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Memoirs

Georgiana, Lady Chatterton

With
Some Passages from Her Diary

BY THE LATE

EDWARD HENEAGE DERING

Author of
‘ Sherborne,"' ‘‘ Freville Chase,"’ ‘‘ The Ban of Maplethorpe,”’
eétc,, etc,

SECOND EDITION

R. & T. WASHBOURNE, Ltd.,

1, 2 & 4, PaTERNOSTER Row, Lonpon.

Branches: MANCHESTER, BIRMINGHAM, GLASGOW
TO THE
RIGHT REV. THE BISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM

My peEar Lorp,

By your kind permission I have the honour and advan-
tage of dedicating to your Lordship this memoir of my most
beloved and most lamented wife. | Were I to say that I had the
strongest reasons for asking you to grant me that favour, I should
indeed say the truth, but imply something less; for the fact is
that it was morally impossible for me to have done otherwise.
You, my Lord, read her soul from the very beginning of your
acquaintance, helped and supported her through the worst of her
spiritual trials, guided her when the time had come for direction,
comforted me, as no one else could have done, in the bitter
sorrow that so soon came upon me.

Of the letters you wrote to her, the sermon you preached or
rather spoke, when you stood by her coffin in Baddesley Church,
I will only say that I never can be sufficiently grateful for your
having spoken the one and written the others.

Who am I that I should presume to say more? What
should I be if I were to say less?

Permit me, my Lord, to take this public opportunity of ex-
pressing my own personal gratitude for the kindness—may I say
friendship ?—with which during the last ten years you have
honoured me.

I remain, my dear Lord,
Your most devoted servant,
EpwarD HENEAGE DEERING.
CONTENTS.

&*
CHAPTER I.
Introduction

CHAPTER II.
From her Diary—Recollections of Childhood

CHAPTER III.

Her Difficulty in Learning—Marriage with Sir William Chat-
terton—Death of her Father; the Reverend Lascelles
Iremonger, Prebendary of Winchester Cathedral, and
Vicar of Goodworth, Clutford, near Andover; and of her
Mother

CHAPTER IV.

Her First Book, ‘‘ Aunt Dorothy’s Tale’’—Lord Brougham’s
Novel—Meeting with Landor—Compensation for Deafness
—Samuel Rogers, the Poet—Chantrey

CHAPTER V.
La Ferté—Interior of a Room in an Hotel—An Evening in
Paris .

CHAPTER VI.

Retirement—Modern Aspect of Paris—Evil Influences prepar-
ing for the Outbreak of 1848—A few Remarks on Educa-
tion 3 : ‘ '

CHAPTER VII.
Ten Years Ago—The Occupations of a Snowy Day at Calais .

CHAPTER VIII.
Publication of ‘‘ A Good Match ’’—Advantages of Praise—De-
lights of a Spring Day—Mrs Somerville—Clever Books and
Clever People—The Young Queen 5 ‘

PAGE

21

30

40

45

50

55
vi CONTENTS

CHAPTER IX.

Seamore Place—Obedience the Beginning of Love—Lady Duf-
ferin and her Brother—Mrs Somerville’s Sufferings from

Thunder-storms

CHAPTER X.

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton and his Mother—Dinner at Sir
Francis Chantrey’s—Wordsworth—Publication of her

‘*Rambles in the South of Ireland,’’ 1839

CHAPTER XI.

The Count de Montalembert—Sydney Smith—Joanna Baillie—
Miss Sedgwick—Lady Cork gives a Dinner at a Friend’s
House—Her Eccentricities s ‘ :

CHAPTER XII.
Publication of ‘‘ Home Sketches’’—Mr Hayward—The Countess
Hahn-Hahn—A Dinner-party at Home

CHAPTER XIII.
Reminiscences of Lockhart and his Daughter—A Ghost Story

CHAPTER XIV.
A Winter in Paris—Second Sight~ Madame Marlay

CHAPTER XV.

Six Sad Years—Residence in Dorsetshire and at Rolls Park in
Essex—Death of Sir William Chatterton—Return to Sea-
more Place . , % J

CHAPTER XVI.

The Diary Resumed—Loneliness—Publication of ‘‘ The Reign-
ing Beauty’’—The Duchess of Cleveland 3

CHAPTER XVII.
Reply to a Sceptic—The Longing for Companionship .

CHAPTER XVIII.
Our Marriage on June 1st, 1859 .

CHAPTER XIX.
Publication of ‘‘The Heiress and her Lovers’’—The Isle of
Purbeck—A few Extracts from ‘‘ Léonore’”’ and “ Oswald
of Deira’’

PAGE

62

68

73

82

89

99

Ii2

116

126

133

144
CONTENTS

CHAPTER XX.
Her Niece’s Marriage—Removal to Warwickshire—Letter on
the Immaculate Conception from the Bishop of Birming-

ham

CHAPTER XXI.
Removal to Baddesley Clinton—Publication of ‘‘ Lady May ’’—
The Bishop of Birmingham’s Letter on the Holy Eucharist

CHAPTER XXII.

The Bishop of Birmingham’s Letters on Faith .
The Bishop of Birmingham’s Letter on see and the Edu-

cation of the Clergy

CHAPTER XXIII.
The Month of August—Trials and Results

CHAPTER XXIV.
Letter to Dr Newman, his Reply—Letter from the Bishop of
Birmingham about the Rosary : i ‘

CHAPTER XXV.
The Bishop of Birmingham's Letter on Ceremonial

CHAPTER XXVI.

The First Mass in the Old Chapel at Baddesley Clinton, after
an Interval of Sixty Years—The Bishop of Birmingham’ s

Letter on Feeling and Will

CHAPTER XXVII.
The Bishop’s Last Letter to her .

CHAPTER XXVIII.
Letters from the Bishop of Birmingham, the Very Rev. Dr
Newman and others—Rest—Conclusion é .

APPENDIX

Vil

PAGE

153

166

187

200

214

216

224

232

243

258

27/3
MEMOIRS

OF

Georgiana, Lady Chatterton

CHAPTER I.
Introduction.

I wriTeE this memorial sketch in two characters,
distinct in themselves, accidentally united in me.
I write it as a husband made desolate by the
death of one who was everything in the world
to him, and I write it as the same husband, deso-
late indeed, but filled with gratitude to almighty
God for special blessings that can have no
equivalent.

A cynic might incompletely define the pre-
sent age as the age of biographies ; and, per-
haps, within its own very narrow limits, the
definition might not be found wanting in a cer-
tain amount of truth. Certainly, the number of
biographies, long and short, hero-worshipping
and critical, is excessive; and, perhaps, their
particular use is not always apparent. But their
number will not seem so surprising, nor their
special use so hard to discover, if we bear in
mind the fact that they are not all written for
all readers.
2 INTRODUCTION

But, perhaps, modern civilization, taking me
to task with the gravity becoming its infallible
wisdom, might ask what I mean by writing the
life of one who never invented any machine,
never read a paper at a Social Science congress,
and was altogether out of harmony with the
“Spirit of the Age.” Well, it is true that she
was out of harmony with the sentimental ma-
terialism, the weary cravings, the speculations
without faith or hope, the melancholy trifling
with all that really concerns this life and the
next, which is pompously styled the Spirit of
the Age.

It is true, indeed, emphatically true, that she
was not what is conventionally styled a strong-
minded woman. But never among the count-
less varieties of mind and disposition that colour
the long line of human history, coming and
going like sparkles of moonlight on the ocean—
never among all the infinitesimal shades of differ-
ence that theory or the experience of ages has
found or imagined, was there any living creature
born of woman to whom the term mediocrity is
more inapplicable than to the subject of this
Memoir ; and all who knew her will recognize
the truth of this statement.

This is not a biography in the strict sense of
the word. It is a memorial sketch of one whose
life was a continued act of Catholic self-develop-
ment, whose principles of action might have
served as a model to good Catholics long before
almighty God had given her the light of the
Faith, whose unswerving conscientiousness made
INTRODUCTION 3

her endure exceptionally painful trials of soul,
intellect and heart for ten years, through fear of
being deceived by the influence of human affec-
tion, and who, during that long period of mental
martyrdom, never lost sight of the question at
issue, never sought relief by turning aside from
a difficulty, never ceased to pray for light till the
light had been given.

It can be but a sketch; for if it were more, it
would extend beyond the limits of the reader’s
leisure and be out of harmony with my own feel-
ings, which prompt me indeed to give some
approximate notion of the most beautiful female
character I have ever known, but certainly not
to sound the depths of my own immeasurable
loss before the public.

The picture must of necessity be incomplete.
It cannot adequately depict the purity of soul,
the singleness of purpose, the simplicity of inten-
tion, the strong humility, the valiant conscien-
tiousness which I saw in continued action, daily
and hourly, during seventeen years. Nor
can I give any idea of all those attractive and
endearing qualities to which one can give no
name because they showed themselves in ways
ever fresh and new. Very few people indeed—
perhaps not half a dozen in the world—knew
what her intellectual powers really were. Her
writings—of which I will only say here that they
have been appreciated by the two most critical
minds I know—do not give their measure nor
their quality; for the creative vigour of her
mind was always so far in excess of her physical
4 INTRODUCTION

health, that she never could apply to the carry-
ing out of her conceptions the time and labour
which they required and deserved. a

Twelve letters from the Bishop of Birming-
ham will—by permission of course—appear in
their proper places. Of them I shall only per-
mit myself to say that they will cause the reader
to forget, as far as possible, the many faults and
deficiencies that he will have discovered in my
share of the work. It would be unseemly in me
to say more, and there is no need to tell English
Catholics as much. It is sufficient that I have
said who wrote them.

Though a memorial sketch is not a biography,
there is this much in common between them,
that both are life-pictures, and if the one is, more
or less, a miniature, whilst the other expresses
the subject with as few touches as will suffice
for the purpose, in either case a likeness is in-
tended. But since a likeness drawn in words
over the space of a life-history cannot be appre-
hended by the mind at once—for that would im-
ply that the reader could take in the whole and
all its parts by intuition, which human minds
cannot do—there must be a beginning ; and the
beginning should, if possible, be morally con-
nected with what is to follow. It has been
written and much quoted that “the child is the
father of the man” ; and no doubt the author of
that oracular utterance might have added with
Hans Breitmann, ‘God knows I meant some-
dings.” One cannot pick any particular mean-
ing out of it as it stands, for paternity is creative,
INTRODUCTION 5

whereas the germ of the man’s character pre-
exists in that of the child; but it reminds one of
a fact which all experience attests, that, if we
cannot create our own character, we can and
do develop it, upwards or downwards, from dis-
positions more or less traceable in childhood.
How well, how firmly, how consistently my
most beloved wife trained herself, and how dis-
tinctly the leading principle of her life can be
recognized in her earliest recollections, the fol-
lowing pages will show.

The first part of the Memoirs will be taken
from her diary. The rest will be partly written,
partly compiled by myself. I use the word dary
to avoid a circumlocution, there being no single
word, so far as I know, to express what it is. It
is really a series of recollections jotted down at
various times, and extending, with uncertain in-
tervals, over some years. I had some doubts as
to whether I should make use of it, or write that
part of the Memoir as well as the rest. On the
one hand I could have made it far more interest-
ing as regards herself than her humility would
allow her to do; on the other, I felt that what is
written in the private diary of one who has
passed from this world, leaving a void which can
never be filled, has a special interest of its own,
and, as it were, a living character. I have, there-
fore, adopted the latter course, and begin the
Memoir in her own words. For the convenience
of the reader I have divided it into chapters, and
slightly indicated the contents of each.
CHAPTER II.
From her Diary—Recollections of Childhood.

My first recollections are of the house in which
I was born—24 Arlington Street. It looked into
the Green Park, and had a little garden of its
own, full of old-fashioned, sweet-smelling flowers.
At least it was always sweet whenever my father
and mother used to stay in Arlington Street with
my uncle and aunt Pitt. Every fine day I used
to be turned out into the sweet-scented garden
to run wild and play with my doll, and look at
the crowd of carriages that seemed to be always
driving along Piccadilly—fine old carriages, and
vis-a-vis, and state coaches driven by powdered
coachmen sitting on splendid hammercloths, and
footmen with tall canes and cocked hats standing
behind. Most of the carriages had coronets or
crests at the four corners of the roof. No cabs
or omnibuses or even hackney-coaches can I re-
member. To my childish eyes all was glitter
and show, and the crowd seemed composed of
none but ladies and gentlemen bent on amuse-
ment. Yet there was a mysterious something
beyond that often made me cry without any
apparent reason. I learned afterwards what it
was—it was the atmosphere of sin which hung
about the great city, and which was as percep-
RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD i

tible to my moral sense as its fogs of to-day are
to my sight.*

The house in Arlington Street belonged, as
I have said, to my aunt and uncle, Mr and Mrs
Morton Pitt, of Kingston House and Encombe
in Dorsetshire. Mrs Pitt, my mother’s sister,
was very beautiful ;t and becoming by her mar-
riage nearly connected with Lord Chatham and
Mr Pitt, besides having been brought up, as well
as my mother, by their aunt, Lady Middleton,
she was necessarily thrown among many of the
leading characters of the day.{ Soon after her
marriage, at seventeen, she and her husband
travelled through Italy, and passed some time in
Paris, where she danced minuets at court, and
her letters to my mother, now unfortunately de-
stroyed, gave vivid pictures of Marie Antoinette,
and of the brilliant fétes given at that gay time.

* Here is the germ of that longing desire for the highest good,
that sensitive abhorrence of evil, which, through life, guided her
actions and directed her will. Her intuitive perception of sin was
often startling. She could detect it at once, as if by the external
senses, and that before she was old enough to know what it was
that impressed her so painfully. I could mention many remarkable
instances, were it expedient to do so; but even if it were, which it
cannot be, the story of her life taken in its course, and as far as pos-
sible in her own words, is the most natural and life-like form in
which her character can be drawn.—E. H. D.

+ Mrs Morton Pitt and her sister Harriett were the two youngest
daughters of Mr Gambier, and sisters of Admiral Lord Gambier.
They came of a distinguished French family, Gambier de Lavigny,
the head of which took refuge in England at the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes. Harriett married late in life the Rev. Lascelles
Iremonger, Prebendary of Winchester, and her only child, Geor-
giana, is the writer of this diary.

¢ Lady Middleton, wife of Sir Charles Middleton, afterwards
Lord Barham, First Lord of the Admiralty.
8 MADAME DE STAEL

Little did she think that she was standing over
a volcano.

Some of the last masquerades at private
houses were given by my aunt in Arlington Street
before I was born there. At the last of these
Madame de Staél was present. She had just
arrived in England to escape from Parisian cen-
sorship, and publish her works out of the pro-
tecting shade of a gendarme’s cocked hat. At
one moment, the crowd being excessive, Madame
de Staél remarked to my mother, “Il parait
qu’on souffre méme ici de la liberté de la
presse.”

Of course, many more people wished to ob-
tain an invitation card than my aunt could pos-
sibly find room for; and as every one wore a
mask, the cards were obliged to be shown at the
door. An amusing expedient to gain admittance
was successfully attempted that night. One of
the young gentlemen of the day could not ob-
tain a card, but he persuaded a fortunate friend
who had been invited, to allow him to go with
him as a giant. He dressed himself in long
flowing robes, mounted the other man’s shoul-
ders, and thus succeeded in getting into the
house with only one card. Fortunately his
friend was a strong man, and for some time was
able to bear the weight of the other without
a murmur ; but, at last, he began to totter under
the weight, and, as they approached my aunt, the
interloper fancied by the good-humoured expres-
sion on her beautiful face that she would forgive
his audacity ; so he jumped down off his friend’s
BON-MOT OF GEORGE III 9

shoulders, and taking off his mask, apologized for
his intrusion.

My aunt, as well as her guests, were much
amused, and the offender was complimented on
his original contrivance, and on possessing so
good-natured a friend.

George the Third made a very near approach
to a bon-mot on my Uncle Morton Pitt. Some
one remarking that Morton Pitt was a very good
man of business, the king replied: “No, not
a good man of business, but a good busy man.”
This was the truth, but not the whole truth. If
large sympathies laid him open to the reproach
of having too many irons in the fire, some stub-
born facts gave practical evidence of judgment
and capacity. Asa politician, he stands forth in
pleasant pre-eminence among that class of mem-
bers, now become historical, who seemed to
bring their county with them into parliament.
He was, in fact, an ordinary member of parlia-
ment, but emphatically member for Dorsetshire,
which county he represented for a period of nearly
fifty years, from 1778 to 1825, when he resigned
his seat. He was unwearied in his endeavours
to promote the interests of the poor, and was the
first man of property and influence who exerted
himself to ameliorate the condition of prisons.

When at Weymouth, George the Third used
frequently to drive over to Kingston, my uncle’s
place near Dorchester, without giving any notice
of his intended visit. One day, he and the Royal
Family arrived in large numbers before luncheon
time, and were seen walking on the terrace by
10 UNEXPECTED VISIT OF ROYALTY

my aunt and her friends as they were rowing on
the large piece of water below. In their haste
to get on shore, their boat got aground, and in
attempting to land, they were covered with mud
before they reached the lawn.

