Fifty-One Years of Victorian Life

f my girlhood, as I have less by which I can date its episodes and more year

ter a night or two in London came straig

n mistress of the house. Therefore I seemed to have come straight upon the traces of a bygone generation. Even the china boxes on my dressing-table and the blotters on the writing-tables were much as Lady Jersey had left them-and there were bits of needlework and letters in the drawers which brought her personally vividly before me. The fear and awe of her seemed to overhang the village, and the children were still supposed to go to the Infant School at two years old because she had thought it a suitable age. She had been great at education, had built or arranged schools in the various villages belonging to her, and had endowed a small training school for servants in connection with a Girls' School at Middleton. Naturally the care of that school and other similar matters fell to my province, and I sometimes felt, as I am sure other young women must have done under similar circumstances, that a good deal of

ERSEY'

children. Therefore the agent and woodmen, who realised the necessity of a certain amount of judicious thinning, used to wait until she had taken periodical drives of inspection amongs

r individual requirements. One old woman near her other place, Upton, told me how she had heard of her death soon after receiving a present from her, and added, "I thought she went straight to heaven for sending me that petticoat!" Also she built good cottages fo

ively conversation, and no doubt often flattered for her wealth, but

when she died the villagers resented her having been buried next to her grandmother, Frances Lady Jersey,

ays and particularly the autumn evenings rather lonely when my husband was out hunting, a sport to which he was much addicted in thos

not spend all the cold weather in England. We spent some time at Cannes, and I fancy that it really did my husband

he Ile Ste Marguerite and elsewhere, and the Duc de Vallomb

LON

beginning of May we moved to 7 Norfolk Crescent-a house which we had taken from Mr. Charles Fane of Child's Bank-and my eldest son was born there on June 2nd, 1873. He had come into the world unduly soon-before he was expected-and inconveniently selected Whit Monday when the shops were shut and we

RY, MIDDL

ETON

by the present Co

n the morning which was distinctly startling. Apart from these peculiarities he did not leave much mark in the world. He was very fond of reading, and I used to suggest to him that he might occupy himself in review

his sister's death in Abyssinia. His sister had married a Mr. Powell and she and her husband had been murdered by natives when travelling in that country. Mr. Jenkins and Mr. Powell's brother went to Egypt, collected followers, went into the territory where the murder had taken

BELLA,

oin us at Cannes, where we had this season taken a villa-Isola Bella. We were the first people who inhabited it. It has since been greatly enlarged and it

ut though civil she was not effusive. He was noted for paying long visits when he got into anyone's house. I heard of one occasion on which his name was announced to a young lady who was talking to a man cousin whom she knew well. The youth on hearing the name exclaimed that he

ghbours. My husband, Caroline, and myself found additional occupation in Italian lessons from a fiery little patriot whose name I forget, but who had fought in the war against the Austrians. Among other things he had a lurid story about hi

t after breakfast on a stone terrace in front of the villa, Mr. Jenkins smoking and Jersey doing crochet as a pastime-be

ays to rest while he went back to Middleton. Unfortunately the journey, or something, had been too much for me, and a little girl, who only lived for a day, appeared before her time at t

Lord Beaconsfield at the Duke of Buccleuch's. It is, however, impossible to fix exactly the year

HIRE NE

y was a stalwart, pleasant man, and a convinced teetotaller. Later on than the year of which I speak the Dashwoods came over to see some theatricals at Middleton in which my brothers and sisters and some Cholmondeley cousins took part. After the performance they gave a pressing invitation to the performers to go over on a following day to luncheon or tea. A detachment went accordingly, and were treated with great hospitality but rather like strolling players. "Where do you act next?" and so on, till finally Sir Henry burst out: "What an amusing family yours is! Not only all of you act, but your uncle Mr. James Leigh gives temperance lectures!" Sir Henry's son, Sir George Dashwood, had a large family of which three gallant boys lost their live

d have seen a picture of equal domestic felicity in him and Miss --. He was very anxious to convert Irish Roman Catholics to the ultra-Protestant faith, and he interpreted the Second Commandment to forbid all pictures of any sort or kind. None were allowed in his house. Once he wrote a letter to the papers to protest against the ritualism embodied in a picture in Chesterton Church-an extremely evangelical place where Moody and Sankey hymns prevailed. Late

oria, can that

lbert's manly

lbert, can tha

y Victoria clot

n silk and white gloves. Shortly afterwards he himself departed this life and the property was bought by the popular Bicester banker Mr. T

metimes caused trying scenes. Towards the end of his life he developed a passion for guessing Vanity Fair acrostics, and when he saw you instead of "How d'ye do?" he greeted you with "Can you remember what begins with D and ends with F?" or words to that effect. There was a famous occasion when, as he with several others from Middle

