el Kamar,
+where Pierre came and offered himself to me as a servant.
+I took him; but his various talents as a cook,
+a guide, and an interpreter, and most of all as an adventurer,
+who had an extraordinary fund of anecdotes
+to relate, soon brought him into notice with Lady
+Hester, and she asked him of me for her own service.
+He accompanied us to Palmyra and through different
+parts of Syria, resided with her at Latakia and Mar
+Elias, and remained in her service many years. Having
+amassed a little money, he obtained permission to
+retire to Dayr el Kamar, where he kept a cook’s-shop,
+or, if you will, a tavern.</p>
+
+<p>But Lady Hester never lost sight of him. From
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_310">310</span>
+time to time, when any traveller left her house to
+traverse Mount Lebanon, or to journey to Damascus
+and Aleppo, or even to Palmyra, Pierre was recommended
+as interpreter and guide, and, I understand,
+always discharged his duties to the satisfaction of his
+employers. He is known to many Englishmen,
+among the rest to the <abbr title="Reverend">Rev.</abbr> Mr. Way, who seems to
+have been very good to him; and Pierre, on his side,
+retains a most grateful remembrance of that gentleman’s
+bounty.</p>
+
+<p>Pierre springs from a good family, by the name of
+Marquis or Marquise, originally of Marseilles, and
+afterwards established as merchants in Syria. When
+he was a boy, he accompanied an uncle to France,
+who took him to Paris. The uncle wore the Levantine
+dress; and, having some business to transact connected
+with government, was on one occasion summoned
+to Versailles, where the court was. Chance or
+design threw Pierre in the way of the king, Louis XVI.,
+who talked to him about the Levant, as did also Monsieur,
+afterwards Louis XVIII. Of this conversation
+Pierre never failed to make considerable boast.</p>
+
+<p>On his return to Syria, Pierre lived with his relations,
+until Buonaparte laid siege to Acre, where his
+knowledge of the French language recommended him
+to the notice of that general. He bore a commission
+in his army; and, on the retreat of the French into
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_311">311</span>
+Egypt, accompanied them, and remained there until
+the final evacuation, when he obtained a pension; but
+of which, he declared, he had never touched a sou, in
+consequence of residing abroad.</p>
+
+<p>Mons. Urbain, a contributor to the <cite>Temps</cite>, happening
+to meet with Pierre when he was travelling in
+Syria, was so highly diverted with his anecdotes, that,
+on his return to France, he wrote no less than three
+<i lang="fr">feuilletons</i>, or notices on <cite lang="fr">Le Vieux Pierre</cite>; at least, so
+I was informed by Monsieur Guys.</p>
+
+<p>Pierre had been sent for by Lady Hester Stanhope,
+and she assigned him a room close to the doors of her
+own quadrangle, that he might be always within call.
+Pierre was a man exceedingly thin, with an aquiline
+nose, and a steady eye, full of gasconade to be mistaken
+for courage, wonderfully loquacious, and deeply
+imbued with all the mystic doctrines that Lady
+Hester sometimes preached about. But Pierre’s chief
+merit lay in his star, which, she assured me, was so
+propitious to her, that it could calm her convulsions,
+and lay her to sleep, when books, narcotics, and everything
+else failed.</p>
+
+<p>Glancing in these desultory memorials from one
+person to another, I may here mention, that one of
+the maids, named Sâady, incurred the particular aversion
+of Lady Hester, just as strongly as Pierre was
+favoured with her partiality. Poor Sâady never
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_312">312</span>
+entered her presence without being saluted by some
+epithet of disgust or opprobium: yet Sâady worked
+from morning till night, and seldom got to bed until
+three, four, or five o’clock in the morning. But Lady
+Hester insisted on the necessity of treating her servants
+in this way for the purpose of keeping them on
+the alert; and she would frequently quote her grandfather’s
+example to prove how powerful particular
+aversions were in people of exalted minds—such as
+hers and his. In this way she kept herself in a state
+of constant irritation, as if she were determined obstinately
+to oppose the inroads of disease by increased
+exertion, exactly in proportion as her physical strength
+became more and more weakened and reduced.</p>
+
+<p>Monday, March 12.—Two servant boys were
+flogged by Logmagi for having quitted the courtyard
+both at the same time, when one at least was wanted
+to carry messages from the inner to the outer courts.
+These punishments were inflicted by making the delinquent
+lie at his full length flat on the ground, his
+head being held by one servant, and his feet by another
+while the stripes were administered. My disposition
+revolted at these whippings; although perhaps they
+were necessary, as Lady Hester said. The servants
+would not have borne them, but that they had in fact no
+choice, knowing well that they must either remain and
+be flogged, or be sent to the Nizàm, where they would
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_313">313</span>
+be flogged twice as much, with the risk of being killed
+to boot.</p>
+
+<p>Wednesday, March 14.—Lady Hester was in very
+low spirits this evening, and, as night advanced, she
+had a paroxysm of grief, which quite terrified me.
+With a ghastly and frenzied look, she kept crying
+until my heart was rent with her wretchedness.