The King, who was delighted with having sur-
prised them in this condition and wished to
break the formality of the visit, ran forward into
the house, hid himself between the double doors
near the entrance to the red drawing-room, and
waiting there till he heard the party pass near, he
jumped out upon Queen Charlotte as she passed,
with the nursery ejaculation of “Bo!” Poor
George the Third has had so large a share of
condemnation from so many flippant people, that
it is pleasant to be able to record such interest-
ing traits of character as those handed down to
me by my mother. Another instance of his
good-nature occurred when my mother was pre-
sented at court in her seventeenth year. My
mother had sometimes met the Royal Family a
year or two before in her walks with her aunt,
Lady Middleton, at, I believe, Tunbridge Wells;
and they had talked to her in the pleasant fa-
miliar way they—but more particularly George
the Third—spoke to those they liked; so
that when my mother appeared with her hair
powdered after the fashion of the time, the good-
natured King was so glad to see her, that the
conventional kiss, given to young girls on their
first presentation, was, on this occasion, so hearty
and affectionate that his nose became covered
with the powder of her hair. The King’s face
MINUET DE LA COUR II

being rather red, the white powdered nose pro-
duced a most ludicrous effect, and the Lords in
Waiting, perceiving suppressed laughter among
the Court, and seeing the difficulty each succeed-
ing lady experienced in keeping her countenance
as she advanced, ventured to say to the king:

“Your Majesty has powdered your nose.”

The King, not quite hearing, but perceiving
that something must be wrong, became alarmed,
and said :

‘“What—what—what’s the matter; my nose—
my nose!”

My mother was almost convulsed with laugh-
ter, which she tried in vain to suppress when
she saw Queen Charlotte’s severe eyes fixed
reprovingly on her. At last the King under-
stood what had occurred, and as he wiped the
powder from his nose, he burst into a hearty
laugh to the great comfort of my mother, who
was then able to take her place in the Minuet
de la Cour with becoming gravity and grace.
As she was an unusually good dancer, she was
much commended—the King declaring that he
had never seen a minuet so well danced; and
even the stately Queen was heard to say that
Miss Gambier was the best dancer she had yet
seen in England.

I believe that was nearly the last year of
powder and minuets—the most graceful of
dances, with its touching and melancholy air,
which sounds to me like the dirge of the old
French Court, and the extinction, perhaps every-
where, of the true xoblesse qui oblige.
12 COURT AND COUNTRY DOCTORS

It was in the drawing-room of my uncle’s
house in Arlington Street that Tom Paine, who
had been brought there by some one as a sort of
lion, while breakfasting with my aunt one day,
received a note from one of the Prince Regent's
Court to the effect that the prince was anxious to
know if he (Tom Paine) had been bred to the sea.
The writer had, by a slip of the pen, spelt the
word bread, upon which Tom Paine wrote in
pencil on the cover :

No, not bread to the sea,
But it was bread to me,
And—bad bread it be.

These occurrences happened before I was
born. For, soon afterwards, my aunt’s health
failed, and she was condemned by most of the
celebrated doctors of the day, who declared that
her lungs were affected, and that she could not
live six months. However, a clever Maidstone
doctor, who had known her from a child, was
called in, Dr Day—a plain, “rough-spoken”
man; and he took her in hand, prescribing
nourishing diet, porter and no medicine but
ammonia, or, as he called it, “wollatiles.” The
courtly doctors did not approve of this treat-
ment. They were in attendance at that time on
King George the Third at Windsor, and as they
wished to have a consultation with the country
doctor, Uncle Pitt drove Dr Day there to meet
them. His description of the interview, which
took place in one of the ante-rooms, was very
amusing. Sir Henry Halford and another emi-
A PROFESSIONAL CONSULTATION I

nent physician in court dresses, with point-lac
ruffles, bag-wigs and buckles, came bowing int
the room, prepared to patronize, and, if need be
to put down the plain, fat country doctor i
brown top-boots, who had ventured to questioi
the wisdom of their advice and doubt thei
superior knowledge. Dr Day, who had travelle:
all the way from Maidstone by the night coacl
and then started from London to Windsor in hi
dusty and travel-stained clothes, was nothin;
daunted by their courtly appearance, and whe
they expressed their disapprobation of such ;
heating medicine as ammonia, or volatile alkalis
for a case like my aunt’s, he sturdily maintainec
that it was not heating.

“On the contrary,” he said, ‘‘I gie’s it to coo
—and it has—and I sits by her and feels he
pulse while I make her eat beef-steaks and drinl
porter.”

“Oh, if she has so far recovered,” they re
plied stiffly, “we can have nothing more to say;
and with still lower bows and contemptuousl
civil looks at my uncle and the audacious doctor
they backed out of the room.

My aunt had one only child, a daughter, wh«
was married to Lord Marsham (afterwards Lori
Romney) before I was born, and this, probably
contributed to make me, her favourite sister’
only child, an object of excessive affection. Cer
tain it is that I was petted and spoiled by m:
uncle and aunt, as much as by my father an
mother ; the more so, perhaps, because I wa
comparatively the child of their old age. I cai
14 DIFFICULTY IN LEARNING

just remember that there was often a kind of
levée at my supper time in Arlington Street, and
that the way I put my spoon in my mouth, or sat
up in my little high chair, was extolled by many
of the great people of the day; and that, when the
Duke of Cambridge took me up in his arms, and
I gave him a box on the ear for trying to kiss
me, so far from being scolded for this, I was all
the more praised and petted.

This kind of training did not make me learn
much, and there is a tradition that, at five years
old, my mother and my aunt were found, by their
old friend the Duke of Grafton, in floods of tears
at finding that I could not read at all, and hada
very dim notion of my letters. He, with diffi-
culty, led them to hope that I should be able to
learn some day; but I believe I was nearly seven
before I could read well, though I was fond of
composing stories which my aunt’s maid used to
write down at my dictation.

1 afterwards had a French maid, and soon
began to speak French fluently. I well re-
member her arrival from France, and how she
used to relate her adventures (being a Bretonne)
among the Republicans ; and that especially on
one occasion, when passing a crowd of excited
citizens shouting “Vive la République!” she
called out, waving her hand with a defiant ges-
ture, “Jesuis Royaliste, moi!” When she arrived
in England on her way to my father’s house, her
passport was found not to be ex régle, and she
was ever afterwards possessed with the idea
that she had narrowly escaped being put in
FIRST GREAT SORROW 15

prison at Dover. “In which case,” she said,
“On m’aurait donné des haricots sans beurre, et
des petits pois sans sucre.” Afterwards I had
an Italian governess, and spoke Italian; but it
was not until much later that I made any pro-
gress in learning. I remember that one gover-
ness considered me unteachable, because I could
not say the second psalm by heart, and especi-
ally the verse, ‘‘Why do the heathen so furiously
rage ?” which she used to repeat over and over
again to me in the vain endeavour to beat it into
my head. The fact is, I was wondering all the
time why the heathen did so furiously rage,
and who they could be; so that the more my
mind was made to dwell on the words, the more
puzzled I became, and the less I remembered
my lesson.

My first great sorrow was my dear aunt’s
death, which happened at Lausanne, where she
had gone for a warmer climate: but this was
fully nine years after she had been condemned
by the London doctors, and when I was about
twelve years old. She had taken leave of my
mother and myself two years before at Barham
Court—the place belonging to my great-uncle,
Lord Barham—where she and my mother had
passed their childhood and early youth, under
the guardianship of their aunt, the wife of Sir
Charles Middleton, afterwards Lord Barham.

Barham Court had been for many years pre-
viously the resort of several remarkable persons
of the last century, who were the intimate friends
of my great-aunt and uncle. My mother could
16 ANECDOTE OF DR JOHNSON

just remember Dr Johnson, who often came to
stay there, and she told me of a funny scene
which occurred one night. The celebrated
doctor happened to be groping his way down-
stairs in the middle of the night to get a small
carpet bag, containing some precious manuscript,
which he remembered leaving in a chair at the
foot of the stairs. During his progress, he
placed his hand on the banisters, and felt what
he thought to be the head of aman. Supposing
it to be the head of a house-breaker he seized
it, and roared with all his might. When the
affrighted household had assembled, candle in
hand, the robber turned out to be an old lady’s
wig which her maid had left by mistake on one
of the large round knobs of the carved oak
staircase.

Lady Middleton was a remarkably fine artist.
She was an intimate friend of Sir Joshua Rey-
nolds, and imbibed the spirit of his peculiar and
excellent style of portrait painting. Her great-
grandson, Lord Gainsborough, possesses at his
place in Rutlandshire, Exton Park, numerous
portraits of the family painted by her, and more
are dispersed in the residences of her numerous
descendants and relatives. I have the one she
painted of my beautiful Aunt Pitt, and another
of her handsome brother, Cornish Gambier.
They are often taken for the work of Sir
Joshua Reynolds.

Mr Wilberforce used to be a constant visitor
at Barham Court. In Lady Middleton he met
with sympathy and encouragement, and I have
WILBERFORCE 17

been told that the abolition of slavery was first
talked over in that house.

In later days, Mr Wilberforce often stayed
with my uncle, Lord Gambier, after Lord Bar-
ham’s death, and as I went everywhere with my
mother, and was always present at the break-
fast-table and in the drawing-room, instead of
passing my time as most children do in the
nursery or school-room, I heard and pondered
over many things that were said.

The first conversation I remember hearing
between him and the rest of the party, gave
me, on reflection many years afterwards, a
very favourable impression of his kindness
and charity of feeling. They were talking of
a beautiful duchess who had been a great
admirer of my Aunt Pitt, but against whose
character some remarks had been made.

“Oh, pray don’t find fault with her,” said
Wilberforce, “for I know that, if I had been
that lovely, charming duchess, I should have
been very, very much worse.”

The duchess died, I believe, before I was
born; but my mother, who was an excellent
mimic, and had the power of impressing her
features with the expression of other persons
in the most remarkable degree, used sometimes
to imitate her graceful manners when describ-
ing various things she had said. She was al-
ways charmed with the pleasant greeting the
duchess used to give my aunt, and used to
imitate the pretty way in which she held her
hands while she looked into her face, and said,

Zz
18 HANNAH MORE

“Oh, my dear Mrs Pitt, what delight it always
gives me to look into your beautiful face ; the
sight of you always seems to make me feel
good!”
It was on this beautiful duchess that Cole-
ridge wrote his ode, beginning :
“© splendour’s fondly fostered child!
And did you hail the platform wild,
Where once the Austrian fell
Beneath the shaft of Tell?

O lady! nursed in pomp and pleasure !
Whence learned you that heroic measure?” *

Another remarkable character of the day,
Hannah More, was also a frequent visitor at
Barham Court; and I can just remember the
peculiarly penetrating expression of her black
eyes. I was not afraid of her, and yet the
piercing look of those eyes often haunted me,
and sometimes when I felt naughty I fancied
that they looked with disapproval on me. I
can therefore understand the great influence
she exerted in her day—an influence for good,
I think, so far as it came direct from herself.
She certainly set a considerable number of
Protestants thinking about religion for the first
time in their lives, and she left London, where

* Coleridge wrote his Ode on the twenty-fourth stanza of the

Duchess’s poem of ‘‘The Passage over Mount St Gothard.’”? He
ends the ode with the following lines:

““O beautiful! O nature's child!
"Twas thence you hailed the platform wild,
Where once the Austrian fell
Beneath the shaft of Tell!
O lady! nursed in pomp and pleasure,
Thence learned you that heroic measure.”
SIR CHARLES MIDDLETON 19

she had many friends and congenial society, to
bury herself in a remote part of Somersetshire,
doing works of mercy, according to her lights,
with much self-denial and labour. Many of her
followers became violently anti-Catholic; but
she was not so herself. One of her greatest
friends was a Catholic—the widow of the fa-
mous Garrick—and she once gave the profits
of a successful work for the benefit of some
French emigrant priests. Lady Middleton was
her earliest and best friend, and most generous
contributor to her work of instructing two thou-
sand poor children.*

After a long life of service my great-uncle,
Sir Charles Middleton, was, like Cincinnatus,
called from his country pursuits in his eightieth
year to take a high command at a time of un-
usual difficulty. In Wilberforce’s published
Diary there is the following passage respect-
ing him:

“1797.—Pitt and Lord Chatham, First Lord
of the Admiralty, f had sent for Middleton, and
met him with the information : ‘Bad news, Sir
Charles, from the fleet—a ship has mutinied—
what are we to do?’ Sir Charles, who had
always been an enemy to pressing, and who
actually resigned his office of Comptroller of
the Navy because he could not carry some re-
forms which would have prevented the breaking
out of the great mutiny, immediately replied,
‘You know how ill I think these poor fellows
have been used, but now that it has come to a

* «Memoirs of Admiral Lord Gambier,” p. 146. t Ibid. p. 145.
20 HOW TO REPRESS A MUTINY

mutiny there is but one thing to be done: you
must show them that you have the superiority ;
you must order a ninety-gun ship on each side
of her, and sink her on the spot, if she does not
at once submit.’ They were staggered, and said
doubtfully : ‘That is a strong measure; what if
they should refuse to obey?’ ‘Then, indeed, all
would be over ; but they will not refuse to obey
if you give the order resolutely ; and it is the
only thing which can be done.’ He left them
still undetermined, and in a few minutes came
back with the despatch drawn up, and seeing
still some hesitation, said, ‘ Pray sign it instantly,
there is much to be done in the office, and we
shall scarcely be ready in time to save the post.’
‘Sir Charles,’ said Pitt, ‘is the best man of busi-
ness I know.’” *

* “Life of Wilberforce,’”’ vol. II, p. 212.
CHAPTER III.

Her Difficulty in Learning—Marriage with Sir
William Chatterton—Death of her Father,
the Reverend Lascelles Iremonger, Preben-
dary of Winchester Cathedral, and Vicar of
Goodworth Clatford, near Andover; and of
her Mother.

THE intense grief caused by my aunt’s death
was probably the cause of the bad health from
which I afterwards suffered. I had been a
strong healthy child, but after her death I be-
came comparatively weak and delicate; and I
remember that the following year, when I was
to be taken to one of the children’s balls given
by George the Fourth at Carlton House, Sir
Henry Halford was sent for to do what he
could in enabling me to bear the fatigue and the
lateness of the hours.

I learnt very little in consequence of my bad
health ; for my mother, thinking change of air
and scene advantageous, used to take me about
everywhere to country houses, sometimes with
my governess, but more often without her ; so
that it was a wonder I ever learned anything.
My mind seemed to receive its only education
from the world, by hearing people—many of them
very remarkable characters—talk, and listening
22 MARRIAGE

to their conversation with an attention undis-
turbed by any other children.

At ten years old I was sent to a day-school
at Winchester, and the extraordinary effect this
had in making me suddenly discover that I could
learn something, is described in my “ Home
Sketches and Foreign Recollections,” published
in 1841. I only attended this school for about
a month, one year while my father was in resi-
dence at Winchester, but it had the permanent
effect of inducing me to learn; and the next
governess I had was too sensible to urge me to
do more than was good for my health. In fact
some of my young friends declared that I was
more her governess than she mine.

I came out, as it is called, at seventeen; but
with the exception of balls and very large parties
the change was not very apparent tome. I had
lived nearly as much in the world before, as I
did afterwards.

At the end of my first season in London I
married Sir William Chatterton, and soon _after-
wards went to spend the winter at Castle Ma-
hon, near Cork, in Ireland. The relaxing climate
of that beautiful country disagreed with me very
much, so we went to spend the next winter in
Italy.

In Florence I first met Nelly Blackwood—
née Sheridan, afterwards Lady Dufferin, and
later Countess of Gifford—and she became one
of the warmest and most constant friends that
I was ever blessed with. Her health was never
very strong, which prevented her from being as
LADY DUFFERIN 23

celebrated for her many versatile powers as she
otherwise would have been. But her songs,
“A Charming Woman” and “The Young Eng-
lish Gentleman,” will long be remembered, and
some of her plays were very successful. “ Violet
the Danseuse” was attributed to her so pertina-
ciously that she said jokingly to me one day:
“Well, if nobody else claims it, I may as well
accept the authorship, but between ourselves,
I should be very sorry to have written it.”
She was immensely admired for her beauty
and charm. In fact she and her two sisters,
Mrs Norton and the Duchess of Somerset,
have excited perhaps more admiration than any
other women who have graced this century.

I met Lady Dufferin first at Prince Demidoff’s.
He gave the pleasantest parties, or rather recep-
tions—for they were held every week—I ever
was at, in any country. There was every varie-
ty of entertainment, including a private theatre
where plays were acted by professors in French
and Italian. This plan was afterwards adopted
by Lord Hertford at his villa in the Regent’s
Park ; but his fétes occurred only occasionally,
whereas Prince Demidoff’s were given every
week, and consequently were never too much
crowded. The day afterwards I met Mrs Black-
wood again, and heard her sing ‘some beautiful
. songs that she had composed, both music and
words. I was particularly enchanted with two
which I think have never been published, “ Like
Pilgrims old and weary we have wandered back
once more,” and “‘ Bygone Hours.” She had all
24 MRS DAWSON DAMER

the beauty and wit of the Sheridans, and on our
return to England I became acquainted with her
beautiful sisters, and Mrs Norton wrote some
funny lines on me, which I have carefully pre-
served. I have also some amusing lines and
drawings done by their youngest sister, then
the reigning beauty of the London world—after-
wards Duchess of Somerset.

At Naples we used often to visit the old Arch-
bishop of Taranto, who is so well described in
Rogers’s “ Italy.”