FIELD

ging came from the tower, heard not only by himself but by the huntsmen and whips who were with him-so beautiful that they paused to listen. Next time he met the clergyman, who was another Marsham son, he said to him, "What an early service you had in your church on such a day!" "I had no weekday service," r

versfield could not have produced songsters to chant Mat

ter paper as an episcopal comment that in former days people had neglected to make themselves comfortable in church. However, my old Archdeacon uncle-by-marriage, Lord Saye and Sele, who was a distinctly unconventional thinker, once remarked to my mother that he had always heard church compared to heaven, and as heaven was certainly the most comfortable place possible he did not see why church should not be made comfortable. The old family pew at Middleton Church

k down into the chapel belonging to the house without the effort of descending. Once when we stayed there and m

near Banbury, which is about thirteen miles from Middleton-nothing in the days o

AT MI

w of her many friends. Some of the children have also gone, but others are doing good work in various parts of the Empire. Old Lord Strathnairn, of Mutiny fame, was once staying with us at Middleton. He was extremely deaf and apt to be two or three periods behind in the conversation. Someone mentioned leprosy and its c

quite secondary to their only son. On the other hand, Mr. and Mrs. Dewar at Cotmore were perfectly good to their four sons, but the only daughter distinctly ruled the

t treasure. Villiers' first words were "Hammer, hammer," which he picked up from hearing the constant hammering at the tank in the new water-tower. He was very pleased with his sister, but a trifle jealous of the attentions paid her by his nurse. A rather quaint incident took place at the baby's christening. When Villiers wa

my side-Margarette, Lady Leigh-had been his first love and repeated, "Maggie Willes, Maggie Willes, how I remember her walking down the streets of Cirencester!" He was a wonderful man for falling in love

arranged. Lord Bathurst in November 1841 was riding into Oxford when he met Lady Jersey driving thence to Middleton. She put her head out of the carriage and called to him, "We have got our Prince!" At that time the Queen was expecting her second child, and Lord Bathurst, more occupied with Her Majesty's hopes than with those of Lady

to stay with them soon after little Margaret's birth. I mention this because it was here that I met Lady Galloway, who became my great fri

DISR

vernment in the House of Lords. The Queen was always very kind to him, as she had known his grandmother so well, and told me once that Lady Clementina had been her playfellow. She was his godmother; she records it if I remember rightly in the Life of the Prince Consort, or anyhow in a letter or Diary of the period, and says there that she became godmother as a token of friendship to Sir Robert Peel-his mother's father. She declared to us that she had held him in her arms at his christening, and of course it was not for us to contradict Her Majesty: bu

the House. The Duke was really splendid, and with his fine head and hair thrown back he looked the true Highland Chieftain. Several much less effective speakers would sometimes persist in addressing the House. I remember Lord Houghton exciting much laughter on one occa

them seem to have submitted more or less cheerfully, but the Duke, becoming bored, retired into the background with a book which he had taken from the table. Just when Lord Houghton had reached the most thrilling part and had lowered his voice to give due emphasis to the narrative, the Duke

entured to suggest that he had written various books which I had read with pleasure-why did he write them if such was his opinion? He shrugged his shoulders and remarked, "Il faut vivre." W

AND K

and remarked on the untrustworthiness of clerical statements. About the same time Kingsley gave a discourse at Cambridge in which he quoted a paradox o

orms the Sc

ldom speak

mbridge Kin

is a pack

e judgments

ght will solv

thinks King

goes to Froud

reet, being rather tired of taking houses for the season. My second (surviving) daughter Mary was born here on May 26th-a beautiful baby, god-daughter to Lady Galloway and Julia Wombwell. My third and youngest daughter, Beatrice, was born at Fol

onsiderable sum with his bankers to aid in its restoration. This was unexpected and certainly unsolicited, which made it all the more acceptable. We should never have thought of disturbing her during her lifetime, and even when she died our first idea was to relet the place to a suitable tenant. I had never lived there (though we once slept for a night during the Duchess's tenure), so had no assoc

RUSSEL

arried life. One of our great friends was the American Minister Mr. Lowell. Looking through some of his letters, I recall his perfect charm of manner in speaking and in

for I must go to drink her health at the Foreign Office! 'Tis enough to make a democrat of any Tory that ever was except you. I have moved on my poor little dinner to 5th. I can make no other c

ddleton at the beginning of 1880 and gave me a copy of Lowell's poems carefully marked with those he preferred. Four years later in August Low