+When I left her for the night, although she was somewhat
+composed, her image haunted me, even when
+sleep had closed my eyes.</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_34" href="#FNanchor_34" class="label">[34]</a>
+ No dependant stands before his superior in the East without
+covering his hands with his robe or with the hanging sleeves customary
+among Orientals. In sitting, the feet and legs are likewise hidden; at
+least, so good-breeding requires, and persons alone who are on terms of
+familiarity would thrust them out, or let them hang pendent.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_35" href="#FNanchor_35" class="label">[35]</a>
+In the cottages of Mount Lebanon there are many things occurring
+daily which would greatly surprise an English practitioner. A luxation
+of the shoulder-joint in an infant, real or supposed, was cured,
+they told me, by taking the child by the wrist and swinging it round
+with its feet off the ground, until the bone got into place again. I
+assisted, for the second time, at the cure of a sore throat, in a man
+thirty-six years of age, who suffered a pocket-handkerchief to be drawn
+tightly round his neck until his face turned black and he was half
+strangled. The man declared the next day he was well, and the operator
+assured me it was a never-failing remedy.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_36" href="#FNanchor_36" class="label">[36]</a>
+
+<div class="poetry-container">
+<div class="poetry smaller" lang="it">
+    <div class="verse indent0">“Pone me pigris ubi nulla campis</div>
+    <div class="verse indent0">Arbor æstivâ recreatur aurâ,” &amp;c.</div>
+</div>
+</div>
+
+<p class="footnote">Yet Lady Hester had never read Horace.</p>
+
+</div><!--end footnotes-->
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_314">314</span>
+
+<h2><span class="allsmcap">CHAPTER</span> <abbr title="Ten"><span class="allsmcap">X.</span></abbr></h2>
+</div>
+
+<p class="small short">Visit of Mr. Vesey Forster and Mr. Knox—Lady S. N.’s
+pension and Mr. H.—Lady Hester undeservedly censured by
+English travellers—Mr. Anson and Mr. Strangways—Mr. B.
+and Mr. C.—Captain Pechell—Captain Yorke—Colonel
+Howard Vyse—Lord B.</p>
+
+
+<p class="p2">Mr. Forster and Mr. Knox, two English gentlemen,
+came up to Jôon this morning to pay a visit to
+Lady Hester. To my great surprise, I found them
+seated at the porter’s lodge among the servants, who
+were standing around them; a situation to which they
+accommodated themselves with the good sense of men
+of the world. They had sent in a message that two
+Franks were at the gate, having a letter for the Syt
+Mylady, and were patiently awaiting the result.</p>
+
+<p>I took the liberty of inquiring their names, and
+hastened to her ladyship; whilst orders were given to
+conduct them immediately to the strangers’ room.
+Lady Hester, who had got their letter in her hand,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_315">315</span>
+told me one was a relation of Sir Augustus Forster,
+our ambassador at Turin. “Go instantly to them,”
+said she, “for Sir Augustus is an old friend of mine,
+and be particularly attentive to Mr. Forster—indeed,
+to both of them. Tell them, I am very sorry I can’t
+see them; for, when I get into conversation, I become
+animated, and then I feel the effects of it afterwards;
+but assure them that they are welcome to make their
+home of their present lodging for a couple of days or
+a couple of hours, or as long as they like. Do they
+look gentlemanlike?” she asked. “Ah!” continued
+she, “what a charm good-breeding gives to mankind,
+and how odious vulgarity is after it! Only reflect!
+I, who have been all my life accustomed to the most
+refined society, what I must feel sometimes to have
+nothing to do but with beasts. But go, go! and make
+them as comfortable as you can.”</p>
+
+<p>They were in the strangers’ room, which stood in a
+small garden, ornamented with a few rose-bushes,
+pomegranate and olive-trees, and some flowering
+plants. It was a little enclosure, which had by no
+means a disagreeable aspect, surrounded by a wall
+topped with prickly thorn-bushes. Once inside this
+place, the new comer could know nothing of what was
+passing without. Such were Lady Hester’s contrivances:
+everything about her must wear an air of
+mystery.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_316">316</span>
+I lost no time in conveying Lady Hester’s message
+to them, and, for the short hour I enjoyed the pleasure
+of their conversation, had every reason to rejoice
+in the opportunity of making their acquaintance. As
+this visit of two travellers may serve as a specimen of
+what occurred, with slight variations, on every similar
+occasion, when Englishmen came to her house, who
+were little aware how much trouble their unexpected
+arrival sometimes caused her, I shall detail what passed
+as minutely as I can.</p>
+
+<p>I had hardly paid my compliments to them, and
+inquired whether they would take an English breakfast
+or something more solid, when a message came
+from Lady Hester to say she wanted to see me for a
+moment. This was always her way. The ruling
+passion of ordering what was to be done and what was
+to be said on all occasions made her impatient about
+things passing out of her sight.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, doctor,” cried Lady Hester, “what age do
+they appear to be, and where do they come from?”
+Having satisfied her on the first head, I told her
+they were last from the Emir’s palace at Btedýn:
+then, after some trifling observation, I added, the
+Emir complained to them that <abbr title="Monsieur">M.</abbr> Lamartine, in his
+recent work on Syria, had greatly compromised him
+with Ibrahim Pasha, in having said that he, the
+Emir, had entertained the most friendly dispositions
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_317">317</span>
+towards Buonaparte and the French during the siege
+of Acre. This the Emir denied, and averred that
+his great friend was Sir Sydney Smith: meaning,
+probably, as I observed from myself, to compliment
+his present guests at the expense of the absent French.
+“He was very civil to the two travellers,” I added,
+“and, understanding they were going to see your
+ladyship, he sent his compliments to you.”—“Ah!”
+replied she, “that looks as if he were fishing for
+friends, in case he should shortly have to fly; for they
+say that Sherýf Pasha has been defeated in the Horàn,
+and the Emir begins to tremble; for the Druzes will
+not spare him.”</p>
+
+<p>I then told Lady Hester they had refused tea or
+coffee, but, as they were come from a distance, would
+probably like something more substantial: they had
+expressed, too, a wish for a glass of lemonade. Here
+Lady Hester, suddenly raising herself in her bed, interrupted
+me with “Good God!—lemonade! why,
+the maid said that the secretary had been to ask for
+some violet syrup for them: now, which is it they
+want? Can nobody ever take upon them to direct
+the simplest thing but they must blunder? must
+everything fall upon me?”—“Well, but,” observed I,
+“lemonade, or violet syrup, it does not much matter
+which!”—“Not matter!—there it is again: and
+then who is there can make lemonade?—not a soul
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_318">318</span>
+but myself in the whole house: and poor I am obliged
+to wear my little strength out in doing the most
+trivial offices. Here I am; I wanted to write another
+letter to go by the steamboat, and now all my thoughts
+are driven out of my head. Zezefôon!” (ding, ding,
+ding, went the bell) “Zezefôon! order the gardener
+to bring me four or five of the finest lemons on the
+tree next the alley of roses—you know where I
+mean—and prepare a tray with glasses.” This was
+accordingly done, and Lady Hester, sitting up in
+bed, went to work squeezing lemons and making
+lemonade.</p>
+
+<p>In my way to her ladyship’s room from the strangers’,
+I had called the cook, and directed him to dress a
+mutton-chop, to make a vermicelli soup, a dish of
+spinach and eggs, a little tunny-fish salad, and with a
+cold rice pudding (which I recollected and sent for
+from my house), and some Parmesan cheese, I trusted
+there would be enough for a hasty meal. Whilst
+making the lemonade, the following conversation went
+on. “Now, doctor, what can be got for their <i lang="fr">déjeûner
+à la fourchette</i>? for there is nothing whatever
+in the house.” I mentioned what I had ordered.