We also met there a delightful companion of
my early childhood, Mrs Dawson Damer ; and
she, too, remained until her dying day one of my
best and most constant friends. She had been
brought up by Mrs Fitzherbert, and was the
petted darling of that beautiful lady and her
husband, King George the Fourth. She was
indeed “nursed in pomp and pleasure,” yet she
was the most unspoilt person possible. She
told me many years afterwards an anecdote of
the King (George the Fourth), which discloses
some of his real feelings; but I will reserve
this until I come to the time when I was
staying with her in the interesting Dorsetshire
home which her husband afterwards inherited
from Lady Caroline Damer.*

* This lady succeeded to her father’s (Lord Dorchester’s) pro-
perty by the disinheritance of her only brother, Lord Milton, part
of it being the house in Park Lane, now rebuilt by Mr Holford,
forming one of the most admired and well-known objects in that
neighbourhood. It is, indeed, the pleasantest site in all London
from the views it commands over the Park, Kensington Gardens
and the distant Surrey hills. It was justly called Lord Milton’s
WINTER IN ITALY 25

From Naples we made excursions to Pzes-
tum, Amalfi and other interesting places ; and
also passed a week with an English lady, Miss
Weale, who lived near La Cava, in the midst
of the country immortalized by the pencil of
Salvator Rosa. I made many sketches of that
wild and splendid scenery.

We returned home by Bologna and Venice,
where of course I was enchanted with the old
palaces, and with the gondola life. We were
fortunate enough to become acquainted with
many of the old Venetian families, and attended
the pleasant and homely receptions given in the
dilapidated but still beautiful palaces. The niece
of the last doge gave me the interesting book
she had lately written, called ‘“ Le Feste Vene-
ziane,”

We returned by the Brenner Pass, visiting
the Tyrolese Lakes. I did not know much
German before, but managed to pick up a good
deal then, and became very fond of German
literature, more particularly the works of J. P.
Richter. I selected and translated passages
from the thirty-two volumes of his writings,
which were published many years afterwards,
and brought me a number of pleasantly ap-
proving letters from Carlyle, Dr Newman,
Professor Whewell, etc.

We then returned home and lived during
part of the year with my parents in Hampshire,
where Mrs Blackwood and her husband often

Paradise ; and when he was disinherited, it acquired the name of
Milton’s ‘‘ Paradise Lost.’’
26 SECOND GREAT SORROW

came to stay with us; and the rest of the year
we spent in Ireland.

My poor mother had been so miserable with-
out me during my foreign tour, that she never
parted from me again.

My second great sorrow was caused by the
death of my dear father. As his house was
our home in England, I was seldom or never
separated from either of my parents, for they
twice accompanied me to Ireland. He had
suffered much during his long life from low
spirits. These were partly constitutional, and
partly, I fancy, caused by consciousness and
the high standard of action, feeling, and thought
at which he constantly aimed; but during the
last year of his life he seemed much happier.
Although he had always been cheerful, and
never shrank from society, or failed to do his
best to amuse and interest his friends, my
mother and I knew that he had constantly
suffered from a feeling of self-reproach. I dare-
say it was this feeling which made him twice
refuse a bishopric, dreading the responsibility it
would entail.

The last morning of his life he seemed un-
usually happy and well. He was a very hand-
some old man, eighty years of age, and when
he went out to take his usual morning’s walk
over the snow, to visit his nephew at Wherwell
Priory, two miles distant, my mother observed
to me that he looked like a rose—so fresh was
his complexion, so round and unwrinkled his
cheeks. Some snow had fallen that morning,
‘ DEATH OF THE REV. L. IREMONGER 27
and I remembered observing that we could see
his foot-prints all the way across the lawn and
the next far-stretching fields. He lunched with
his nephew and nieces, and left them at two
o'clock in perfect health and spirits. At the top
of Wherwell Hill he met one of the village
dames, and gave her half-a-crown. She pro-
ceeded down the hill) It could have been
scarcely five minutes after this that he fell
down suddenly at the side of the road, for
he was found there a few minutes afterwards
by another countrywoman, lying on the bank,
as if resting peacefully against it, his hat not
even displaced from his head, and still holding
his stick in his hand. There could not have
been a moment’s struggle, and his features wore
the same peaceful and happy expression which
had distinguished them all through his life.

There was a long frost that year, and for
a whole month we could see from our windows
the traces of his dear footsteps in the snow,
across the far fields through which he had gone
never to return.

After his death we left Winchester and lived
with my mother, chiefly in the house in Seamore
Place, which my father had inherited from his
uncle, Mr Letheuillier. I have still some letters
from that uncle, written in that house in the year
1740 or 1750. He left it first to his other nephew,
Sir Harry Featherstonhaugh, and entailed it on
my father after Sir Harry’s death.

My third and worst of all sorrows was caused
by the death of my mother. I loved her with
28 HER MOTHER’S DEATH

a kind of exclusive devotion, which always led
me to imagine that I could never survive her loss.

It occurred at Tunbridge Wells, where we
had been spending a most pleasant summer.
The Duchess of Kent and Princess Victoria
were staying there, and they were so kind to
me that scarcely a day passed without meeting
them or their pleasant attendants. They had
also been there the year before, when I often
went to sing with them and play the harp.
A remarkable instance of the Queen’s quickness
of ear and memory occurred one day. After
playing several airs on the harp she asked me
to play one I had played the year before, but,
as it had no name, I had no means of knowing
which she meant. She then hummed the air
for me, and I recognized it as one I had myself
composed ; I had almost forgotten it, but she
gave me the air so perfectly (although she had
only heard it once) that the whole piece re-
turned to my mind, and I| played it all through.

My mother had been suffering for some
months, but no immediate danger was appre-
hended, and when I returned home late after
a ball one evening, I found her much as usual.
In the morning I was called up by her maid, and
was aware by her face that something had hap-
pened. I rushed out of bed into her room, and
found her dead. Thus the dreadful shock came
at a time when it seemed that I should be least
able to bear its suddenness. Yet, strange to say,
God gave me such extraordinary conviction of the
happiness of her state, that the peace and hope
SUPERNATURAL PEACE AND HOPE 29

through this bestowed on me was quite super-
natural. When sitting alone in the room with
her coffin the night before her funeral, I felt the
presence of her spirit so vividly that it seemed
to be almost the happiest moment of my life ; and
on looking back I feel that it really was the
first vivid certitude I had of the soul’s immor-
tality and of the possibility of eternal happiness.
Of course this state of mind did not last ; and the
next day, when I saw the funeral procession that
was taking her from me to be buried near the old
home of her youth in the vault where her loved
guardians, Sir Charles and Lady Middleton
repose, and others of the Noel and Gambier
families, I felt utterly desolate.

During the two summers we spent at Tun-
bridge Wells there was a very pleasant society,
besides the Duchess of Kent and Princess
Victoria. Among the royal attendants the
two people who interested me most were the
Queen’s governess, the Baroness Letzen, and
Lady Flora Hastings.
CHAPTER IV.

Her first Book, “Aunt Dorothy’s Tale”—Lord
Brougham’s novel—Meeting with Landor—
Compensation for Deafness—Samuel Rogers,
the Poet—Chantrey.

I LiKE to recall those scenes of the remote past,
and see how wonderfully God supported me
when I lost my dear mother, and afterwards
through extreme trials and sorrow. How near
He always seemed when I was in real sorrow
from the loss of friends and relations, or op-
pressed by other trials perhaps as great, though
different.

A few months after my mother’s death I
began to write; for, strange to say, from the
time I was first able to read at six years old,
till then, I had never thought of composing any
of the stories which, as a child, I was so fond
of dictating.

After spending the next winter [of 1836] in
Sussex, we came to 5, Seamore Place; and a few
days after our arrival I met the dear old poet
Rogers at Lady Cork’s. I sat next to him at
dinner, and did not know who he was—for-
tunately perhaps, for I might have enjoyed the
conversation less, had I known he was the per-
son who had the reputation of sometimes saying
sharp and bitter things.
LORD BROUGHAM’S NOVEL 31

As it happened, I enjoyed his most pleasant
conversation on every kind of subject intensely,
more particularly his observations on some of
my favourite pictures. But I did not divine who
he was till I went up to the drawing-room,
where old Lady Cork joked me on the violent
flirtation, as she called it, that lasted all dinner-
time between Rogers and me.

After that meeting, I often breakfasted and
dined with him, and he kindly allowed me the
rare privilege of taking any one I liked to his
famous and always agreeable breakfasts. He
sometimes gave me books to read which had
been given him by their authors, and begged
that I would give him a little account of them;
for he disliked the trouble of reading the nu-
merous books which were sent, and yet he did
not like to hurt the feelings of their authors
by appearing ignorant of their contents.

One morning, when there happened to be
nobody breakfasting with him except Lord
Glenelg, Dean Milman and ourselves, a three
volume novel, called ‘ Albert Lunel,” was
brought to him. There was no author’s name
on the title-page, but he said he knew it was
from Lord Brougham.

“Take it home with you,” he said to me,
“and read it; but do not say I told you who
it was by. I shall meet Lord Brougham the
day after to-morrow, so if you can tell me
something about it to-morrow evening when
I meet you at Lansdowne House, it will be
very pleasant.”
32 LANDOR

I contrived to finish it before I went out
to dinner the next day; and it was fortunate
that I did so, for when I met Rogers at Lans-
downe House ready prepared with my epitome
of its not very interesting contents, he whispered
to me to say nothing about it to any one, as
Lord Brougham had resolved to suppress it,
and had sent for my copy that very evening
after I had gone out to dinner.

No one I believe but Dean Milman and
myself read it till years afterwards, when a
copy turned up. It was then republished (1872),
but scarcely any one would believe that Lord
Brougham had written it, until I sent a letter
to the Spectator, which that paper published,
and thus set the authorship at rest. That
season, and the two following [1837 and 1838],
we spent in our own old house, 5, Seamore
Place, and lived much with a peculiarly agree-
able set of the remarkable people of the time.

[The foregoing recollections were put on
paper about four years ago, when she happened
to be turning over the pages of her Diary.
What follows is from the Diary itself. E. H. D.]

5 Seamore Place, May 13.—We breakfasted
with Mr Kenyon, and met Landor and other
wits. I sat next to Landor, without knowing
who he was, so that my impressions were un-
biassed either by expectation or by the impres-
sion I had previously conceived of him from his
writings. I have seldom seen the expression of
a highly cultivated mind and courteous genius so
beautifully stamped on any countenance as on
LANDOR 33

the Landor of those days. The unamiabilities
which sometimes cause the wits of the day to
wound the feelings of those around, seemed to be
replaced in him by sentiments which touch, ele-
vate and flatter those who listened to him, and also
tended to place in a good point of view the per-
son or the subject on which he spoke. He talked
a great deal ; for Browning and others who were
there showed that they liked to listen to him, and
he not only did not say an ill-natured thing, but
said something good of every one.

Harness was laughing at Lord N for
what he called his “theatrical get up,” and said
he was only fit to be an actor—whereupon Lan-
dor, with a look which, though it implied dissent
from Harness’s opinion, yet showed his wish to
turn the shaft of his ridicule into a harmless
direction for both, said, “ He acted the king of
Ireland well,” alluding to Lord N having
been once an admirable Lord Lieutenant.

He then asked me if I did not think the Duke
of Wellington and Landseer the two greatest
men of the day, and whether their names would
not be the longest remembered in future ages.
I answered by expressing my admiration for
some of his writings which I had read, amongst
them his “ Arden of Hungary.”

“Ah!” he said, “I shall never be much read
—still less remembered. I have filed away my
mind by too much reading. Shakespeare would
never have become such an immortal author if
he had been a great reader, and Milton would
have produced a greater poem if his head had

: 3

 

 
34 MR KENYON

not been so full of reading. He has confused us
with his variety.”

Landor maintained that animals must have
a kind of soul, because they could think ; and his
idea is that thought must be immortal. Talking
of the power to judge characters at first sight,
he said:

“No one, except dogs and young children,
can do that well. We ought to be very proud
and happy when dogs and children take to us at
first sight.”

Mr Kenyon had written a volume of very
pretty poems, and his description, in one of them,
of the old Roman amphitheatre at Dorchester,
delighted me extremely. ... Rogers used to
say that the good opinion I had of human nature,
and the good I contrived to find in most people,
was owing to my deafness—for that nobody ven-
tured to repeat to me the flippant or ill-natured
things that often pass for conversation.*

* Not owing to her deafness merely, but to qualities that gave
her a positive power of repulsion against evil of every kind. No
doubt her deafness disposed people to feel that power, by bringing in
a manner before the sight some of the qualities that made it attrac-
tive—for instance, the natural grace that could not be said to adorn
her, because it was an essential part of herself, the simplicity that
veiled without concealing a subtle intuition, and above all, the even
cheerfulness with which, by a constant though imperceptible effort
of will, she bore a privation exceptionally trying to a person of her
energetic temperament, active mind and large sympathies. But the
power, the influence was in herself. It is true that repetition in a
raised voice gives an emphasis to the words repeated, and tests their
quality by holding them up, as it were, to the light; but the promi-
nence thus given can only affect the repeater in respect of the person
or persons to whom he knows they will be unacceptable. The repe-
tition will not change their character in the estimation of those who
had no fault to find with them before.
MONCKTON MILNES 35

May... .—We breakfasted with Monckton
Milnes yesterday, and he read some of Tenny-
son’s poems extremely well. Moore was expect-
ed, but could not come, and Rogers said: “Ah,
then he has found something better. Moore is
never happy unless he is dining with a duke,
having refused to dine with an earl, and has got
an opera ticket in his pocket, which makes him
wish he were dining with neither.”

In the evening we went to the Miss Berry’s,
and I was much pleased with Miss Agnes’s
sketches in the neighbourhood of Paris. I took
the clever parody on Strawberry Hill, called
Gooseberry Hall, to show the sisters, most
strangely forgetting the romantic attachment of
Horace Walpole, till I was reminded of it by the
pathetic look on their pleasant faces. I felt it
would not do to apologize, and fortunately at the
moment other friends came in—Rogers and Lord
Lansdowne—who made themselves most agree-
able, and, playing into each other’s hands, crea-
ted pleasant conversation.

Sunday, rgth.—Rogers came yesterday after-
noon, and enjoyed the sunset from our large
western window and the view over the park and
Kensington Gardens. He often does this, and
the beautiful view seems to draw out all his
highest and most poetical qualities. At these
times, particularly if no one else is present, he is
most delightful. He is very differently agreeable
with different people. With me he never makes
a bitter observation on any one, but seems dis-
posed to see their best qualities only, which
36 SIR FRANCIS CHANTREY

seems to me the frame of mind most natural to
him ; yet his reputation in London society has
been won by his brilliant wit, often tinged with
bitterness, while his poetry, for which the public
care but little, is as full of poetic and kindly feel-
ing as his conversation with me. I think, there-
fore, I have the best of him.

Last week I met Sir Francis Chantrey and
Luttrell at his house. Lady Dufferin, Mrs Daw-
son Damer, Lord Lansdowne and Lord Glenelg
were there. After breakfast Chantrey pointed
out a sideboard, and said to Rogers, “Do you
remember a poor little fat boy in a common
workman’s dress, who came one morning, many,
many years ago, to take some order about that
sideboard ?”

“Yes, I do,” said Rogers, “for I thought
what a fine head and intelligent look the poor
boy had.”

“Well, he is the now celebrated sculptor,
who not only goes to all the best houses in
London, but gives parties that people are so
good as to call pleasant, where all the highest
and most intellectual people honour him with
their presence. Can you guess who it is? Well,”
he added, while his honest face beamed with
fun, “that cabinet-maker’s poor little apprentice
was myself!”

Everybody present was pleased at his can-
dour and straightforwardness, which was the
more to be admired because few had known of
his obscure youth, or of the disadvantages of
education that he had overcome.
AUNT DOROTHY’S TALE 37

Luttrell was very agreeable; he has a re-
markable power of writing short notes in verse
on persons and events. I can only remember
a few of them.*

Tuesday.—We dined with Rogers yesterday,
and I enjoyed, by candlelight, his beautiful
pictures, which are tastefully lighted up with
lamps, so arranged with reflectors that they
throw a brilliant light on the pictures, while
they shade it from one’s eyes and from the rest
of the room.

I sat next to Macaulay, who gave us a most
interesting dissertation on painting, and related
in short the history and vicissitudes of many
of the most celebrated pictures in different
countries. Sidney Smith waited in vain for
what he called some of Macaulay's “brilliant
flashes of silence.” On Saturday we met Car-
lyle and Dickens at his house.

Last night we spent a pleasant evening at
Lord Monteagle’s, and met his agreeable son-
in-law, Mr Taylor, the author of “ Philip van
Artevelde,” Dr Hawtrey, the Milmans, ete.

Towards the end of the season (in 1837) my
first novel, “Aunt Dorothy’s Tale,” was pub-
lished anonymously. I derived much amuse-
ment from hearing people talk about it and ask
if I had read it. Of course I heard it abused as
well as praised. I do not remember being much
annoyed or pained by anything I heard; but I

* They are very witty, but referred to people of the day; and the
distance of time is not sufficient perhaps to warrant their insertion in
print. They are, therefore, omitted.—E.H.D.
38 MODERN FRENCH NOVELS

enjoyed the praise it received intensely, and the
first bit of commendation that the Quarterly
Review gave me kept me awake all night with
joy. For the Quarterly in those days, owing to
the severe criticisms of John Wilson Croker and
Lockhart, was extremely formidable.