London's no

I air and

through the b

nothing h

doves' med

n Tory fo

the Radic

ee (thick-wi

as good for

s good fo

no deeper d

r leave this

iter thus

ad leaf or

happy, al

S AND J.

im. Mr. Hughes told me that he had first made Mr. Lowell's acquaintance by correspondence, having written to him to express his admiration of one of his works. I have just discovered that in an Introduction to his Collected Works published 1891 Hughes says that Trübner asked him in 1859 to write a preface to the English edition of the Biglow Papers which gave him the long-desired opportunity of writing to the author. He also told me-which he also describes

hinted that I said bitter things about England during our war. Well, I hope none of my commentators will ever have as good reason to be bitter. It is only Englishmen who have the happy privilege of speaking frankly about their neighbours, and only they who are never satis

n War, "We are all as cross as terriers with your kind of neutrality"-but he rejoices in the gradual inc

he garden at Osterley on peaceful summer evenings enjoying specially that blue haze peculia

opying. In July 1887 he endowed me with Omar Khayyám, and some

k they will improve their feathers by doing it longer. So I have caught and caged them on the next leaf that you may if you l

fully

. Lo

opy of Om

thought in Persia

lucent as a

plucked them

ung them on an

or a queen in

tion tells her

ughts for eve

n? Why, surely

n Doubt's eddie

shallop 'neath o

ind not peace be

y at least brin

s: "My pen has danced to

the covering letter) appea

e two summers following his return. He died

the body was just between the eyebrows. He said that he had seen several people die, and that the last movement was there. I cannot think that a quiver of the forehead proves it. For immortality, he said

TONE ON I

lloway wrote to me once from Knowsley of a talk she had had wit

our Lord in whom alone, maybe, we receive immortal life. This he only suggests, you understand-does not lay it down-but I don't think I have quite grasped his idea of the mystery of death, which as far as I can understand he thinks Man would not have

eading an article which I had perpetrated in The National Review on Buddhism. I had not known him previously, but he did me the honour

s (which I am far from ranking with theirs, in regard of industry and learning) convince me that it was, in every case, the embodied life; life as we know it and endure it, which Gautama desired to be for ever done with.... I believe that when St. Paul writes 'the things not seen are eternal,' he had attained much such a height of insight a

ed among our friends, and was very kind in giving us int

HT-RE

lso." She accepted with enthusiasm. He sat next to me, and to please her I put her on his other side. In the course of dinner something was said about favourite flowers, and I exclaimed, "Augusta, tell Mr. Arnold his favourite flower." She looked at his hand and said without hesitation, "I don't know its name, but I think it is a white flower rather like a rose and with a very strong scent." He remarked, ast

ccasion when, as I said before, he stayed at Middleton he promised to tell my boy Villiers-then six and a half years old

ary 1s

ar lit

word,' even if it cost me my knife with three blades and a tweezer, or my ivory dog-whistle, which were the two most precious things I had in the world. And my father and mother not only told me that I must never 'run word,' for they knew th

hat she said, and that helped you a little to keep up with all the rest of us. But a boy may be able to read his psalms in his prayer book and yet not able to read a long piece of writing like this, though I am making it as clear as I can. So if you cannot make it all out you must just take it off to Mama and get her to look over your shoulder and tell you what it is all about. Well then, you know what I told you was, that I used to think that some people could get to understand what cats said to one another, and to wish very much that I coul

I think appears in Grimm, of a cat who, overhearing an account given by a human being of the imposi

AND RUGBY

to poor Hughes. I recollect that Lord Galloway's servant suggested that he would like to accompany Mr. Hughes to the States-"and I would valet you, sir." Hughes repudiated all idea of valeting, but was willing to accept the man as a comrade. All he got by his democratic offer was that the man told the other servants that Mr. Hughes did not understand real English aristocracy. Which reminds me of a pleasing definition given by the Matron of our Village Training School for Servants of the much-discussed word "gentleman." She told me one day that her sister had as

and became a frequent visitor afterwards. He was an intimate friend o

f the Master. "It all went together and spoke in one voice-a rich English voice of the early part of

NAL N

rd and grovelled before him on her knees, kissing his hand with much effusion, and I fancy embarrassing His Eminence considerably. My aunt, the Duchess of Westminster, who was very handsome but by no means slim, was standing next to me and whispered, "Margaret, shall we have to do that? because I should never be able to get up again!" However, none of the Roman Catholics present seemed to consider such extreme genuflections necessary. I think they made some reasonable k

ad

ork of a dear friend now no more. That reason is the desire I feel of expressing in some way my sense of your kindness to me two years ago, when

l accept this ex

hip's faith

Cardina

er, edited and with a Preface by Cardinal Newman. I have never been able to understand what