+“Ah! yes,” resumed Lady Hester, “let me see:—there
+is a stew of yesterday’s, that I did not touch,
+that may be warmed up again, and some potatoes may
+be added; and then you must taste that wine that
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_319">319</span>
+came yesterday from Garýfy, to see if you think they
+will like it. The spinach my maid must do. Dyk”
+(the cook) “does not know how to dress spinach, but
+I have taught Zezefôon to do it very well.” (Ding,
+ding, ding.) “Zezefôon, you know how to boil
+spinach in milk, and you must garnish it with five
+eggs, one in each corner, and one in the centre.”—“Yes,
+Sytty.”—“And, Zezefôon, send the <i>yackney</i>”
+(stew) “to Dyk, and let it be warmed up for the
+strangers. They must have some of my butter and
+some of my bread. Likewise give out the silver
+spoons and knives and forks; they are under that
+cushion on the ottoman, there; and mind you count
+them when you give them to Mohammed, or they will
+steal one, and dispute with you afterwards about the
+number:—a pack of thieves! And let the cook send
+in the dishes necessary: for I will not have any of
+mine go out.</p>
+
+<p>“You must tell the travellers, doctor, and especially
+Mr. Forster, for he is an Irishman, that I have
+a great deal of Irish and Scotch blood in me, and no
+English. Tell him I have made great investigations
+on the subject of the origin of the Scotch, and could
+prove to him that they came originally from this
+country. Tell him how beautiful the Irish women
+are, and that I, having had opportunities of seeing
+some of the finest Circassians and Georgians of the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_320">320</span>
+harýms of great Turks here and at Constantinople,
+think there are none like Irish women.</p>
+
+<p>“If Mr. Forster asks you anything about the
+Druzes (as he seems to interest himself concerning the
+religion of that people), say to him that the Druzes,
+the Ansàries, the Ishmäelites—all these sects—must
+and will remain a mystery to strangers. There was
+Monsieur Reynaud, one of the forty <i lang="fr">savants</i> who wrote
+the great book on Egypt, and was afterwards consul at
+Sayda—if any body could comprehend the secret, he
+could; yet, although he had four of the Druze books
+in his possession, and five learned persons of this
+country to assist him in translating and explaining
+them through a whole winter, he could make out
+nothing: because, even if you understand the text,
+you are still not a bit the wiser. Suppose, for example,
+you open a page, and you find these words—‘Do
+you use senna leaves?’ which is one of their questions
+of recognition, like similar apparently vague questions
+in freemasonry: what do you know about that? You
+may understand the answer clearly enough, so far as
+mere words go; but it is useless unless you understand
+the thing of which the words are a symbol;
+for they are all symbolical. You must know that it
+refers to an insurgent, who, in the cause of their faith,
+raised the standard of revolt, centuries ago, in the
+land where senna grows, and that it implies, ‘Do you
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_321">321</span>
+adopt his tenets?’ and so of other passages. The
+chiefs of their religion cannot make any disclosures;
+for, if they did, their lives would be the forfeit. Tell
+him they are a bold, sanguinary race, who will cut a
+man in pieces themselves, or see it done by others,
+and never change colour. Why, one of them, not
+long since, killed or wounded with his own hands five
+of Ibrahim Pasha’s soldiers, who were sent to seize
+him as a refractory recruit.”</p>
+
+<p>Here Lady Hester, having finished making the
+lemonade, stopped for a moment to desire Zezefôon to
+take it out and send it to the strangers’ room. She
+then resumed, “Tell them, doctor, that no people
+will bear a flogging like the Druzes. The Spartans
+were nothing to them: isn’t it the Spartans that were
+such floggers? for I am such a dunce that I never can
+recollect some things which every schoolboy knows;
+and I always said I was a dunce in some things,
+although Mr. Pitt used to say, ‘Hester, if you would
+but keep your own counsel, nobody could detect it.’
+But it is the truth, and when you talk to me of paper
+money and the funds (although I may understand for
+the moment what you try to explain to me), I forget
+it all the next morning: yet, on subjects which my
+inclination leads me to investigate, nobody has a better
+judgment. My father, with all his mathematical
+knowledge, used to say I could split a hair. Talk to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_322">322</span>
+the point, was his cry: and I could bring truth to a
+point as sharp as a needle. I divested a subject of all
+extraneous matter, and there it was—you might turn
+and twist it as you would, but you must always come
+back to that.</p>
+
+<p>“The Druzes like me, and all the Emir Beshýr’s
+hatred of me arose from my friendship for the Shaykh
+Beshýr.<a id="FNanchor_37" href="#Footnote_37" class="fnanchor">[37]</a> After you left me, I went to stay with him
+at Makhtâra, where he assigned me a wing of the
+palace to live in. He was a clever man, and afterwards,
+in his troubles, came to me for advice and succour: he
+offered me a third of his treasures, but I refused them.