Wednesday.—Dined at Lansdowne House.
In the evening there was a large party, and the
great gallery was brilliantly lighted outside the
windows, which prevented the heat of the gas
from entering the room. It was _ beautifully
lighted with candles besides. I had a most
pleasant talk with Lytton Bulwer* and with
Sir Francis Doyle, Fonblanque and Lockhart.
The two last were speaking of the excellencies
of some of the modern French novels, and Fon-
blanque rather startled me by his extreme ad-
miration for Victor Hugo and Eugéne Sue.
Last year I had a dispute with Lockhart about
them, and I was annoyed because I could not
fully persuade him of their bad tendency. And
now to find the other influential reviewer of the
day? evince a still greater admiration for them,
pained me still more. It is distressing to see
how attractive evil is in the world. To repre-
sent evil principles in a good light, and delineate
evil passions with that nervous vigour which
the aggressive nature of evil makes compara-
tively easy, is to ensure a favourable inclination
before hand.

* Afterwards Lord Lytton.
+ Fonblanque was editor of Zhe Examiner, Lockhart of the

Quarterly.
GRISI 39

Whilst he [Fonblanque] was talking, it so
happened that Mrs Jameson and Mrs Gore,
authors of various excellent novels, passed near
us, and he said within their hearing, “ How I
wish some English author could produce some-
thing as vigorous and intensely interesting as
‘Notre Dame de Paris.’” At that moment it
struck me that he resembled nothing so much
as Retzsch’s engraving of Mephistopheles in
“Faust.” This is never the case with Lock-
hart, whose splendid dark eyes have always
a kindly expression.

Saturday.—Delightful music last night at
Devonshire House. Grisi is the most enchant-
ing singer I have ever heard. The very sound
of her voice makes me feel as if I were amid
orange groves, and among all kinds of southern
scenes, sounds and perfumes. Rogers says he
never, even in his youth, heard anything more
delightful than Grisi, except Grassini. My dear
mother, who remembered that fascinating actress
and singer, said the same. I was fortunate in
getting a seat close to the piano and next to the
Duke of Wellington, who, though deaf, seemed
to enjoy it as much as I did.
CHAPTER V.

La Ferté—Interior of a room in an Hotel—An
Evening in Paris.

WE spent some months in Ireland after the
season in London, and the next year we made
a tour in Germany, part of which was after-
wards published in my “Home Sketches and
Foreign Recollections” [in 1846]. So I quote
a few passages from the Diary.
La-Ferté-sous-Jouarre. Friday.—A beautiful
drive to-day. Vines without end, grape gather-
ing, mules, donkeys and horses, all loaded with
panniers full of delicious-looking fruit. The
shape of the country, too, was picturesque and
varied by forests, orchards, the winding river
Marne and a number of pretty little villages
perched upon a steep declivity, or nestled be-
tween the vine-clad heights, each with its taper-
ing steeple and gothic church, and many with
an old feudal castle or modern gentleman’s
house. The autumnal tints were more lovely
than ever. The low vines, which in their green
youth look so formally monotonous, are now,
when viewed at a little distance, like a gorgeous
Turkey carpet. The leaves turned to every
colour, from dazzling ruby red to the brightest
golden hue. The day was of a grave cast—the
sky grey and the air still) No sun appeared,
BEAUTIFUL WALK 41

but the clouds assumed those straight yet
graceful lines which, being devoid of colour,
resemble the sky of a highly-finished engrav-
ing, and impart to the whole landscape an air
of repose. This kind of day in autumn is par-
ticularly delightful. The colouring of nature
is in itself so varied and brilliant that the scene
would be almost too gaudy if illumined by
sunshine. Such days are peculiarly conducive
to as healthy kind of meditation—at least I
find them so.

We arrived here about three, and after
dinner took a very pretty walk along the banks
of the Marne as far as a campagne of Madame
de la Rochefoucault.

I leave off writing to watch the pretty little
interior of a lighted room on the opposite side
of the street, in a house which belongs to this
hotel. Four people are sitting round a dinner-
table. I see a beautiful though delicate profile.
It is Lady © Her slight figure is en-
veloped in shawls, her little head covered with
a close bonnet cap, and she has travelled here
evidently in haste. All these things do not
tend to embellish the appearance or to give a
charm to the manner; nor is the act of eating
a good dinner, when one is tired, a very be-
coming employment. Yet there is something
inexpressibly graceful in her every movement,
something original, yet truly refined, even in
the way she lifts the fork to her mouth. Every
now and then she pauses and leans on her
arm, yet her lips continue to move, and I feel

 
42 SCENE IN A FRENCH HOTEL

sure she is saying something amusing. Yes—
now she is telling some story and mimicking
the action of a courier—now she is getting
eager about something, but still in a graceful
way. How much more interesting does she
appear to me now, in that dress, sitting there
in the bedroom of a crowded little French
hotel, with only the sick husband, his physician,
and her pretty daughter for companions, than
as I have before seen her—the sought for, the
adored queen of fashion. Many can imitate
grace, can make themselves beautiful by dress
or art when the eyes of all London are upon
them; but few can look and move as she does
in the unconstrained society of her own im-
mediate family.

I do not mean that no one is pretty or
agreeable out of a ball-room; I know many
who appear to much greater advantage in
private life. But it seldom happens that those
who through life have been accustomed to be
idols of the world, exert themselves to be
agreeable or to look well when the eyes of the
world are not upon them. I am glad to have
seen her thus.

The horses are harnessed—the lamps of their
three carriages are lighted. The daughter jumps
up, and takes her bonnet off one of the beds.
She is trying it on before the glass, but not
with her mother’s grace. How seldom children
possess the same qualities as their parents—or
those qualities in the same degree.

Monday, December 5.—Paris, Rue de Rivoli.
PARIS—ROUND OF VISITS 43

On Saturday we made a round of visits, first to
the Faubourg St Germain to thank Mme de
Frondeville for her opera-box. I like that part
of the town much better than this. Far from
being gloomy—as it is usually called—it has,
I think, an air of cheerfulness, simplicity and
repose. The streets are wider, straighter and
better built than on this side of the river; and
the houses look more dignified, comfortable
and clean. We then went to Mrs by ap-
pointment, and found quite a levée. At first
the room was so dark that I could see nothing ;
but lights were soon brought, and it was quite
amusing to observe the curiosity with which we
all looked in each other’s faces. Next to me
sat the old Count Pozzo di Borgo, Russian
ambassador in England. As soon as he could
see my face, he began talking to me very
pleasantly. All the time more visitors came
pouring in, amongst whom were some English
grandees, also Lady C—— G—— and Lady
F—— E——. These two I have scarcely ever
seen since I was a child; but I remember them
quite well. Every word they said, the very
clothes they wore, are all as present to my
mind as if the scenes in which they played a
part occurred but yesterday. A good memory
is not quite an unmixed good. There is some-
thing melancholy in remembering with such
vividness things that happened in one’s child-
hood, when the principal actors have probably
forgotten all about them. I felt some curiosity
to know whether they remembered anything of

 
44 RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD

the time when I saw them so often; but the
room was getting hot, the fire burnt my nose,
and I was stifled under the weight of Mme
Palmier’s* purple and green cloak. I went
away without even making myself known to
them.

* A famous dressmaker in Paris some years ago.
CHAPTER VI.

Retirement—Modern Aspect of Paris—Evil In-
fluences preparing for the Outbreak of 1848
—A few Remarks on Education.

“Wuat a strange thing,” said a friend to me one
day, “that you who dislike the world should find
fault with those good people for condemning it.”

“That is the very reason,” I replied. “I like
retirement so much that I am aware of the temp-
tation to make it my own world. It is one thing
to give up the world because you have a voca-
tion to do more good out of it, and another to
live in a private corner of the world, neither
giving up its comforts nor accepting its re-
sponsibilities. Even the associating with one
small set of people, which is the nearest
approach that can be made by people in the
world towards a retired life, is disadvantageous
to the mind by narrowing our ideas, and making
us too prone to view everything with the eyes of
those around us. As Madame de Staél justly
observes: “Le cercle qui nous environne finit
toujours par nous dérober le reste du monde” ;
and so it does if we never look on the other
side of it.

I have found that when illness or any other
cause made me lead a perfectly retired life for
some time, I shrank from the idea of ever see-
46 PARISIAN POLITICIANS

ing any one again. I am sure that none of those
who see me going about in London would be-
lieve this; but as the effort which shy people
are obliged to make often causes them to do
impudent things, so do my efforts to overcome
a weakness which is aggravated, if not caused,
by constitutionally low spirits, make me appear
to enjoy society more than other people. I think
it neither fair towards society, nor kind to one’s
neighbour, to carry about a melancholy face and
a silent tongue. To promote a kindly spirit of
recreation, and (if opportunity serves) improve
my own mind, are the two objects I have in
view when I go into society.

Paris.—Y esterday I noticed a number of men
in rusty black, sitting and standing about, read-
ing the newspapers. Their bodies resembled
those of half-dead autumnal flies, but judging
by the eager avidity with which they swallowed
their pennyworth of politics, their minds were
by no means in so quiescent or harmless a state.
The countenances of some showed that they had
been bred and nurtured on political dissension.
Their hard features were cast in a mould of dis-
content; the only expression that broke the
horrible monotony of their fixed sullenness was
a savage glare that blazed up from time to time,
lighting up their features from the volcano of
wickedness that lurked beneath. I shuddered
to think what the actions of such diabolical-
looking spirits would be if they were set in
motion. Would anything touch, anything soften
such hearts? Yes—there is a Power which
ASSOCIATION OF IDEAS 47

might even transform these Satanic natures, and
to that Power we should direct our prayers for
all whose hearts are hardened.

Might not some good be done in education
by the association of ideas? Might not dark-
ness be deprived of its terrors, and even bodily
suffering or pain be made to produce in after-
life some pleasing associations? I only say—
might it not? At all events, the subject is worth
consideration, for I think illness depresses the
spirits more from the unpleasant recollections it
excites than from the actual present suffering.
When our bodies are affected in any particular
manner our thoughts involuntarily recur to the
exact spot where we last suffered. The very
pattern of the bed-curtains and paper on which
we gazed returns to our minds. Fortunately
for me, my recollections of illness are pleasing,
though melancholy, owing to the unwearing
kindness of my mother. She always brought
her writing and work and sat near the bed;
and even now that she is gone for ever, I
fancy I hear the sound of her pen as it tra-
versed the paper, or the noise of the scissors
as it cut the thread. I still see her anxious
yet cheerful countenance gazing occasionally
up from her employment, while I knew that
her dear spirit always looked to God for my
relief. She prayed with confidence and faith
to God, never doubting that her anxiety and
my affliction were for the best. Then she
would kneel and pray, and raise her dear eyes
to heaven, and I felt quite happy, quite ready
48 CONQUEST OF PAIN

to suffer now, or die in her dear arms—confi-
dent that He would enable her to bear my
loss. All this still returns to me whenever
I am oppressed by sickness; and though I
shed many bitter tears when I think she is
no longer on earth, yet the pleasing associa-
tion of ideas caused by her kindness still re-
mains, and I feel as if she were near me.

There is one positive pain which has really
been sensibly demolished by the remembrance it
excites, and for this I am also indebted to the
watchful care of my mother. I was sentenced
by a dentist to have two teeth drawn. It so
happened that I had been very anxious to have
a beautiful edition of the “ Arabian Nights ”—of
which I had only read one story. It was very
dear owing to some beautiful engravings it con-
tained, and my mother objected to pay so much.
I thought no more of it; for, petted though I was,
I always felt she knew best, however much dis-
appointed at the time. I arrived at the dentist’s
house pale and trembling, and much terrified at
the instruments of torture in his room and at
some horrible-looking animals preserved in bot-
tles or stuffed and ranged along the shelves.

“Sit down on this chair, Miss,” said the gruff-
voiced dentist, while he screwed down the head-
rest of the dingy green chair.

“Yes, sit down, darling, and look here what
I have brought for you,” said my mother, taking
from beneath her cloak a volume of the beauti-
ful “ Arabian Nights” for which I had so much
longed. I immediately forgot the terrifying man
THE “ARABIAN NIGHTS” 49

and all the ugly instruments. I saw nothing
but the book, and smelt nothing but its sweet
Russia leather binding. My teeth were extracted
almost before I knew anything about it, for
I only thought of the beautiful volumes that
were already mine. I have never been to a den-
tist since without a feeling very much akin to
pleasure, thinking more of my mother’s face and
attitude, as she held the wished-for book, than
of the pain I might have to suffer.
CHAPTER VII.

Ten Years ago—The Occupations of a Snowy
Day at Calais.

Ten years ago I occupied this very room, in this
very comfortable Hotel de l'Europe. I was
hurrying home after a long tour in Italy and
Germany. In this room I wrote a joyful letter
to the dear mother whose beloved face I was so
soon tosee. “I am going to return home to the
house of my father,” said I in this room ten years
ago, “and then with my dear mother my days
will be far more blissful than amid all the
gorgeous palaces and fair scenes of sunlit Italy.”

Ah, yes! the meeting with my dear mother
after such a long absence was indeed rapturous.
The first night passed under the same roof—the
delightful, lingering first good-night—to feel that
it was really she, To be sure that I held her
safe. That nothing on earth should again sepa-
rate us. To know that I should see her every
night and morning, and all day long without the
haunting fear which tormented me in absence
that I might never see her real living form
again! To see now that her countenance was
joyful—satisfied, that it did not possess that look
of melancholy which overshadowed the imagin-
ary one—that it was without the look of resigned
sorrow which seemed in absence to reproach me
MEETING WITH A BELOVED MOTHER J 51

for remaining away so long. Then I anticipated
the joy of awakening next morning, the thrill of
joy with which I should jump up and run to see
her dear slumbering face, the delight of gazing
on every dear object that surrounded the bed
and stamped it as her own room. There was the
little table of which she had had part of the legs
cut off that it might serve for me, for the child,
for the darling of her heart to sit at. Then there
was an odd-looking chair to whose legs she had
made the carpenter put heels, as she called them,
to make it higher; there was—but why should
I enumerate those dear objects which, with the
loved being who gave them beauty and meaning,
I shall never see again on earth. The world is
dark—I am returning to England; but I feel that
my home is not there, nor in this world. God
grant that it may be with my Father in heaven.

My mother was so unselfish—so unaware of
her own goodness that I really believe she ad-
mired faulty characters because they were unlike
herself. Her faults—the few she had—pro-
ceeded from a wish either to imitate people
whom she thought much better than herself,
or because she believed it to be right to check
the natural impulse of her heart, which would
always have led her right.

There was one reason among several why
she was but imperfectly understood. She had
so great a horror of wishing to appear better
than she thought herself to be, that she habit-
ually tried to appear less good than she was.
Then again it was so much easier for her to be
52 « ALLANSTON ”

kind than otherwise, that she sometimes took the
opposite side, apparently just because it was
difficult and distasteful.

* * * * *

I am approaching the end of the second
volume of my new novel of “Allanston.” In
considering it over I find I have drawn out and
built upon the inconsistencies of character more
than is usually done. This, I fear, will appear
unnatural to the generality of readers, because
inconsistencies—people acting contrary to their
real or supposed character—are the last things
which people discover to be common in human
nature. Most of us try to be blind to our own
inconsistencies, and this perhaps makes us less
aware of the inconsistency of others. Besides it
requires a deep study of mankind to discover
how few good men there are who will not do
a bad action when tempted sorely, how few bad
men there are who will not sometimes do a good
action.

Stupid people judge all men alike, because
they cannot see the difference ; and those who
observe and study much are apt to put them all
on a level, because they see the elements of
good and bad so equally distributed. As
Sophocles most truly observes :

“A saying there is of old, amongst men renowned,
That thou canst not thoroughly judge of the life of a mortal
Before he dies, whether it has been good or bad.”

Calats.—Snow, snow, nothing but snow all
the way from Paris. I have been delighted as
THE “ELECTRA” OF SOPHOCLES 53

we drove along with some of the tragedy of
“Electra” which I read in the carriage. How
feelingly I sympathize with her beautiful lamen-
tation.*

Hotel Rrgnolle. Sunday.—I went to bed last
night with a feeling of thankfulness for being
in a better condition of mind than when I left
England. The crosses I have received since
that time have, by the grace of God, been of
use. I can feel thankful for them, and I return
to my own country desiring that no will—no
wish but His—may be fulfilled. Yet I am not
grown indifferent. I still hope—and_ wish,
though I feel that the heavenly Father who has
supported me through my late crosses and dis-
appointments will continually do so should they
occur again.

* * * * *

Another stormy day, no prospect of being
able to cross. I cannot even get out of the
house. Constant snow-storms. Now is the
time for real ennuz to seize upon one. Yet I do
not feel it. By-the-by, may not the word exnuz
and the Italian zosa have sprung from the Greek
géoa—without mind is, in fact, the literal trans-
lation. I suppose it has, and that everyone who
has studied Greek knows this. However, I shall
let myself enjoy the idea of having discovered

* A heartless fool is he who ever can forget
His parent’s miserable death,
But responsive to my heart
Is Itys, ever Itys, that plaintively

Bewailing bird—Jove’s timid messenger.
From Lady Chatterton’s own Translation.
54 ENNUI

the Greek origin of the common word ennuz at
a moment when, cooped up in a cold, dull hotel,
I ought to feel the meaning of it. If my mind
deserted me, I should. So that dvoa expresses
the whole cause of ennuz exactly. I do not mean
that those who sometimes feel ennui have no
mind—far otherwise. But when they are en-
nuyés, it shows that at that moment they are not
in the full enjoyment of their mental powers.
CHAPTER VIII.

Publication of “ A Good Match ”—Advantages of
Praise—Delights of a Spring Day—Mrs

Somerville—Clever Books and clever People
—The Young Queen.

ANOTHER novel had been published since I went
abroad, or rather three tales—the first of which
was called ‘““A Good Match.” It was in three
volumes. Unlike my first it came out with my
name, and was fairly successful. I received
many pleasant letters about it, which gratified
me extremely.