+When he fled, the Emir Beshýr got about a third of
+them; an equal portion they say is buried: and
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_323">323</span>
+the remainder was carried off by his wife, but afterwards
+lost. Poor woman! she is dead now. It was
+the attempt to relieve her, amongst other causes, that
+drew me into embarrassments. She had fled—her
+husband was a captive at Acre—and the Emir was
+pursuing her in every direction to take her life. The
+snow was thick on the ground. She had with her a
+child at the breast, one two years old, and another:
+two were with the father in prison. I despatched
+people with clothes and money to relieve her immediate
+wants; they found her in the Horàn, where she
+had taken refuge with an old servant. Her daughter
+also applied to me for assistance, but I was penniless,
+and could do nothing for her. Poor girl! she was
+afterwards married, but Ibrahim Pasha cut off her
+husband’s head, and she went raving mad. To complete
+the tragedy, Hanah Abôod, one of those I sent
+to look after her, fell asleep out of weariness, after
+having returned home on foot through the snow, and
+got an inflammation in his eyes, which ended in total
+blindness. The journey back occupied I think forty
+hours. I have been obliged partially to maintain the
+poor fellow and Werdy, his wife, ever since.</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps, doctor, Mr. Forster and Mr. Knox may
+have heard of the extraordinary conduct of the English
+government towards me; so let them know that I am
+not low-spirited about it; and, although the Queen may
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_324">324</span>
+think herself justified in taking away my pension, I
+would not, even if I were a beggar, change places with
+her. As for the Queen’s interfering in my affairs,
+she might just as well go and stop Sir Augustus
+Forster’s salary, on the plea that he had left his tailor’s
+bill unpaid. My debts were incurred very often for
+things I did not care about for myself. For example,
+what are books to me, who never look into them? If
+I had been like you doctors, who tell your patients to
+take turtle soup, and then contrive to be asked to
+dinner, it were another thing: but my researches were
+for the good of others, and for no advantage of my
+own.</p>
+
+<p>“When I think what I have done, and what I could
+have done if I had had more money! There was a
+book came into my hands, which the owner, not
+knowing its value, offered for my acceptance as you
+would offer an old brass candlestick. I consulted several
+persons about it; and, when all assured me it was a
+valuable manuscript, I scorned to take advantage of
+the man’s ignorance, and returned it to him, telling
+him when I was rich enough I would buy it of him.
+Ought not a person to act so?” “Undoubtedly,” I
+replied, “a person of principle would not act otherwise.”
+“Principle!” she exclaimed; “what do you
+mean by principle?—I am a Pitt.”</p>
+
+<p>As I did not understand precisely why a Pitt should
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_325">325</span>
+be above principle, although it would seem there is a
+species of integrity higher than principle itself, I held
+my tongue, and Lady Hester went on. “I know
+where to find a book that contains the language spoken
+by Adam and Eve:<a id="FNanchor_38" href="#Footnote_38" class="fnanchor">[38]</a> the letters are a span high.
+Such things have fallen into my hands as have fallen
+into nobody’s else. I know where the serpent is that
+has the head of a man, like the one that tempted Eve.
+The cave still exists not far from Tarsûs; and the
+villages all about are exempted from the <i>miri</i> in consideration
+of feeding the serpents. Everybody in that
+neighbourhood knows it: isn’t it extraordinary? why
+don’t you answer? is it, or is it not? Good God! I
+should go mad if I were obliged to remain three whole
+days together in your society—I’m sure I should. Such
+a cold man I never saw; there is no getting an answer
+from you: however, think as you like. These serpents
+will march through the country to fight for the
+Messiah, and will devour everything before them.”
+Here she paused for about a minute, and then added,
+“I think you had better not tell them anything about
+the serpents; perhaps their minds are not prepared for
+matters of this sort.”</p>
+
+<p>I have already observed that Monsieur Guys had
+mentioned, with some surprise, the serious manner in
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_326">326</span>
+which Lady Hester spoke of these serpents; and, although
+he did not express it, yet he half intimated
+that he thought her intellects a little disordered: we
+shall see hereafter if they were so.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester resumed: “But now, doctor, if you
+can spare a minute, you must write a line by the
+messenger to Monsieur Guys, and tell him I had
+begun a letter to him, but that the arrival of two
+English travellers, one of whom revived a number of
+recollections, had obliged me to stop short, and I could
+write no more. Doctor, this Mr. Forster must be
+one of the children of the Irish Speaker. He was left
+with ten; and I remember very well one day that
+H******** was standing before me at a party, making
+a number of bows and scrapes, turning up his eyes,
+and cringing before me so, that when we got home,
+Mr. Pitt said to me, ‘Hester, if I am not too curious,
+what could H******** have to say that animated him
+so much: what could he be making such fine speeches
+about: what could call forth such an exuberance of
+eloquence in him?’—‘Oh! it was nothing,’ answered
+I; ‘he was telling me that all the power of the Treasury
+was at my service—that he would take care that
+Lady S**** N*****’s pension should be got through
+the different offices immediately—that he had nothing
+so much at heart as to execute my orders—that he
+would see all that was necessary should be done according
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_327">327</span>
+to my wishes, and so on; but, as I despise
+the man, I only laughed at him and turned my back
+on him; for I drink at the fountain head.’</p>
+
+<p>“‘Now, this is really too good a thing,’ interrupted
+Mr. Pitt, lifting up his eyes in astonishment. ‘It
+was but this very day, at three o’clock, that he was
+urging me not to let this very pension be given, or at
+least to prolong the business for a year, if it were possible;
+till, by tiring her patience, the thing might be
+dropped, or something turn up to set it aside; adding,
+that it would be opening the door to abuses, and, if I
+granted this too readily, I should have Forster’s ten
+children to provide for.’”</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester went on: “From that day, I knew
+my man. I then said to Mr. Pitt, ‘Let me show
+him who he has to deal with; do give your orders
+that the thing may be done immediately.’—‘Oh! but
+it is too late to-night,’ said Mr. Pitt. ‘No, it is not,’
+I cried; ‘for I see a light in the Treasury.’ So I
+rang, and sent for” (here her ladyship mentioned a
+name which I could not catch, but I think it was
+Mr. Chinnery)—. When he came, I said to him,
+‘Will you be so good, sir, the first thing in the morning,
+to see that all the signatures are put to Lady
+S. N.’s paper: there is Mr. Pitt; ask him if it is so
+or not.’ Mr. Pitt of course assented, and there the
+matter ended. Doctor, I had a great deal of trouble
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_328">328</span>
+with those sort of people, like H——. Now, if
+Mr. Forster is about thirty-five years old, he must be
+one of that family.<a id="FNanchor_39" href="#Footnote_39" class="fnanchor">[39]</a></p>
+
+<p>“Do tell Mr. Forster what a pack of beasts those
+servants are. Ask him if he ever heard of women
+throwing themselves down to sleep in the middle of a
+courtyard, or on the floor of a kitchen, dragging their
+quilt after them from place to place: tell him that is
+what mine do, and that I am obliged to wait a quarter
+of an hour for a glass of water.</p>
+
+<p>“You may talk to them a little about stars, but I
+dare say you will commit some horrible blunder, as
+you always do, and that is what makes me so afraid
+of your having to say anything that concerns me.
+Tell Mr. Forster that in people’s stars lie their abilities,
+and that you may bring up a hundred men to
+be generals and another hundred to be lawyers, but
+out of these perhaps four or five only will turn out
+good for anything. When a grand Llama is to be
+chosen, why do they go about until they have found
+a particular boy with certain marks, known to the
+learned of that country—a child born under a certain
+star? It is because, when they have found such a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_329">329</span>
+one, he has no occasion for instruction; he is born the
+man for their purpose.</p>
+
+<p>“Thus, the Duke of Wellington is not a general
+by trade—I mean by instruction; for, if examined
+before a court-martial on all the branches of military
+tactics, perhaps he would be found deficient. Hundreds
+may know more of them than he does: but he
+is a general by his star. He acts under a certain
+impulse, which makes him hit on the stratagem he
+ought to practise, and, without the help of previous
+study or even the suggestions of experience, he knows
+that his manœuvre is right. It was thus with me
+when I was young. People might preach and talk;
+but, when I saw them doing things or reasoning about
+them, I could at once distinguish the things that were
+right from the things that were wrong; but I could
+not say why or wherefore. My father said I was the
+best logician he ever saw—I could split a hair. The
+last time he saw me, he repeated the same words, and
+said I had but one fault, which was being too fond of
+royalty.”</p>
+
+<p>I observed here to Lady Hester, that in many
+things she reminded me of the ancient philosophers,
+to whom she bore a strong resemblance on most
+points; but that in this one particular she differed
+from them widely, as most of them were strenuously
+opposed to royalty and monarchical power. “My
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_330">330</span>
+liking for royalty,” she answered, “is not, indiscriminate,
+but I believe in the divine right of kings;
+for I have found it out. And you may ask Mr. Forster
+also why the bottle of oil came from India to anoint
+the kings of France. I dare say they never heard of
+Melek es Sayf, a hero whose exploits and name are
+hardly inferior in the East to those of Solomon. Is it
+not extraordinary, that in Europe they know nothing
+of those people—of him and his forty sons, all of whom
+were men of note in their time? This must be so;
+for some of the gates of Cairo are named after them.</p>
+
+<p>“If you happen to speak about the Albanians and
+the other soldiers that I had here, tell them I did not
+see them all; I only saw the most desperate, and
+those whose violence was to be kept under. When I
+admitted them to my presence, I was always alone,
+and they always wore their arms; but I never feared
+them.”</p>
+
+<p>Thus Lady Hester went on talking: the dish of
+potatoes, the dessert, and several other things were
+forgotten. So, reminding her that Mr. Forster and
+Mr. Knox must be all this time marvelling what
+could have detained me, I at last made my escape.
+In the mean while, the breakfast had been served up
+as well as the resources of the place would admit.
+The scene must have been highly curious to her ladyship’s
+guests, who could not fail to be amused as well
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_331">331</span>
+as surprised at the sight of a deal table, rush-bottomed
+chairs, cheese put on first and a pudding in a copper
+dish after it, with other anomalies that would have
+made even a third-rate Brummell shudder. But the
+occasions for eating in the European way in Lady
+Hester’s house occurred very rarely, and the servants,
+who were habituated to Turkish usages or to the
+mongrel service of some Levantine dragoman, had no
+notions of the regulations of an English table. In my
+own house, I had two tolerably well-trained boys;
+but there was an interdict against their ever crossing
+the threshold of Lady Hester’s gate, in order that no
+information of what was going on within her walls
+should be carried out to the female part of my family.
+In the most common concerns, Lady Hester’s servants
+made much bustle and did little. They ran in different
+directions, jostled and crossed each other half a
+dozen at a time for the same thing, entirely reversing
+one of her favourite maxims, that everything in a
+great person’s house should be done as if by magic,
+and nobody should know who it was set it a going.
+These servants had but one spring of action, and that
+was the <i>bakshysh</i>, or present, which they all looked
+for on the departure of a stranger. It was a painful
+thought to me, as these gentlemen left the gate, that,
+when they were about to mount their horses, the mercenary
+spirit of such a set of varlets might be charged
+to the connivance of the mistress.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_332">332</span></p>
+
+<p>The two travellers made a miserable repast, and,
+when it was over, signified their desire to take leave.