Seamore Place. Sunday, r5.—It is certainly
advantageous to find a few people who think
highly of me. Since I was in this house last
year I am surprised to find what a different
person I have become; and on reflection I
find this difference (which I confidently hope
is for the better) is occasioned chiefly by my
conviction that many now think I am born for
something better than a mere common Lon-
don life of everyday nothingness. The feelings
within myself, which, in former years, used to
tell me this, I tried to stifle, because I had an
idea that no one thought me clever enough for
anything else; but the slight degree of confi-
dence in my own powers which I have now
attained has not, however, been acquired with-
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S.AOUNOD NHO[ WIS LV ALUVd 9S
INFLUENCE OF THE WEATHER 57

I find all powerful emotions, all intense feel-
ings of either joy or sorrow, draw my heart
towards God. During the last week I have
had many ups and downs. I have passed with
astonishing rapidity from the depth of despair
to the height of joy. This is all folly—but I
cannot help it, and I am sometimes almost glad
that I can still feel so much excited—so anxious
about anything.

May 17.—There are some states of the
weather which, like a growing day that brings
everything out of the earth, seem to have a
physical power of loosening one’s doubts—
solving one’s difficulties, and setting things to
right that had fallen out of harmony. To-day
is the first spring-feeling day of this year,
balmy and genial. It seems to have decided
many points, and brought many things to a
crisis. Such days as these often make me
think that many of our smaller virtues and
vices are, to a certain extent, stimulated or
discouraged by the atmosphere. It either
makes people irritable to us, or makes us pe-
culiarly sensitive to slight annoyances which,
in a more genial state of mind or body, we
should not feel.

Called on Mrs Somerville—delighted with
her. But when I got into the carriage, I felt
so provoked with myself for not having said
many things which I ought to have said, that
my pleasure was spoilt. Does anyone pass
half-an-hour without saying, doing, or thinking
something wrong, or leaving something of con-
58 CLEVER BOOKS

sequence undone? I believe there are many;
but, alas! I am not of the number.
* * * * *

A clever book, like a clever-looking person,
has generally something outré, some prominent
feature, i.e., defect, such as a turn-up nose, small
piercing eyes, or an ill-natured mouth. We sel-
dom think of saying that a really beautiful person,
or face, or head, shaped according to the Grecian
model, which, after all, is the most intellectual,
we seldom say that he or she looks clever. In
the same way, a book or story that is really
touching, or very amusing, a book that is written
in such a manner that it makes the reader feel
what the author intended, but which does not
draw his attention to the mechanism, or show
the exact mode in which the various emotions
are produced, will seldom be called a clever
book ; and yet, unless one has considered the
matter deeply, it would appear to be a most
flattering compliment. Everyone has a general
idea of what cleverness means ; yet many people
use the term in different, and even contradictory
senses, applying it almost indifferently to original
abilities and to mental dexterity. They must
have done the same in Dr Johnson’s time,
for he says in his Dictionary that “it is
applied to anything a man likes.” I have ob-
served, however, that when people’s higher
nature is appealed to by a person, or a book, the
word clever (as I have said before) does not
readily occur to the mind as a fitting epithet.
To me it always suggests the idea of technical
A “BRIDGEWATER TREATISE” 59

dexterity and a sharp application of the means to
attain present success.
* * cg * *

Friday roth—FErrors are permitted to exist,
or we could have no free will ; but if some writers,
by so-called scientific objections to miracles,
deceive for a time a portion of mankind, yet the
superior power of truth is eventually brought to
light by minds of still greater power, who suc-
ceed in showing that science is not a monopoly
of professed infidels. To-day I was reading Bab-
bage’s beautiful chapter on Hume's “ Argument
against Miracles.” I began this “ Bridgewater
Treatise” at eleven o'clock, and finished it at
half-past one. I never moved—my attention
was quite riveted. I forgot my own existence,
or rather my mind was fully alive, and in its own
element ; therefore the body forgot its cramped
position. Two hours and a half—it might have
been a minute or a hundred years. The clock on
the chimney-piece alone was the only evidence
of Time. A _ beautiful story or poem can
please, but it cannot thus entrance and en-
gross me.

Many people object to the melancholy end-
ing of my present novel.* “There are troubles
enough in real life,” say they. No doubt, and
perhaps it is wrong to inflict imaginary ones
on the reader; but certainly the best writers
have not gone upon that principle. The fame
of tragedies long survives that of comedies.

*<¢ Aunt Dorothy’s Tale,’’ 1837.
60 “AUNT DOROTHY’S TALE”

I doubt if even Shakespeare’s name would be
still so universally known if he had written
nothing but comedies. All real genius has a
melancholy turn, as may be plainly seen from
the writings of the earliest Greeks down to
the present day, and in the works of all the
greatest writers in all languages.

7837. June 25. 5, Seamore Place.—A Queen
is more likely to have an influence over all
minds and people than a King, because the
fragility of her sex calls forth in her subjects
a feeling of power and protection, the sensa-
tion of which is always gratifying to our nature.
Nothing kindles so much enthusiasm as to feel
you can be of service to your ruler.

When the young Queen came alone, for the
first time in her young life, into the Council
Chamber to be proclaimed Queen, the sight of
her youth and dependence must have had a
powerful effect in kindling active enthusiasm
and practical loyalty. In these days particu-
larly a Queen is likely to have more influence
than a King, because the number is compara-
tively small of those who really like to be
influenced by the power of another, particu-
larly if that other have a legal right to
exercise it.

I am sure that the circumstance of a young
girl coming now to the British throne has, at
least, retarded the fall of the kingdom of England
and legitimacy for a hundred years, and has
tended to check the progress of revolution all
over the world. I felt convinced of this when
INFLUENCE OF A QUEEN 61

I heard yesterday at Lady Shelley’s some old
hardened politicians talking with tears in their
eyes of the delight and admiration the first sight

of their young Queen in the Council Chamber
had caused.
CHAPTER IX.

Seamore Place—Obedience the Beginning of
Love—Lady Dufferin and her Brother—Mrs
Somerville’s Sufferings from Thunder-storms.

Since my last book was published I feel more
deeply than ever the necessity of living unceas-
ingly with God. I feel so strongly that He
alone can keep my dreadfully excitable mind in
a state of calmness. When I am much praised
or blamed I immediately find myself imploring
Him that I may not be too much elated or de-
pressed. All great emotions certainly bring us
nearer to God.

June 18, Sunday.—Looking over my dear
mother’s and my Aunt Pitt’s journal and papers,
I should like to publish some of the best extracts
from them. The genuine ideas and feelings of
those who lived many years ago would be more
impressive than mine. At least I feel that, in-
dependently of my affection for them, their
words are hallowed and purified as it were, by
the time which has passed since they were
written.

On looking over some old mouldering blot-
ting books, I found a letter in, as I thought, my
father’s handwriting. I read it over, and the
sentiments were also exactly his. There was
OLD LETTER 63

the same diffidence and fear of not doing right.
When I came to the end, I saw, to my surprise,
it was signed B. Letheuillier. He was an uncle
of my father’s, and it was dated from this house,
5, Seamore Place, nearly a hundred years ago.
My father inherited this house from him, but
they had not seen much of each other. This
is another proof of how peculiarities are in-
herited, and how long they continue in families.
When I found that letter I had just read some
pieces of my Aunt Pitt’s journal, and had been
startled at finding some of her ideas and ex-
pressions so like my own. Yet I could not
possibly have learnt them from her, for she
died whilst I was in my eleventh year, and
they were on subjects, too, which at that early
age, could not possibly have engrossed my mind.
* * * * *

We cannot love God, we cannot think with
pleasure on Him during long sleepless nights,
unless we have endeavoured to keep His com-
mandments. To obey is, at first, a strong exer-
cise of faith, as well as of self-control. By “at
first” I mean before our hearts are imbued
with love of God. There are few people whose
religious feelings have not had an evident be-
ginning. We must all without exception submit
to become children.

No doubt it is hard for those who are accus-
tomed to see, or think they see, clearly—to dive
into the difficult recesses of science, to reckon
to a moment the evolutions of a distant planet,
or discover the laws which regulate the forces of
64 BEGINNING OF RELIGIOUS FEELINGS

chemicals—no doubt, it is hard for them to ac-
quire (I will not say to retain it, if they have
it) that child-like Faith in things unseen, to be-
come blind that they may see clearly, to obey
that they may be free. But is it easier for people
of less intellectual capacity? I doubt its being
so in itself. The Devil promises to all who will
listen to him that their eyes shall be opened,
and surely the promise is at least as flattering to
the ignorant as to the learned. What a com-
mentary on the danger of sin is the fact that we,
after nearly six thousand years, have the same
feeling in our hearts that caused our first parents
to rebel! And what an inexhaustible subject of
meditation is that first act of disobedience, which
by bringing sin into the world, and indirectly
causing the Atonement, both lowered and ele-
vated our nature !

Yesterday we had a pleasant dinner at Cap-
tain Blackwood’s.* His charming wife told me
some amusing stories about her family. Her
father, Tom Sheridan, reproached his father
one day for being a party man. ‘What do you
get by it ?” said he; “for my part, I think I shall
put a ticket on my head, ‘To let.’”

“Do so, my dear boy,” said his father; “only
add ‘unfurnished.’ ”

Monday. 1 was pleasantly interrupted this
afternoon by a visit from Mrs Somerville.
What an interesting person she is! Her know-
ledge on nearly every subject is startling. Not-
withstanding her profound scientific studies, she

* Afterwards Lord Dufferin.
MRS SOMERVILLE 65

contrives to read most of the novels that are
worth reading, and her remarks on them are
most amusing. We were talking of a violent
thunder-storm that had done much mischief in
London. She told me that thunder-storms
have always a most painful effect on her, and
that her impulse, if she gave way to it,
would be to shut herself up in the cellar till it
was over.

[Note added afterwards.—This reminds me of
what occurred at Venice some years afterwards,
where we met Mrs Somerville. There was a
most splendid thunder-storm one day, and vivid
blue lightning illuminated the beautiful Doge’s
palace and St Mark’s Church with their reflec-
tions in the Laguna. I happened to mention to
Mrs Somerville the next morning how keenly
I had enjoyed the beautiful effect, and said that
I felt sure she would be able to make a beautiful
painting of the effects of lightning, if she could
but see such a storm in so picturesque a place as
Venice. She then said she would try to look
at it the next time there was a storm, and she
drew an outline of the scene ready to be coloured
on the next opportunity. A few nights after-
wards there was another storm, and she stood
resolutely at her window, which commanded a
fine view over the Piazza San Marco and the
Doge’s Palace. She noted the scene well, and
immediately coloured her sketch. I was de-
lighted with her painting when I saw it the
next morning ; but I found her very ill—in fact
she suffered so much from the strain upon her

5
66 SUFFERING FROM THUNDER-STORMS

nerves that she did not recover for several days,
and was advised, as I understood, by the doctor
not to try to look at a storm again. |

Fortunately it was a rainy day when we
had our pleasant ¢éte-d-téte, so that no visitor
came to interrupt our conversation, though I
afterwards discovered that we had a narrow
escape.

An old servant who lived with my father
before I was born, and never left us, is a
most original character. He contrives in some
mysterious manner to find out the people I like
most to see, and he has lately taken to the habit
of saying that I am at home or not according
to his own idea of whether I should like to see
certain people or not. I have found out since
that his zeal has made me appear very rude.
At the end of last week a number of pleasant
visitors had been let in, and we were all talking
in great glee when the drawing-room door was
opened, not by a servant, but by Sydney Smith
himself, who walked in unannounced, and stand-
ing on the threshold, called out to us, “Do I
look like a bore?” A sudden misgiving came
over me as to the meaning of this, and it turned
out as I thought. Sydney Smith, seeing several
carriages at my door belonging to people with
whom he was well acquainted, had come upstairs
in spite of all my servant's objections! The old
man excused himself afterwards by saying that
he considered the room was crowded enough,
and that more visitors would tire me! He had
lived sixty years in my father’s family, and he
AN OLD SERVANT 67

often boasted of my wonderful feats as a baby—
how, as soon as I could walk, at eight months
old, I was put on the dinner table at dessert,
when I walked round among the dessert dishes,
plates and glasses without ever breaking any-
thing.
CHAPTER X.

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton and His Mother—
Dinner at Sir Francis Chantrey’s—Words-
worth—Publication of her “ Rambles in the
South of Ireland,” 1839.

At the end of that season in London we went
to Ireland, and made a most interesting tour in
the South that autumn and during the following
summer of 1838. The account of this tour was
published, and was so successful that the first
edition was exhausted in a week after its publi-
cation.

[I omit many passages here. The tour above
mentioned—“ Rambles in the South of Ireland”
—contain the substance of all that is advisable to
insert. There, as elsewhere, and everywhere,
in a private Diary there must always be much
that is adapted to be seen there only, or told
in conversation.] E. H. D.

Seamore Place, Wednesday.—Last night we
went with Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer* to his
box at the Opera to hear Norma. His mother
was in it, and between the acts we had some
very pleasant talk. I was surprised to hear him
say that he does not admire Grisi, except her
voice, and that if she were an Englishwoman,
nobody would think her beautiful. I suppose he

* Afterwards Lord Lytton.
LADY BULWER 69

means that contrast gives a special charm to her
decidedly Italian cast of countenance in the eyes
of English people.

Lady Bulwer is extraordinarily like her son,
both in appearance and manner, and seems to
agree in opinion with him on many subjects.
When we were looking at some of the cele-
brated beauties in different boxes who were
no longer young, she said to me, “ Edward
was quite right when he said the other day,
that a town life conduces to prolong youth both
in mind and body.”

“Yes,” said he; “now look at the still most
lovely Lady C and compare her with your
once lovely old friend, Mrs S who never
went into society at all, and has always led
what is called a happy and healthy life in the
country. She looks old enough to be Lady
C’s—— grandmother. It is because what are
called worldly people are always trying to look
their best, and be agreeable to everyone, where-
as those who retire quite into the country be-
come dowdy, ungraceful, and sometimes stupid.
They get into a habit of self-indulgence among
relations and intimate friends; and we, human
beings, require that the eyes of the great world
should be upon us, to excite our energies, force
us to exert our best qualities, and make us try
to appear to the greatest advantage.”

No doubt it does: and if this world were
all, there would be nothing more to be said
on the subject. I am sure that his statement
is correct as far as it goes; but the eyes of

 

 
7o DINNER AT SIR FRANCIS CHANTREY’S

the world and its influence over people’s way
of life, is only the world’s miserable substitute
for higher motives and their results. For in-
stance, how youthful are the faces of those
who devote themselves to a religious life. The
expression of youthful innocence and beauty on
the faces of the dear nuns at Winchester, whom
I used to visit with my dear mother, recurs to
my mind as I think of Sir Edward’s words.

On Monday we dined at Sir Francis Chan-
trey’s. His house is beautiful, his gallery of
statues and pictures all perfect of their kind,
and are placed and lighted in the most effective
manner. An atmosphere of good taste, beauty,
and refinement seems to pervade the whole;
and the guests whom I met, were really I think
in keeping with the scene—all either witty,
pleasant or pretty. Sir David Brewster was
very agreeable, and both he and Mount-Stewart
Elphinstone were full of that kind of child-like
simplicity and humility which seem generally
to characterize superior minds. I sat between
Chantrey and Hallam, and the former gave me
an amusing account of a tour he had made to see
all the remarkable churches and cathedrals in
England, and of the observations he overheard
upon the monuments he had sculptured himself.
At Lichfield he was looking at the monument to
two children who were sleeping in each other's
arms, when the verger drew his attention to the
pillow, and said: “That monument is always
very much admired, more especial the folds of
the pillow.” It so happened that Chantrey him-
WORDSWORTH 71

self had never given a touch to the pillow, which
was chiselled by one of his workmen. He had
got one of Wilkie’s best pictures, “ The Cut
Finger,” and also some very good ones by Stot-
hard, of whom Chantrey said: “He has done
more to improve the taste for art in England
than any of us.” Hallam, too, was very pleasant,
and I always enjoy the sight of his ever smiling
countenance, and never find him what one of the
wits called him. The said wit, when asked if he
had visited the new boa constrictor at the Zoo-
logical Gardens, replied: “ No; but I have been
spending all the morning with the bore contra-
dictor,”—meaning Hallam.

We afterwards went to a party at Lady
Monteagle’s, where I had a talk with dear old
Wordsworth. His loss of teeth prevents him
from speaking very distinctly, and his eyes being
partly covered with large green spectacles do
not assist me to catch the meaning of an in-
audible word or sentence. This was rather
a drawback to my pleasure ; but I was delighted
at being near, and talking to a person whose
poems have given me so much enjoyment. His
broad forehead and whole appearance put me in
mind of a fine old oak in a sunny dell, whose
trunk is half decayed and hollow, but whose
leaves are fresh and green with spring verdure.

1839. Thursday, May 18.—Gratified yester-
day to find that I must prepare at once a second
edition of my “ Rambles in the South of Ire-
land” which was only published last week. All
the copies are sold, and so many people com-
72, LETTERS FROM EMINENT PERSONS

plimented me upon the book last night at
Lansdowne House that my head ran the risk
of being turned, for they were just the very
people whose praise I value most. Lord Lans-
downe expressed himself very strongly, and so
did Lockhart, Sydney Smith, Rogers, Hallam,
Wordsworth, Bulwer and others. It was all
genuine and sincere, as I could see by their
eyes. One person there was in whose praise
I did not put any faith, and I was right; for
a few days afterwards there appeared in the
* * * a very abusive review of it, which I after-
wards learnt on good authority had been written
by that person. But we always remained good
friends, for I never showed that I had any
suspicion who the writer was.