+It seems they had taken Lady Hester’s invitation “to
+make the place their home for two hours or two days”
+in its literal acceptation; and it is scarcely necessary to
+say that there was no time for me to enter into an explanation
+on the subject, nor, indeed, to deliver a tenth
+part of the discursive matter with which Lady Hester
+had charged me. It was from these gentlemen I
+learned, for the first time, that a committee had been
+appointed, on the motion of Mr. D. W. Harvey, for
+inquiring into the pensions on the civil list. It had so
+happened that no newspapers had reached us for a
+long time, and, consequently, this was the first intimation
+her ladyship had received of a measure in which
+it might be supposed she felt no inconsiderable
+interest, although in reality she did not.</p>
+
+<p>As Mr. Forster and his friend had to cross a deep
+valley and mount a steep ascent before they could take
+the road to Beyrout, to which town they were now
+going, I sent Ali Hayshem, the messenger, to put them
+on their way. He returned in the course of an hour
+or two, and was despatched the same evening on foot,
+with letters to Beyrout, where he arrived next day
+before Messieurs Knox and Forster. He told me, on
+his return, that their surprise was very great on finding
+him at the inn, knowing that they had left him
+behind them, the morning before, up the mountain.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_333">333</span>
+Ali’s account of Mr. Forster’s regimentals, in which
+he saw him dressed at Beyrout, was very flaming: and
+from that day, in speaking of the two, he always distinguished
+him from Mr. Knox by the title of ‘the
+general.’</p>
+
+<p>Lady Hester deeply regretted that she was not able
+to see these gentlemen. “Ah!” said she, “how
+many times have I been abused by the English when
+I did not deserve it, and for nothing so much as for
+not seeing people, when perhaps it was quite out of
+my power! There was Mr. Anson and Mr. Strangways,
+who, because I refused to see them, sat down
+under a tree, and wrote me such a note! Little did
+they know that I had not a bit of barley in the house
+for their horses, and nothing for their dinner. I could
+not tell them so; but they might have had feeling
+enough to suppose it was not without some good reason
+that I declined their visit. Many a pang has
+their ill-nature given me, as well as that of others. I
+have got the note<a id="FNanchor_40" href="#Footnote_40" class="fnanchor">[40]</a> still somewhere.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_334">334</span>
+“Among the visitors I have had was the duchess
+of Gontaut’s brother, she that brought up the Duke
+of Bordeaux. I supposed she must have talked of me
+to her brother, whom I never recollect: however, he
+came with his two sons; but I would not see him.
+It was that time when Monsieur Guys, after sitting
+and staring at me some minutes, exclaimed—‘Madam,
+when I see you dressed in that abah’ (the Bedouin
+cloak), ‘in that <i>keffiah</i>’ (the Bedouin vizor), ‘and
+when I think you are that Lady Hester Stanhope, <i lang="fr">qui
+faisoit la pluie et le beau temps à Londres</i>, I am lost in
+wonder how you could have come and fixed yourself
+in these desolate mountains.’</p>
+
+<p>“Another of Charles the Tenth’s courtiers came
+here, but a higher personage, whom I also refused to
+see: he was dreadfully savage about it too. I fancy
+Charles the Tenth had a secret intention of resigning
+the crown, and of coming to this country to finish his
+days in the Holy Land like another <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Louis? and I
+think this man had something to ask me about it:
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_335">335</span>
+however, I refused to see him. But it was not
+caprice, nor, as this proves, was it Englishmen alone
+I denied myself to. Sometimes I was not well enough
+to sustain a conversation—sometimes I had no provisions
+in the house, perhaps no servant who knew how
+to set a table; but travellers never fancied that there
+could be any other reason for my refusal, but the determination
+to affront them. God knows, when I
+could, I was willing to receive anybody.</p>
+
+<p>“Once I had a visit from two persons whom we
+will call Mr. A. and Mr. B., or Mr. B. and Mr. C.—what
+letter you like. I thought Mr. B. very stupid,
+but, good God! doctor, there never was anything so
+vulgar as Mr. C. When I got his note to ask leave
+to come, the name deceived me; I thought he might
+be a son of Admiral C. But when he came into the
+room with his great thighs and pantaloons so tight
+that he could hardly sit down, I thought he was more
+like a butcher than anything else. He was a man
+entirely without breeding, with his Ma’ams and ladyships.
+I asked him a few questions, as—‘Pray, sir,
+will you allow me to ask if you are a relation of
+Admiral C’s.?’—‘No, ma’am, I am no relation at all.’—‘Will
+you permit me to inquire what is the motive
+of your visit to me?’—‘Only to see your ladyship,
+ma’am.’—‘Do you come to this country with any
+particular object?’—‘To be a merchant.’—‘You are
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_336">336</span>
+probably conversant in mercantile affairs?’—‘No,
+ma’am, I am come to learn,’—and so on. After
+some time, I told them that I never saw people in the
+morning, and would take my leave of them, as they
+probably would wish to set off early; and I desired
+them to order what they liked for their breakfast.
+Next morning, when I thought, as a matter of course,
+they were gone, in came a note from them to say,
+they were not going till next day, and then another
+to say they did not know, and then a third to say
+that, as they expected ships, and God knows what,
+they must go.—Good God! they might go to the
+devil for me: I had taken my leave of them, and
+there was an end of it. Mr. C. was a downright
+vulgar merchant’s clerk, come to Syria, I suppose, to
+set up for himself. Lord <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Asaph said to me—‘Lady
+Hester, you really should consider who you
+are, and not allow people of that description to pay
+visits to you.’</p>
+
+<p>“There was a man who bore a great resemblance to
+the Duke of Cambridge and the Duke of Clarence,
+but something between both, who passed two or three
+years in this neighbourhood and sometimes came to
+see me; he was good-natured, and I liked him. He
+went about with a sort of pedlar’s box, full of trinkets
+and gewgaws to show to the peasant woman, thus
+bringing the whole population of the village out of
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_337">337</span>
+their houses: and then giving away beads and earrings
+to get the young girls around him.</p>
+
+<p>“Of the English, who have visited me here, I liked
+Captain Pechell and Captain Yorke very much, and
+thought them both clever men.</p>
+
+<p>“Colonel Howard Vyse one day came up to the
+village and wrote me a note, and did everything he
+could to see me. He was an old Coldstream:—it
+broke my heart not to see him; but it would have
+revived too many melancholy reflections. Poor man!