I also received letters about my Rambles
from the Queen, written by her governess,
Baroness Letzen, and from the Duchess of
Kent, written by Lady Flora Hastings, one from
Wilkie, also from Lockhart and other celebrated
persons. *

* Some years afterwards it was reviewed in the Quarderly with
the ‘‘ Home Sketches.’’
CHAPTER XI.

The Count de Montalembert—Sydney Smith—
Joanna Baillie—Miss Sedgwick—Lady Cork
gives a Dinner at a Friend’s House—Her
Eccentricities.

Last week was one of great enjoyment, a suc-
cession of such pleasant breakfasts and intel-
lectual society all day, and in the evenings, too,
that I have no time to write. On Monday we
breakfasted with Monckton Milnes,* when
Moore sang most delightfully some of his own
Irish Melodies. I was fortunate enough to sit
between the Count de Montalembert and the
American orator, Webster. I was struck by the
earnestness of both these celebrated and, in
different ways, handsome men; yet how unlike
in their aims, appearance and expression. A
slight tinge of melancholy in Montalembert,
mingled with Faith and Hope, and his evident
longing for sympathy, render him extremely
interesting. Webster’s countenance is benevo-
lent, but his somewhat self-dependent or self-
confident expression, though perhaps showing
more power than the other, is to me less attrac-
tive, because, as Rogers said, “it shows that he
cares less for sympathy and the good opinion of

“ Afterwards Lord Houghton.
74 ESCAPADE OF SYDNEY SMITH

others ; which makes us feel that we can be of
less use to him.” Rogers confessed to me, with
a kind of regretful envy, as we were driving
home (for we took him part of the way back),
that he admires the “happy religious earnest-
ness,” as he calls it, of Montalembert.

On Tuesday we breakfasted with Miss
Rogers, sister of the poet, where I sat between
Rogers and Dean Milman. The former and
Sydney Smith were bandying jokes across the
table most amusingly. Mrs Opie, and the
celebrated American writer, Miss Sedgwick, and
Monckton Milnes and his mother were also
there. Afterwards we went up and sat on the
balcony, and Sydney Smith read out some of
Wordsworth’s sonnets, the least good of them,
unfortunately—only that he and Rogers made
such funny additions and running parodies, that
they almost killed us with laughter; more
especially on the lines that begin “ Man’s life is
like a sparrow.”

On my way home I had to leave a bonnet at
the milliner’s, and Sydney Smith, who went part
of the way with us, insisted on putting it on the
top of his head, as we drove through the Park,
to the great amusement of the passers-by. He
said gravely to me, “ Now, my dear lady, when
you come to be a very old woman, you may sur-
prise everyone by relating that in your youth
you drove a fat parson in your carriage, who was
in the enjoyment of pluralities; for I think they
will be completely done away with by that time.
People will scarcely believe you could have been
WITTICISMS 75

acquainted with a parson who ever had more
than one living.”

He seemed to suffer extremely from the heat,
and said he should go to no more evening parties,
for that the night before he had seriously medi-
tated sending for the police to disperse the
Duchess of A “She was standing in a
doorway,” he added, “and it was impossible to
get my own large person through. Heigh-ho!
how convenient it would be if one could sit in
one’s skeleton this kind of weather!” He said
that he called yesterday on Lady S——, who
was getting some new furniture, and he told her
to beware of modern furniture, for that when he
went a day or two before to visit some friends
whose house was just newly furnished, he had
three chairs killed under him before he left
the house.

On Saturday we had a delightful breakfast
with Lord Morpeth at his uncle’s, the Duke of
Devonshire’s villa at Chiswick. Besides the
pleasant literary set, we met O’Connell and
Webster there.

The constant breakfasts make each day ap-
pear like two. But I can never stay late at the
evening parties, and last night we left Lady
Normanby’s most pleasant ball while there was
a long string of carriages setting down people
there.

To-day we breakfasted with Harness. Dear
old Joanna Baillie was there, looking so humble,
unpretending and full of simplicity. She re-
minded me so much of my own dear mother that

 
76 JOANNA BAILLIE

the tears came into my eyes when I spoke to
her. Her figure exactly like, so slim and well
made. Her new, old-fashioned dress too, which
could not have been worn more than once or
twice, yet made according to the fashion of ten
or twelve years ago, and smelling sweet of the
rose leaves and lavender with which it had pro-
bably been shut up for years, delighted me, and
so did the little old lace cap that encircled her
peaceful face. The calm repose of her manner—
the cheery and hopeful countenance, seems to do
me good, it was so unruffled by the flutter and
excitement of modern times. Harness, too, de-
scribed to me her life—original, simple and full of
real enjoyment. Miss Sedgwick was also there,
and I was very much pleased with that most
agreeable American. She had been rather
puzzled at the London hours, and having begun
her intercourse with literary society at the
breakfasts given by Rogers, Kenyon, Sydney
Smith, etc., she fancied that the English had
their chief meal in the morning. But yesterday
she was undeceived, for Mrs M—— had asked
her to come to a party at her house without say-
ing the hour. So Miss Sedgwick asked what
time she was to come.

“Oh, come early, quite early, and we shall
have a little pleasant talk before the others come.
I expect a very large party—so come before nine
—come at eight o'clock.”

“Well,” thought Miss Sedgwick, “the English
evidently are early risers to have a large party at
such an hour.” So she got up rather earlier than
MISS SEDGWICK 77

usual yesterday morning, and after dressing with
more than usual care, arrived at Mrs M——’s
house punctually at eight in the morning. She
found a housemaid coming out of the door to
wash the steps, and after a while a footman ap-
peared struggling into his coat and looking at
the carriage with evident consternation.

“Ts this Mrs M ’s house, and does she
expect a party so early to breakfast ?”

‘No, ma’am,” he replied; “there’s no party
to breakfast—it is this evening that a large party
is expected.”

“T did not like to betray my ignorance and
stupidity,” said Miss Sedgwick, “so I drove home,
and went there at eight in the evening. I con-
fessed my stupid mistake to Mrs M , and we
had a merry laugh about it.”

I called afterwards at Rogers’s house, to ask
permission for some friends, who are coming to
town for the day, to see his house and pictures
to-morrow afternoon. He was at home, and sent
word that he particularly wished to see me. I
got out of the carriage and was shown into the
drawing-room, where, to my great surprise, I
found him and dear old Wordsworth in court
dresses, with swords and cocked hats, dancing
the mznwet de la cour. Wordsworth said he was
rehearsing his bows for the Queen’s ball, and
getting a lesson from Rogers about it. Words-
worth’s dress did very well, except his thick
grey worsted stockings, which we all exclaimed
against. He declared that he could not wear
any other kind, so I persuaded him to put a

 

 
78 OLD LADY CORK

black silk pair over them. This solved the diffi-
culty ; he consented, and we had the satisfaction
of seeing the dear old poet in the evening look-
ing very picturesque in his court dress.

Another amusing scene had taken place at
Rogers’s house that morning. Old Lady Cork
had called there quite early, and begged that
Rogers would come out and speak to her at the
carriage; he complied with her request, and
found that she wanted him to dine with her on
Friday at Mr Parnther’s.

“Yes, I believe I am not engaged that day,”
said he; “but why doesn’t Mr Parnther, whom
I know very well, ask me himself?”

“ Because I am making up a dinner-party for
him, and I don’t tell him of it till I find I can get
some pleasant people. The S—— are in town,
and I want to give them a very good dinner-
party, because I like staying with them in the
country. But I want men, and everybody is so
much engaged just now—and I must give them
the dinner this week—and it’s such short notice.”

“ By-the-by, whose white hat is that on your
hall table?” she asked, as her little sharp eyes
peered into his hall. “That’s not your hat; who
have you got with you? he is sure to be plea-
sant, or you would not have him. Ask the white
hat to dine with Mr Parnther—go and let me
know if he can come.”

That is Mr —— from Yorkshire, and he
knows nobody in London.”

“Never mind, I will have him; he will be
a novelty.” Rogers was much amused at her
MAKING UP A DINNER-PARTY 79

perseverance, went in'to Mr —— and gave him
Lady Cork’s message. As the Yorkshire gentle-
man had never met Lady Cork or heard of her
strange oddities, he was much perplexed, and
considered that she must be Mr Parnther’s
sister or aunt. On hearing that she was no
relation, and had not yet informed Mr Parnther
of the dinner-party she was so kindly inviting
to his house, he was still more puzzled. But
as Rogers advised him to accept the invita-
tion for the fun of the thing, he consented. On
returning home I found that Lady Cork had been
there too, and had asked to see me; and finding
I was out, she wrote me the following note:
“You are to dine with Mr Parnther on Friday.
It will be a very good party.”

We did—it was extremely pleasant, and Mr
Parnther was evidently much pleased at having
such a good party made up for him, without any
trouble on his own part. So everybody was
satisfied.

But Lady Cork gave very pleasant parties at
her own house too, and had a peculiar talent for
adapting the furniture and everything in the
room to promote real sociability and dispel shy-
ness. Many of the chairs were fastened to the
floor to prevent people pushing them into formal
circles, or congregating in a crowd, or standing
about uncomfortably. She had also a knack of
making use of her friends in return for her efforts
to make her own house agreeable to them. Some-
times she used to borrow the carriages and horses
and footmen of different friends for the day, or
80 BORROWING CARRIAGE AND HORSES

hour, as she happened to want them to take her
anywhere. One day she was in a dilemma how
to get herself taken from a breakfast party, for
she had unfortunately forgotten to order the
friend’s carriage which had taken her there to
return for her. She went down to the hall to
see whether her friend had thought of sending
it, but the carriage was not there. So she took
a carriage that was waiting at the door for some
friends whom she had left upstairs. ‘They will
not want it yet,” she thought, and therefore told
the footman belonging to it that his mistress
would let her have the carriage to take her
where she wanted to go.

“And they are strong people,” thought she,
as she afterwards confessed to a cousin of mine;
they may just as well walk home.”

The carriage was comfortable, and it seemed
to her that she might as well make a round of
visits in it. So she kept it out the whole after-
noon. In the evening she went to a large party
in another friend’s carriage, and one of the first
persons she saw was the unfortunate lady whose
carriage she had used all the afternoon. The
lady, who had been put to extreme inconvenience
by the mysterious disappearance of her carriage
and footman, thought that Lady Cork would not
venture to face her, and was much astonished
when the former came up to her and said:
“YT wish you would have the steps of your
carriage altered. It’s a most comfortable carriage
except that those high steps don’t at all suit my
short legs.”
A SINISTER DESIGN 81

Lady Cork often took a great deal of trouble
to get country young ladies to the best London
balls. One morning she came early to me and
said that I must get an invitation for two young
ladies to a great ball that was to be given the
following week. She said: “I have been to
three friends already about it this morning, and
I asked several people last night to help me.
Now you must try, for the people who give the
ball are related to you. No—no, I won't listen
to any excuses. I know there has been a quarrel
between your family and theirs. I know all
that, but I won’t listen to any impossibilities.”

I said: “You are taking a great deal of
trouble about these girls—it is very kind of you.”

“Yes,” she answered, with a funny smile,
“T am very kind ; but then I have always some
sinister design in it. I want to go to their
country place, for I have heard that it is a very
pleasant house.”
CHAPTER XII.

Publication of “ Home Sketches "—Mr Hayward—
The Countess Hahn-Hahn—A Dinner-party
at Home.

A DELIGHTFUL concert last night at Lansdowne
House ; and I was fortunate as usual in getting
close to the performers. The Baroness Letzen
used to say that I always mesmerized somebody
who sat where I wanted to be, for she always
observed that if I came in late, somebody was
sure to get up without any apparent reason, and
that I always advanced in the most natural kind
of manner, and sat down in the strangely vacated
spot as if I had fully expected to find it.

She said to me once, just before the first con-
cert given by the Queen: “I am anxious to see
how you will manage to get near the performers,
because all the places near them will be occupied
by the royalties and their attendants.” The con-
cert had just begun when I got into the room,
and, of course, the seats were already all occupied.
As I stood near the door I saw the Baroness,
who was quite at the farther end of the room,
looking at me with a wondering smile on her
interesting face. I gave a sort of longing look
at the row on one side of the piano, wondering
“HOME SKETCHES” 83

how it would be possible to get a seat there, but
not fora moment thinking it impossible. I in-
stinctively kept my eyes fixed on a large turban
and portly shoulders and back. Before the first
song was finished, I saw the turban rise up—
the crowd all round made way for her, and she
gradually disappeared through a side door of
the room. I half unconsciously advanced to-
wards one of the ladies who sat next the piano,
and she looked round and made me a sign to
approach. I did so, and the next moment found
myself in a most comfortable chair in the very
place I wished for. And this was my usual ex-
perience. My Aunt Pitt had the same kind of
power, or luck—what it is I cannot pretend
to say.*

May, +1843——About this time, “ Home
Sketches and Foreign Recollections” came out,
and I look with wonder at its success. It has
received sixty-two notices, or reviews, and out
of this number fifty-four have been very favour-
able. Inthe Quarterly and other leading periodi-
cals there was decided praise, and the 7zmes
said at the end of a most pleasant notice: “It
is, however, as a writer of maxims that Lady
Chatterton shows the greatest talent, and we
are convinced that of reflections concisely ex-
pressed and loosely strung together, she might
make a very agreeable volume—a sort of good-
natured La Rochefoucault.”

* I should say that it arose partly from the exercise of a strong
will, added to an irresistible charm of manner that made people
eager to gratify her.—E.H.D.
84 SUCCESS OF THE WORK

Dear old Mr Rogers sent me the following
note:

“My pear Lapy CuHaTTErtTon—How can
I thank you enough for what gives me a promise
of so much pleasure—a promise you have kept
so well before ?

“Tn this instance, however, I have ventured
to anticipate a little—and not a little, for I was so
much pleased a day or two ago, that I could not
but read on, and no wonder—so delighted with
the very first chapter.

“ Again and again must I thank you, and most
happy should I be to tell you so on the rath, if
an engagement to Mr Grenville on that day did
not, most vexatiously, prevent me.

“Yours ever,

“S, Rocers.”
“Friday, May sth, 1843.”

We had a particularly pleasant dinner yester-
day with Mr Hayward atthe Temple. A collec-
tion of wits and most pleasant people, whom our
agreeable host contrived to amalgamate and draw
out, so that they played into each other’s hands,
and each one said his best. The advice given in
his article on the “ Art of Dining” was fully car-
ried out in his own party. We have dined with
him several times—each time we met different
people, and the last party seemed always to be
pleasanter than the one before it.

Thursday.—This morning we breakfasted with
Dean Milman, and met there the celebrated
German novelist—Ida, Countess Hahn-Hahn.
THE COUNTESS HAHN-HAHN 85

J admire some of her writings very much, for
they are full of genius. I had often heard of
herself from Monckton Milnes. The breakfast
was at ten o’clock, yet she had already been to
the city, and had seen the Thames Tunnel
that morning, which, to her surprise, I had
never seen.

Her observations on the celebrated people she
met with in London were very good, and there
were no ill-natured remarks about anyone. The
only words approaching to any fault-finding were
about Sir C. Lewis, of whom she said: “ Er sah
so klug aus das ich furchtete ihn!”

[Note added afterwards—Madame Hahn-
Hahn wrote a most interesting account of her
visit to London and subsequent tour in Ireland
and Scotland. She sent the manuscript the
following year to Mr Hayward before it was
published, that he might get it well translated
into English, and this was just at the time
when the Irish Famine obliged us to let our
London house and go to live at Bloxworth, a
little retired place on the heathy wilds of
Dorsetshire. My niece* was studying German
with my help, and I thought it would be a
good plan for her to try to translate Madame
Hahn-Hahn’s book, by way of practising her
in the language and in deciphering the written
German character. So Mr Hayward lent us
the manuscript, and she made an excellent trans-
lation of it. Just as she had finished it, we
heard that a great family affliction had befallen

* Afterwards Mrs Ferrers.
86 HER VISIT TO LONDON

Madame MHahn-Hahn, who had_ requested
that the manuscript might be returned to her,
she having abandoned the idea of its publica-
tion. This we did forthwith; we understood
afterwards that the German manuscript had
been destroyed by the author, but we have still
preserved my niece’s translation. ]

Tuesday.—We had a large and very success-
ful dinner-party yesterday ; I say successful, be-
cause I was rather afraid that such an unmixed
number of wits and savants would not do. I
feared, as Hayward said, “there would be too
much quince with the apple tart,” but as we are
leaving town to-morrow, we wished to see as
many as the table would hold—and as they
happened to have no other engagement, they all
came. In the first place we had Sydney Smith
and Macaulay; but as they happened to be at
different ends of the table they did not interfere
with each other. Macaulay, who was near me,
had certainly no “brilliant flashes of silence,” but
I fortunately got him upon the subject of pictures,
and as Lord Lansdowne was on my right side
and Mrs Blackwood * beyond him, we enjoyed
his discourse uninterruptedly. He gave us a
most interesting account of most of the celebrated
pictures in the world—the different hands they
had fallen into, the escapes of some, the vicissi-
tudes of others—some having passed many years
rolled up at the bottom of a Laguna under the
Bridge of Sighs at Venice, others that passed
through the fortunes of war and captivity, and

* Afterwards Lady Gifford.
MACAULAY ON PICTURES 87

had been redeemed with ransom. I wished that
Macaulay’s Essay on pictures, which lasted all
dinner time, could have been published, for it al-
most surpassed any of his best articles in the
Edinburgh. Then, by the peals of laughter that
came from the farther end of the table, we saw
Sydney Smith was in full glee, with such lis-
teners as Bulwer, Hallam, Milnes, Mrs Butler
and Lady Charlotte Lindsay. Rogers was
very happily placed by a very pretty girl, having
dear Lady Laura Fitzroy on his other side, who
enjoyed a quieter kind of conversation with
Hallam and Babbage. In fact the party was
large enough to be split up into different sets, and
then in the evening they changed about, and some
got the witty jokes of Sydney Smith, while
others engaged Macaulay in conversation on
some grave but interesting subjects; and some
pleasant people came afterwards. In the course
of it Rogers happened to ask Macaulay what he
thought of Miss Harriet Martineau’s wonderful
cures by mesmerism. He said with one of his
rare smiles: “Oh it’s all in my eye and Hetty
Martineau!” Lady Charlotte Lindsay said to
Rogers that some friends of hers were much
disappointed at not finding him at home the
evening she had been asked to dine with him.

“Ah, yes,” said he with a pathetic look ;
“T quite forgot that I had asked people to
dine with me that day, and I went out to
dinner.”

“How very unfortunate!” said another lady;
“were you not horrified when you returned
88 ELIOT WARBURTON

home, and found that all the party had come and
been obliged to go away without any dinner?”

“Well, yes; but though they lost their dinner
they had a good story against me, which did just
as well.”

Eliot Warburton, the author of “The Crescent
and the Cross” and other most popular books,
brought Mr Bourke * to our party that evening,
having written me the following note :

“ Dear Lapy Cuatrerton,—Will you do
me the favour to let me introduce to your ac-
quaintance a great friend of mine, Richard
Bourke. He will be Lord Mayo, but he zs a
better thing—‘one of nature’s nobles.’ He is
very anxious to make your acquaintance, and
I should feel greatly obliged by your receiv-
ing him this evening.

“ Believe me, most faithfully yours,
“ExiotT WARBURTON.”

* Afterwards Lord Mayo. How full of life and charm those two
men were that evening! Eliot Warburton soon after left England
in the ill-fated ship ‘‘ Amazon,’’ and, strange to say, his last novel,
which was published after he had gone, contains a vivid description
of a ship on fire! He perished with all the crew in the burning of
the ‘‘Amazon,’’ and Lord Mayo, though he lived long enough to
become one of the most celebrated men of the day, was cruelly
murdered when Governor-General of India.
CHAPTER XIII.

Reminiscences of Lockhart and his Daughter—
A Ghost Story.

WE dined with Lockhart yesterday, and I was
more than ever charmed with his most delightful
daughter. This is her first season, and she is
immensely admired ; yet she cares very little for
balls or gaiety of any kind. Her delight is to
see pictures, and curiosities and works of art;
so we have been several times together to
various galleries, and to the British Museum.
It was a very pleasant dinner, a set of wits and
remarkable people; but after they had all
gone, they persuaded me to stay, for we had
been talking about ghosts, and they wished to
hear my own small experiences in that way.
He told me that he had the greatest wish to be
able to believe in the existence of ghosts, as
showing the reality of a spiritual world, and he
made me promise to write down what I had
told him. It was as follows :

I could scarcely have been four years old,
when we were staying at Sherborne Castle, an
old place belonging to Lord Digby, in Dorset-
shire. It was built by Sir Walter Raleigh, and
is situated on a height, overlooking a large piece
of water with the fine old ruins of an older castle
on the opposite bank. The castle was so full on
go GHOST STORIES

our arrival that my old Scotch nurse and I were
put into a large room, which, as I afterwards
heard, was said to be the haunted room ; nobody
would sleep in it, and strange noises were heard
at night to come from it. My nurse did not
know of this at the time, nor did my mother.
My impression is that I was much pleased to
find myself in this large room; for it was in the
third story, and the views from its windows over
the beautiful terrace garden, which sloped down
to the water, and the ruined castle beyond,
enchanted me. I slept ina little cot which had
been placed close to a large old fashioned bed
of carved oak with red velvet curtains, where my
nurse slept. In the middle of the night I was
awoke by a brilliant light that shone upon the
wall. As I looked wonderingly at it, figures of
men fighting seemed to pass over it, like the re-
flections produced by a magic lantern. Groups
of figures passed to and fro, shouting as they ad-
vanced and retreated. The colours were very
vivid. I saw red coats and black, and flashing of
fire arms, and heard horrible noises. I was very
much frightened, and looked round to my nurse
for help. She was sitting up in bed, and to my
still greater horror I saw she was not awake, but
her eyes were fixed, though she seemed to be
making signs to the figures, talking to them and
motioning them to go away, while they were
yelling and quarrelling. I could neither cry out
nor move—I was so frightened, but continued
to look at the strange appearance. Suddenly it
vanished, and all was dark and silent. A feeling
SHERBORNE CASTLE gl

of horror and dread, which I still feel when I
happen to think of it, kept me awake until the
day dawned through the window curtains, when
I went tosleep. I never mentioned this horrible
scene to my nurse, nor to anyone else, till many
years afterwards, when I told her about it, and
asked if she had any recollection of it. She
answered that she had not.

We often stayed at Sherborne Castle after-
wards, but I never heard of anyone else being
put in that room to sleep. It was directly over
the one my mother generally had, and one night
she was awoke by a violent knocking overhead.
She described it as of dead bodies falling, or
being thrown about, on the floor overhead. My
father heard it too, and as there was a little turret
staircase that wound up to the floor above out
of their room, he determined to go and see what
it could be. He lighted a candle, and ascended
the narrow winding staircase. He found the door
of this large mysterious room open, but no one
was in it. He had the courage (as I afterwards
thought) to pass through the room, and went out
at the other door, which opened on the great
staircase, and came down again to my mother.
The strange noises had ceased, and they never
heard them again.

I often went into that haunted room when I
was staying there afterwards; I used to stand
near the large carved oak bedstead, just where
my little cot had been, and try to account for the
strange effect I remembered so well. The vision
or appearance had been on the wall opposite the
92 HAUNTED ROOM

windows, and I tried to fancy that the moonlight
could have shone in and produced some kind
of pattern on the wall. But the paper on it was
a kind of dull green, with a very slight pattern ;
and I remembered that the dark red damask
curtains of the windows had been drawn, so that,
had the moon been shining, no light could have
come in except through some small crevices,
and this could not have formed the large vision
all along the breadth of the wall, nor the lurid
light that had awoke me out of my sleep.

The second mysterious occurrence was at
Winchester in the Prebendal House. My
mother had not been very well, but there was
nothing alarming in her state. I was suffering
from a bad cold, and went early to bed one night,
after leaving her in the drawing-room in excel-
lent spirits and tolerably well. I slept unusually
well, and when I awoke the moon was shining
through the old casement brightly into the room.
The white curtains of my bed were drawn to pro-
tect me from the draught that came through the
large window, and on this curtain, as if depicted
there, I saw the figure of my mother—the face
deadly pale, lying on her bed with blood flowing
on the bed-clothes. For a moment I lay horror-
stricken and unable to move or cry out, till, think-
ing it might be a dream or delusion, I raised my-
self up in bed and touched the curtain. Still the
appearance remained (although the curtain on
which it was depicted moved to and fro when I
touched it) as if reflected by a magic lantern. In
great terror I got up, and throwing on a cloak, I
MYSTERIOUS OCCURRENCE 93

rushed off through some rooms and a long pas-
sage to my mother’s room. To my surprise, I saw
from the further end of the passage that her door
was open, and a strong light coming from it across
the passage. As she invariably locked her door
when she went to bed, my fears were increased
by the sight, and I ran on more quickly still and
entered the room. There she lay, just as I had
seen her on the curtains, pale as death and
the sheet covered with blood, and two doctors
standing by her bed-side.

She saw me at once and seemed delighted to
see me, though too weak to speak or hold out
her hand. “She has been very ill,” said the
doctor, “but she would not allow you to be
called, lest your cold should be made worse.
But I trust all danger is over now, and you had
better lie down on the sofa near her. We will
take our leave and return before breakfast. I
am glad you came, for the sight of you has
decidedly done her much good.” So she had
been in danger and would not disturb me!
Oh, how thankful I felt to the vision or fancy,
or whatever it may have been !

These are the only two apparitions I have
seen, but I have had a great many positive per-
ceptions of the danger or death of my dear
friends. Some of them were of use, and enabled
a brother to visit his much loved sister in time to
see her alive, because he put such faith in my
perception that, on receiving a letter in which I
expressed the apprehension I felt that his sister
was dying, he immediately ordered his carriage
94 RAYNHAM GHOST

to take him to the station, that he might catch
the first early train from Yorkshire to London.
I had urged him in my letter to start at once, and
although the same post brought him a letter with
an improved account of her, he was yet so
impressed with my conviction that he acted upon
it. As he approached the station (he had many
miles to drive) he met a man on horseback with
a telegram entreating him to go immediately to
his sister. The train was about to start, he
stepped in, and arrived in time to see her alive,
and receive her last words and wishes. She
died an hour after his arrival, and if he had not
started on receiving my letter, the telegram
would not have enabled him to be in time; for
he could not have travelled until a later train.
Of course we talked about the Raynham
Ghost—the “ Brown Lady,” as she was called,
who used so often to appear, for, as I used often
to stay there, Mr Lockhart made me relate what
I had heard. I never saw anything, but I am
acquainted with six people who frequently had
seen this apparition. She appeared in different
parts of the house, dressed in olive brown silk,
which rustled as she passed along, and she wore
the head-dress of bygone times. It was sup-
posed to be the ghost of Dorothy Walpole, the
second wife of the second Viscount Townshend,
whose portrait still hangs in one of the rooms.
She was oftenest met with about midnight on
the brown staircase (so called from its carved
balustrades of dark oak), and sometimes by
more than one person ata time. She glided by
GHOST SHADOWS 95

them with no mortal footsteps, and when she
had reached the top of the stairs, she used to
turn round and gaze with a pale and awful
countenance. Then she would pass along the
gallery, and disappear through a certain door.
At the time I am speaking of, that door led
to a room where a party of two or three
children, with a nurse, were sleeping. But
nobody had seen anyone enter, neither was
there any exit from the room. Two young men,
one a stranger, who had never heard of the
ghost, and one a nephew* of the owner, saw
her pass along in the manner I have described,
and hastening after her, saw her disappear with-
in the nursery.

I have often stayed at haunted houses, but
have never seen anything, except that, when
reading or working, a shadow has sometimes
passed between me and the light. This has
happened frequently. It was as if a person had
passed by, and cast a shadow on the page or
work, so that I have constantly turned my head
to see who it was, and found that nobody was in
the room.

One of the family,f who had seen the ghost,
drew a little pencil sketch for me of the “brown
lady,” as she appeared—an impressive face,
with large downcast eyes and long eyelashes.
Two or three years afterwards I was passing
the winter at Florence, and at a ball given by

* Compton Ferrers, nephew of the then owner, Lord Charles.
Vere Ferrers Townshend.
+ George Loftus.
96 THE BROWN LADY

the Grand Duke, I saw in the distance a face
that suddenly recalled to my mind the sketch of
the “brown lady.” I asked a friend who was
standing near the name of the young girl, and
was startled to hear him say, “Lady Dorothy
Walpole.” I did not even then know that Lord
Orford had a daughter of that name; and my
friend told me that she was not yet grown up,
but as a great favour had been allowed by
her father to be present at this beautiful féte.

We had a pleasant dinner-party yesterday
at dear old Lady Charleville’s, when I sat be-
tween Lockhart and Bulwer. Sydney Smith
was just opposite, and both my neighbours, as
well as myself, being deaf, he raised his voice, so
that many of his jokes reached my ears, and
we were all three so much amused, that we
had not much conversation together. Lady
Charlotte Bury, that famous beauty of bygone
years, was there—looking most picturesque—like
a splendid ruin in her purposely old-fashioned
attire. Rogers and Milnes came in the evening,
and old Lady Cork, who happened to pass near
a sofa where I and my kind neighbours at
dinner, with the addition of Rogers, were sitting,
stopped before us, and with her strange kind of
oracular tone, said, “ Ah, there—you are all four
deaf—that is because you will read and write,
and think too much! I have just been saying
the same to Miss Martineau, but she is much
worse than any of you.”

Lord Glenelg came up and tried to convince
the energetic old lady that he knew many deaf
RESULT OF A FORTNIGHT’S HOLIDAY 97

people who never either read or write. He has
a wonderful memory, almost as much so as
Macaulay. He remembers and can recite many
pages of books, and even whole plays without
missing a word.

Monday, June 5.—We have been spending a
delightful week at Knebworth, and I enjoyed it
even more than my former visit; for his dear
beautiful daughter was there. She has just
returned from a school in Germany where she
won all the prizes.

Tuesday.—We gave a dinner-party yesterday
to some friends who made it very pleasant.
Lord and Lady Rivers, and that most agreeable
and charming Lord Howden, Lord Glenelg,
who amalgamates so well with intellectual
people of opposite kinds, and who equally
enjoys Sydney Smith’s fun, Macaulay's essay-
like harangues, and Rogers’ varied humours,
Hallam’s matter of fact historical sayings, Lock-
hart’s sentiment and enthusiasm, Milnes’ kind-
hearted trustfulness, and pleasant counteractions
of the least touches of ill-nature. Dr Whewell’s
translation of Hermann and Dorothea, which he
had kindly sent me, happened to be on the table,
and we talked of his varied knowledge and
facility in learning languages. He had gone
into the country for recreation after an_ ill-
ness, and taken with him a German grammar
and dictionary, knowing as yet nothing of
the language. The result of his fortnight’s
holiday was the above-named translation, of

7
98 LADY DAVY

which he had a few copies printed for private
circulation.

Our last week in London; so Rogers made
us breakfast with him every day, and yesterday
we had a most affectionate parting with the dear
old man, who said he should try hard to live
till we came back.

We dined yesterday with Hadji Baba (J. Mo-
rier) and met a most pleasant set of people;
I sat next to Lockhart. He reminded me that
we first met there, that he did not know who
I was till the ladies went upstairs, and that
he saw that I did not know him, because I found
fault with the length of his “ Life of Scott.”

Lady Davy* sat next to Rogers. One day
she said to him, “Oh, Mr Rogers, I hear that
you have been abusing me to people.” He
replied, “I! my dear Lady Davy? on the con-
trary , I pass my life in defending you.”

* Widow of Sir Humphry Davy.
CHAPTER XIV.
A winter in Paris—Second Sight—Mme Marlay.

AFTER that season in London we made a tour in
the Pyrenees, and I published an account of it,
called ““The Pyrenees and Spain,” with litho-
graphic drawings from my sketches.

Parts, Rue de Rivolt. 18g2. January.—An
amusingly provoking incident occurred this
morning. We had scarcely finished breakfast
when my English maid came to say that a
person wished to see me, and was waiting in the
outer room of our apartment. “Is it a lady?”
I inquired.

“No, my Lady.”

“A gentleman?”

“No, my Lady.”

“What is it then?” I asked.

“Well, my Lady, I’m no judge of foreigners,
but I think it’s a female.”

“Probably the French governess that Mme
Marlay was to send for Pysie,”* I thought. So
I remained a few minutes longer to finish my
breakfast, and sent the maid for my niece, that I
might show her to the person who was to come
daily to instruct her in French. This occasioned
a little further delay, but at length we went

* Afterwards Mrs Ferrers.
100 COUNTESS DE MEULAN

to see the stranger in the outer room. Then
I saw a lady with a most benevolent and fine
countenance, dressed exceedingly plainly, in a
sort of thick brown cotton grown and unfashion-
able bonnet.

“What a delightful governess she will make,”
was my first thought : so I immediately began to
introduce my niece, and to ask her what were
the hours it would be most convenient to her to
come, and I hoped it would be every day.

“Mais, my lady,” she said, with an amused
look, “je viens de la part de mon frere, M. Gui-
zot, pour vous inviter a ses soirées. Vous avez
laissé une lettre de M. Milnes a notre porte hier,
et c'est pourquoi je me suis empressée de venir
vous chercher si t6t ce matin.”

Instead of being the least offended at my
having taken her for the daily governess, she
was most kind, and invited us not only to M.
Guizot’s large official parties for every Tuesday,
but to her own private receptions on Friday
evenings. Then she finished by saying, she
would come and fetch me to go with her to
the reception at the Hotel de Ville and the
Luxembourg, &c.

“And what you will like better still,” she
added, “I will take you to the Princess Czarto-
riska’s. She does not, alas! live in a palace—
quite the reverse, in a small apartment, where
her little rooms are all lighted with a few
common candles; but, ah, you will like her and
her few good friends so much. You will meet
M. de Lamartine there, and perhaps hear
COUNT ALFRED DE VIGNY IO}

Chopin and Liszt play. And now I will take
my leave, for I know that you English do not
make visits so early in the morning, and do
not expect to be disturbed by them.”