+I believe he was very much hurt; but I could not
+help it.</p>
+
+<p>“A man came here—I believe the only one who
+was saved out of a party that was killed going across
+the Desert—and asked me for a letter to the Arabs.
+I sent him away, telling him that he might just as well
+come and ask me for a pot of beer. What had I to
+do with their schemes and their navigation of the
+Euphrates? Yet, for this, this officer wrote verses
+upon the wall of the room against me.</p>
+
+<p>“Then Mr. Croix de la Barre came, but I could
+not see him. He said he wanted to talk politics
+with me, and learn the customs and manners of the
+natives. I should tire you, doctor, if I were to tell
+you how many have come. I saw Lord B******,
+when he was travelling, at the baths of Tiberias,
+where Abdallah Pasha happened to be. Lord B.
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_338">338</span>
+proposed calling on the pasha, and equipped himself
+for that purpose with a pair of pistols and a <i>yatagàn</i>
+in his girdle, after the fashion of a Turkish subaltern;
+for the Franks, who surrounded him as dragomans and
+menials, had taught him to adopt what accorded with
+their ideas of finery, and not what was suitable to his
+rank. Luckily, he mentioned his intention the day
+before to me, and I told him that there was a full
+dress of ceremony in Turkey as well as in Europe,
+and I lent him the most essential part of it, a <i>benýsh</i>,<a id="FNanchor_41" href="#Footnote_41" class="fnanchor">[41]</a>
+with which he presented himself. At first there was
+some hesitation, on his entering the room with his
+people, as to which was the great Mylord; for his
+lordship’s doctor, who sat down close by him, and
+poked his head forward with an air of great attention
+to what the pasha said, made him doubt whether the
+doctor was not the chief personage; it being a part
+of Oriental etiquette that no dependant should obtrude
+himself into the least notice in his superior’s presence:
+nay, generally speaking, it is required that doctors,
+secretaries, dragomans, and the like, should remain
+standing during such interviews. This difficulty being
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_339">339</span>
+got over, the pasha, after some questions about Lord
+B.’s health, asked him what brought him to Tiberias,
+a part of his province the least beautiful and most
+barren. The question would have led most persons
+to say that, knowing the pasha was there, he seized
+the opportunity of paying his respects to him, or
+some such complimentary speech. But Lord B., with
+a <i lang="fr">naïveté</i> somewhat plebeian, replied, that he came to
+see the baths. The pasha coldly desired that proper
+persons should show them to him, and soon after broke
+up the interview. The very attendants of his Highness
+were struck with the incivility and want of tact
+which Lord B. showed, and it was one of them who
+told me the story. But this was not all: the pasha,
+who is fond of consulting European doctors, requested
+Lord B., who was to depart next day, to leave his
+doctor behind for twenty-four hours; which request
+Lord B. refused. After he was gone, the pasha
+sent me a pelisse of considerable value, with a request
+that I should present it in his name to Lord B., but
+I returned it, saying Lord B. was gone; for I did not
+think his incivility deserved it. So much for English
+breeding! and then let them go and call the Turks
+barbarians.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Elliot came to see me from Constantinople, in
+order to make the pashas and governors of the neighbouring
+provinces treat me well. He fell ill, and I
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_340">340</span>
+sent for the doctor of a frigate that was on the coast
+for him—a man who could kick his forehead with his
+toe. I quizzed Mr. Elliot a great deal.</p>
+
+<p>“But now, doctor, what did Mr. Forster say about
+the Scotch? If he agrees with me that they sprang
+from hereabouts, I might have given him some useful
+hints on that subject: but we will write him a letter<a id="FNanchor_42" href="#Footnote_42" class="fnanchor">[42]</a>
+about it.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_341">341</span>
+When I told her that Mr. Forster had spoken of
+a work of Sir Jonah Barrington’s on Ireland, in which
+it was said that Mr. Pitt got up the Irish rebellion
+in order to make the necessity of the Union more
+palatable to parliament, she observed that, if she met
+him, she would settle his business for him. “Mr.
+Pitt liked the Irish,” said she. “There were some
+fools who thought to pay their court by abusing them,
+and would talk of men’s legs like Irish porters, or
+some such stuff: but I always answered, they would
+be very much pleased to have their own so, which was
+much better than having them like a pair of tongs:
+and I was certain to observe a little smile of approbation
+in Mr. Pitt’s eyes, at what I had said.”</p>
+
+<p>In this way her ladyship would run on from topic
+to topic—with a rapidity and fluency which frequently
+rendered it difficult to preserve notes of even the heads
+of her discourse. Her health was slightly improved:
+she attended a little more closely to my advice, but
+still would never allow me to see her until her coughing
+fit was over, which usually lasted for about a
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_342">342</span>
+couple of hours. Notwithstanding this, her pulse
+maintained a degree of vigour which was very extraordinary,
+considering the state of attenuation to which
+she was reduced. She had a great reluctance in touching
+on her bad symptoms, but dwelt readily on such as
+were favourable. “I certainly have got small abscesses,”
+she answered to me, “but it is not consumption:
+because there are hours in the day when my lungs are
+perfectly free, as there are others when I can hardly
+breathe. Sometimes, doctor, my pulse is entirely
+gone, or so thin—so thin!—as to be but just perceptible,
+and no more. You pretend to find it very readily
+and tell me it is not bad: but Zezefôon can’t feel it,
+and Sàada can’t feel it, and old Pierre has tried, and
+says the same. I think, too,” continued she, “I was
+a little delirious this morning; for, when I awoke, I
+asked where Zezefôon had gone, although there she
+was, sitting up on her mattress by my bedside before
+my eyes.”</p>
+
+
+<div class="footnotes"><p class="center">FOOTNOTES:</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_37" href="#FNanchor_37" class="label">[37]</a>
+ The reader ought to be informed that, a few years before this
+time, Beshýr Jumbalàt, a man of the first family of the Druzes, had
+risen by his possessions and influence to such power in Mount Lebanon
+as to excite the jealousy of the Emir Beshýr, the recognized prince
+of the Druzes, by right of investiture from the Porte. The Emir (who
+is a Mussulman) entertained such fears of being supplanted by a chief
+of his power and popularity, that, after a variety of intrigues and
+plots, he at last succeeded in effectually awakening the distrust of
+Abdallah, the Pasha of Acre, who finally united with the Emir in a plan
+for his destruction. The person of the unfortunate Beshýr Jumbalàt was
+accordingly seized, his palace razed to the ground, and his possessions
+confiscated; nor was their jealousy set at rest until they ultimately
+got rid of him by strangulation.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_38" href="#FNanchor_38" class="label">[38]</a>
+Ben Jonson, in his “Alchemist,” alludes to such a book, “Ay, and a
+treatise penned by Adam.”</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_39" href="#FNanchor_39" class="label">[39]</a>
+It may be right to mention that Mr. Forster, as I believe, is not
+one of the family alluded to in this anecdote: but, as Lady Hester’s
+remarks hinged on his name, I thought it best to retain it.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_40" href="#FNanchor_40" class="label">[40]</a>
+This note I afterwards read and copied. These two gentlemen
+presented themselves at the gate, and Lady Hester dictated the
+following message to them, which Miss Williams wrote:—“Lady Hester
+Stanhope presents her compliments to Mr. Anson and Mr. Strangways,
+and acquaints them that she is little in the habit of seeing European
+travellers, therefore declines the honour of their visit.” To this was
+returned following answer:—“Mr. Anson presents his compliments to
+Lady Hester Stanhope, and begs to assure her he has not the slightest
+wish to intrude where his visit is accounted disagreeable: but having,
+during a three months’ residence among the Arabs, met with universal
+hospitality, he took for granted that he would not have met with the
+first refusal in an English house.”</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_41" href="#FNanchor_41" class="label">[41]</a>
+The benýsh is a large mantle, reaching to the ground, ample, and
+folding over, with bagging sleeves hanging considerably below the tips
+of the fingers. When worn, it leaves nothing seen but the head and
+face. This is synonymous with a dress coat.</p>
+
+<p class="footnote"><a id="Footnote_42" href="#FNanchor_42" class="label">[42]</a>
+A long letter was subsequently written, in which she explained
+her theory of the origin of the Scotch; and, having learned by a
+note from Mr. Forster that they would return from Beyrout to Sayda
+in their way to <abbr title="Saint">St.</abbr> Jean d’Acre, I rode down to Sayda in the hope of
+meeting him. Circumstances, however, made them set off a day sooner
+than they intended and I missed them. The letter Lady Hester took back
+into her own possession, and seemed to set so much value on it that
+she would not even give me a copy. At the time I could have repeated
+the substance of it with tolerable accuracy from memory; but, as she
+strictly regarded it in the light of a private communication, I did not
+consider myself justified in making any use of it without her sanction.
+It will be sufficient to say that she found a great resemblance between
+the names of the Scotch nobility and certain terms in the Arabic
+language, indicating patronymics, dignities, offices, &amp;c. Her general
+notion was that Scotland had been peopled by the flight of some tribes
+of Arabs in the middle ages. She once had an intention of writing to
+Sir Walter Scott, to urge him to make some researches on that head,
+and she showed me a list of Scotch names apparently of Arabic origin.
+Thus she would say Gower meant Gaôor, or infidel; and by a stretch of
+deduction, commonly indulged in even to still greater excess by people
+who have a favourite theory to sustain, she would argue that, as Mr.
+Pitt used to say that Lord Granville was the counterpart of the statue
+of Antinous, with the same face and the same <em>pose</em> when he stood
+talking unconcernedly, therefore the race of Antinous, which was also
+Eastern, was continued in him.</p>
+
+</div><!--end footnotes-->
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+
+<p class="p4 center">END OF <abbr title="Volume Two">VOL. II.</abbr></p>
+
+<p class="p4 center">
+<span class="ls">FREDERICK SHOBERL, JUNIOR,</span><br>
+PRINTER TO HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS PRINCE ALBERT,<br>
+<span class="smaller">51, RUPERT STREET, HAYMARKET, LONDON.</span></p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Note">Transcriber’s Note</h2>
+</div>
+
+<p>This book was written in a period when many words had not become
+standardized in their spelling. Words may have multiple spelling
+variations or inconsistent hyphenation in the text. These have been
+left unchanged unless indicated below. Obsolete and alternative
+spellings were left unchanged.</p>
+
+<p>Footnotes were renumbered sequentially and were moved to the end of
+the chapter. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down,
+or partially printed letters and punctuation, were corrected. Final
+stops missing at the end of sentences and abbreviations were added.
+Punctuation was adjusted to standard usage. Duplicate letters and
+words at line endings or page breaks were removed.
+</p>
+
+<p>Footnotes <a href="#Footnote_3">[3]</a> and <a href="#Footnote_22">[22]</a> were missing anchors in the text. Anchors were
+added where they may have belonged.</p>
+
+<p>The following items were changed:</p>
+<ul>
+  <li>that to <a href="#chg1">than</a></li>
+  <li>Pourcignac to Pourceaugnac, <a href="#Footnote_17">Footnote [17]</a></li>
+  <li>Dairies to Diaries, <a href="#Footnote_22">Footnote [22]</a></li>
+  <li>he to <a href="#chg2">she</a></li>
+  <li>crew to <a href="#chg3">grew</a></li>
+  <li>venemous to <a href="#chg4">venomous</a></li>
+  <li>espistle to <a href="#chg5">epistle</a></li>
+  <li>Bankes to <a href="#chg6">Banks</a></li>
+</ul>
+
+</div><!--end Transcriber Note-->
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEMOIRS OF THE LADY HESTER STANHOPE, AS RELATED BY HERSELF IN CONVERSATIONS WITH HER PHYSICIAN, VOL. 2 (OF 3) ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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committer	nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org>	2025-01-17 05:46:29 -0800
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