Friday.—This morning we had a most plea-
sant visit from the Count Alfred de Vigny. I
read his interesting novel of “Cinq Mars,” last
year and could not help expressingsthe pleasure
I had derived from it. But he seemed, like some
other writers, rather jealous for his poetry, and
asked me with some anxiety whether I did not
admire his Elva much more. I was obliged
to confess that I had not read it, whereupon he
promised to send me a copy, and one also of his
tragedy of Stella. He said he proposed to write
for the stage, and added that he was more
anxious for success in that line than any other,
because he considered it the most useful, and
that so much could be done by the stage to
influence the people for good. His fine eyes
beamed with enthusiasm while he spoke. He is
a most poetical-looking man. The long golden
hair that flows in large wavy curls from each
side of a broad refined looking forehead has a
picturesque effect. He said that he did not won-
der at a despotic government encouraging operas
in preference to plays, because the former
gave less scope to thought than the latter.

Last night, Guizot’s sister, the Countess de
Meulan, called, as she had promised, to take me
to the Préfet’s and Madame de Rabotin’s recep-
tion at the Hotel de Ville. It was a fairy scene
—the rooms, the profusion of flowers, and com-
102 RECEPTION AT THE PREFET’S

bination of light, gave the effect of enchantment.
We ended the evening at De Lamartine’s. The
Count Alfred de Vigny, De Montalembert, and
many other celebrities of different sets were
there. Some too of the old Faubourg St Ger-
main set, who will not go to the Tuileries, nor to
the receptions given by the ministers of the pre-
sent king. So that at De Lamartine’s, as well
as at De Montalembert’s we meet a better set, I
mean of the old noblesse, who are seldom seen
at Guizot’s, or at the Duchesse Décaze’s. After
all, no country can produce more perfect gentle-
men, more really refined and cultivated people,
than old France.

Montalembert said that Paris is the coldest
city in Europe, that it is more difficult to keep
oneself and one’s rooms warm here than in any
other.

February 7th.—Yesterday we dined with De
Montalembert, and I was enchanted with his
beautiful and agreeable wife. I sat between
Montalembert and his cousin, Count Gustave
de Beaumont, who had lately written a book
on Ireland. He is very handsome, but his dark
eyes seemed to me rather like his book on
Ireland, inclined to see the gloomy side of
human nature.*

The rooms were most picturesque. The
dark colour of the purple velvet furniture was
relieved by a number of white marble vases full

*His book on Ireland was called at that time in Paris ‘‘The
Bane,’’ and Lady Chatterton’s ‘‘ Rambles in the South of Ireland’’
“The Antidote.’’
LORD HOWDEN 103

of flowers, and carved alabaster brackets, and
ornaments interspersed among some very good
pictures which adorned the walls. We went
afterwards to a party at the Duchesse Décaze’s,
and then to the Princess Czartoriska’s, and were
introduced to the latter’s most agreeable mother,
Princess & * * *

Yesterday we had a little dinner-party our-
selves at our apartments in the Rue de Rivoll.
It was composed of extraordinarily good mate-
rials, I do not mean for eating, but for intellec-
tual enjoyment, and they all looked and talked
their best. The Montalemberts were of the
party, Lord Gainsborough and his remarkably
beautiful wife, and pretty young daughter, Lady
Louisa Noel, Sir Henry Bulwer, Prince Czar-
toriska, Count Alfred de Vigny, the celebrated
beauty Mademoiselle d’Henin, and the handsome
and agreeable Lord Howden. The latter alone
would make any party pleasant. Although an
Englishman, he possesses the rare tact which en-
ables him to draw forth the good and amusing
qualities of others, a talent which constitutes one
of the peculiar charms of the old French xoblesse,
and in this effort he was well seconded by the
Prince de Chalais Périgord.

* * * es *

I received the following note from Sir Henry

Bulwer yesterday.

“My pear Lapy CuHatTrerton—What is
the name and address of that elderly lady,* who
is your friend, and knows my brother, and is

* Madame Marlay.
104 MADAME MARLAY

very agreeable? I think something like Varly.
Will you excuse this, and answer it at your
leisure ?
“Ever dear Lady Chatterton,
“Yours most truly,
“H. J. BuLWER.”

“T will be ready at half-past nine to accom-

pany you to the Luxembourg.”

[Madame Marlay, mentioned in this note,
was a Chanoinesse of the Order of St Anne, and
very popular with the Legitimists. She had an
acute and powerful mind, her self-denying
charity to the poor was unexceptionably great,
and she was altogether a really remarkable
woman. Her brother, Colonel Marlay, married
the charming and accomplished daughter of one
whose name distinctively recalls the days when
personal qualities were appreciated in London.
That state of society has passed away. Death,
which in a few years makes London seem like a
vast grave-yard, has taken away its witnesses,
one by one, till their isolated numbers appear
even less than they are, and a new system—if
system it can be called which has no principle
but reckless self-indulgence at the expense of
every moral obligation—has swept over it like a
wave and obliterated its landmarks; yet there
are still some remaining who will remember the
Dowager Countess of Charleville and her well-
known house in Cavendish Square, where
people were valued, not for what they had, but
for what they did. Those among my readers who
COUNTESS OF CHARLEVILLE 105

have read Lady Morgan’s Life, published a few
years ago, will perhaps have noticed, as did
one of the principle Reviews (I forget which),
that Lady Charleville’s letter formed the most
interesting portion of a biography in which
elements of interest were abundant. Those who
are acquainted with her daughter—and their
number is considerable—have the opportunity
still of recognizing the fact that she is one of the
few in whom the old traditions of good breed-
ing are a reality. Her lovely daughter, who mar-
ried Lord John Manners, died very young. I
cannot quit this subject without saying that in
days when over-crowding and hurry have raised
forgetfulness of the absent to the dignity of
a principle, Lady Charleville’s daughter, Mrs
Marlay, was ever the same constant friend of
her whose Memoirs I am writing.—E. H. D.]
Madame Marlay had the very rare gift of
what the Scotch call “second sight;” I know
two or three remarkable instances of it, which
I related to Sir Henry Bulwer, and which in-
terested him exceedingly. They are as follows :—
The first instance I am about to relate
happened with regard to a French family, that of
the Vicomte de C——, who were intimate
friends of Madame Marlay. The Vicomtesse
was English. The Vicomte was on one occasion
nominated, by the present King, Ambassador to
Naples, and not being very:rich, was very glad
of the appointment. This satisfaction was not,
however, shared by the Vicomtesse, who was
very fond of Paris, and dreaded the change.
106 SECOND SIGHT

When she expressed her regrets to her old friend
Madame Marlay a few evenings before they were
to leave Paris, the latter turned her large dark
eyes suddenly to the Vicomte and after a mo-
ment’s consideration looked again at his wife and
said -—“ Do not apprehend the journey or the
change; it will not take place. The Vicomte
will not be Ambassador at Naples.”

On hearing this the Vicomte remarked with
an expression half of regret and half of joking in-
credulity :-—“‘Oh, dear Madame, pray do not de-
prive us of this appointment, you know how
small our income is, and what advantage the
Embassy will be to our children.”

“T cannot help it,” she said; “ you will not go
to Naples ; but never mind, I see plenty of gold
for you in the future. After a time, in a few
years, you will be very well off.”

Some days afterwards there was an unex-
pected change in the Ministry, and in conse-
quence the Vicomte was deprived of his Em-
bassy.

All this I had heard some years ago: I was
myself a witness of the conclusion. I was pass-
ing the evening with the Vicomte and Vicom-
tesse and their daughters. No one was there
besides ourselves, except Madame Marlay.
Several fancy-balls had recently been given, and
the Vicomte’s daughters had gone to one in
dresses of the time of Louis Quinze, with their
hair powdered, which had been particularly be-
coming to them. ‘“ Now these balls are all
over,” said the youngest, ‘how I wish that we
PREDICTIONS FULFILLED 107

could give one.” “By the by,” she added,
laughing, and turning to Madame Marlay,
“where is all the gold you promised my father
that time when you said he would not be Am-
bassador at Naples. It came true; so we hope
the other half of your prediction will be fulfilled
also.”

Madame Marlay turned gravely towards the
Vicomte, and looking fixedly at him, said :-—“ He
has got it. Yes, you are rich now: it has come
to you.”

“T am certainly not rich,” said the Vicomte.
“On the contrary, I am rather poorer than I
was before.” There was much joking against
Madame Marlay, and many were the expressions
of disappointment ; but soon the conversation
turned to other topics, and I admired the
equanimity with which they all bore this second
disappointment.

A day or two afterwards Madame Marlay
came to me in great glee. ‘Well, I was right
after all,” she exclaimed, ‘‘they have got the for-
tune. The letters arrived last night. The Vi-
comte had already got the property the other
evening, when I told him so. Lady E. M. had
died, and she had left him all her landed estates.
I believe he never even saw her; but they were
distantly related, and she has left him her beauti-
ful place in Ireland, and a good property. She
died the very day before I told him that riches
had come to him.”

Madame Marlay also foretold the fate of the
Princess Marie d'Orléans, that beautiful young
108 GLIMPSES INTO THE FUTURE

Princess who sculptured the now famous statue
of Joan of Arc. Madame Marlay was very
intimate with the King Louis Philippe and his
family, and often passed an evening with them
in private. The Princesses having heard of her
second sight, asked her one evening to tell their
fortunes.

“T don’t think I can do that,” she said, “my
glimpses into the future are quite involuntary.
I can only say what I see at the moment I
am speaking. But perhaps”.... She then
looked fixedly at the Princess Clémentine and
said, “I see great joy in store for you, you
will live long, and have a happy marriage.’
She then turned to the Princess Marie, and I
was told that her countenance darkened, and she
seemed reluctant to speak. After a pause she
said, “You too will marry the man of your
choice—and be supremely happy for—one year.”
The Princess married soon afterwards, and it
was a very happy union, but, alas! at the end of
the first year she was burnt to death.

Various other little predictions of hers came
true. A few winters ago she met Lady R
a party, and introduced her to a young French
lady of whom Madame Marlay was very fond;
but, with the exclusive feeling which many
English indulge in, Lady R did not seem
pleased that an acquaintance should be thrust
upon her, and said something to that effect.
This annoyed Madame Marlay very much, her
dark eyes flashed and she said in a tone loud
enough for several people to hear.

 

 
THE SEERESS 109

“Take care—a misfortune is befalling your
family—yes, at this very moment there is a great
fire—a great loss by fire.”

Lady R—— looked so dismayed that Madame
Marlay was sorry she had uttered her thoughts,
and added; “ Never mind, it will be a great loss,
but not so much to you personally. You will
perhaps not regret having another excuse to fol-
low your own inclination and live abroad.” A
person who heard Madame Marlay say all this
described the scene to me, and also told me that
a few days afterwards letters came to Lady
R—— to inform her that her husband’s magnifi-
cent place in shire was entirely destroyed.
It was burnt down on that very night when
Madame Marlay told Lady R of it. It was
not insured ; therefore the loss in every way was
very great.

When I first became acquainted with Ma-
dame Marlay I had heard of her strange power,
and having no desire to look into the future,
I determined strongly in my own mind that
she should never tell me anything about my-
self. During the various winters we passed in
Paris, I saw a great deal of her, and during our
last walk in the Tuileries together, I spoke to
her about her strange power, and asked her how
she did it—what impelled her, as in the case
of the Vicomte de C what it was she saw
or felt that induced her to predict for him riches
in the distance. I asked her also what it was
that enabled her to know that the Vicomte had
already got the fortune that night when nobody

 

 

 
110 CONVERSATIONS

had heard of the unexpected will, or the death of
the lady. She said it was difficult to describe—
that when she first told him that he would be
deprived of his Embassy to Naples, something
seemed to convince her that he would not leave
Paris ; but she saw above his head something like
a cloud of gold, a long way off, and that years
after, on that night when we all met at his house,
she saw the same cloud quite near: it seemed to
encircle his head, and then she knew that
the riches, from whatever source, had come
to him.

“And in the case of Lady R , what did
you see,” I asked, ‘‘that made you say she was
suffering by fire?”

“She was surrounded by flames, and so was
Lord R——, and they seemed so fierce round him
as if they would singe his clothes: so I knew he
would feel the loss much.”

“But did you see flames round the Princesse
Marie,” I inquired, “that caused you to say she
would only be happy for one year?”

“No, thank God, I did not,” she replied. “I
only felt, or seemed to know, that her happiness
in this world would only last one year after mar-
riage.” She also said that her power was quite
involuntary—she could only do it when much
excited either by affection or dislike; and she
added, as she looked into my eyes with that
strange penetration which I had seen in them
when she spoke to the Vicomte de C—._ “It
is very strange that, though I love you so much,
I could never tell you anything; and I have

 
PUBLICATION OF “ALLANSTON ” Ill

always felt that you prevented me—that you are
preventing me now.”

I had never told her of my dislike to be told
anything concerning my future life; but I had
willed strongly in my own mind that she should
not. That was the last day I ever saw her,
we left Paris the next morning, and she died
soon afterwards to my great sorrow.

That winter in Paris was certainly most
pleasant, and would have been to me a great
deal more so, if I had enjoyed sufficiently good
health to attend half the delightful receptions
that were given at particularly agreeable houses.
The intellectual society was adorned by many
rare geniuses—in fact it was a combination of
witty and poetical-minded persons, such as at
that time was also to be found in London.
Where are they now?

* * * * *

While we were abroad the following year,
1844, my novel of “ Allanston” came out anony-
mously, and the first intelligence I received about
it was in a letter from Lord Macaulay.
CHAPTER AV.

Six sad years—Residence in Dorsetshire and at
Rolls Park in Essex—Death of Sir William
Chatterton—Return to Seamore Place.

Here follow some entries in the Diary relating
to the scientific Meeting in Cork, when Sir
William and Lady Chatterton entertained the
President, Lord Northampton, Sir Roderick
Murchison, Professor Sedgwick, and other re-
markable men, at their place in the neighbour-
hood. Then follow entries of subsequent tours
abroad, in Italy and the Tyrol, containing no-
thing that would interest the general reader.

The relaxing climate of the South of Ireland
made it impossible for her to remain there for
more than a short period at a time, and the
following entry was made. after her last visit
to Cork in 1847.

In 1848 the following passage describes in
a touching manner the beginning of the potatoe
famine.—E. H. D.

* * * * *

During our visit at Lord Rosse’s on our way
back to England, we saw him and several other
savants investigating with a powerful microscope
the fatally diseased potatoes. At that time hope
was not yet extinguished, nor had people any
idea that the disease was so general as it has
since proved. But I shall never forget how
DEATH OF ROGERS 113

my heart sank to see on the faces of Lord Rosse
and other learned men their look of horror and
dread, as they peered through the glass at
different parts of the potatoes. It was the first
real alarm, and I seemed suddenly to be aware
of the full extent of the awful calamity that was
impending.

Here the Diary suddenly ceases. The next
entry is in the year 1854.

Six sad years! The Irish famine, no rents
received. We retired to Bloxworth, a pictur-
esquely placed little residence amid the wild
heaths of Dorsetshire. In 1852 we left it and
came to Rolls Park in Essex, alas! my dearest
William’s* health becomes worse instead of
better.

Our dear old friend Rogers has died. He
had lost his memory of late—not for the long
ago, but for the present or late occurrences, and
as he became more deaf he had very little plea-
sure in listening to the conversation of others;
yet the dear and often misunderstood old man
liked to be able to amuse or interest people—to
feel that he was still of some use. But at this
time, during the last few years of his life, many
well-meaning but tactless persons unintention-
ally worried him by endeavouring to amuse him
by their talk, instead of letting him try to amuse
them; for his powers of conversation were as
as great as ever.

Mr Milnes [Lord Houghton] told me that
the last day that he saw Rogers, he found him

* Sir William Chatterton.
8
114 HIS LAST WORDS

watching the sunset from his dining-room win-
dow which overlooked the Park.

How often he had done so from our drawing-
room in Seamore Place, and given utterance
to some of his best and most poetical thoughts.

On that day, Lord Houghton said that the
old poet went on gazing at the sky for some
moments after the sun had disappeared, with
a look of intense hope on his face, and then
said :—

“Yes! he is gone now—all is dark; and I too
must go very soon, and pass through a momen-
tary darkness ; but the sun will rise again, and so
shall I!” he said, pointing with his withered
hand towards the East.

These were, I heard, the last words that he
said to any of his friends. I here insert the
last letter I received from him.

“My pDeaR Frienp—How can I thank you
for thinking of me so long in my absence.
“Old as I am, my heart is as young as ever.
I am as well as when you last left me, and dwell-
ing with as much pleasure on every one under
your own roof.
“My sister desires me to give my kindest
regards to you and Sir William Chatterton.
“Yours most affectionately,
“SAMUEL ROGERS.
“Bedford House, Brighton, January 19, 1854.”
* * * * *
July 1856.—The saddest event of all! We
remained at Rolls Park three years. Dearest
RETURN TO LONDON 115

William’s health became worse and worse, and
during the third year of our residence there
he died, on the sth of last August, 1855.

This terrible loss has produced, after a few
months, the same effect that my dear mother’s
death had on me, and seemed to force me to
write once more.

“Compensation” has come out anonymously,
and I am gratified by hearing that it is well
received. A review in the “ Daily News” gives
me the first feeling of pleasure I have expe-
rienced for a long time.

* * * * *

7857.—I have returned to my own house
in Seamore Place, which has become vacant by
the death of my tenant, Lady Agnes Buller.
My dear niece* lives with me, and I am be-
ginning to see some old friends. But, alas! how
many have died during my six years’ absence
from London!

* Miss Orpen, afterwards Mrs Ferrers.
CHAPTER XVI.

The Diary resumed—Loneliness—Publication of
the “Reigning Beauty”—The Duchess of
Cleveland.

FEBRUARY, 1858.—To produce a good novel, I be-
lieve one should treat one’s manuscript as an
extravagant but excellent cook we had did her
fricandeaux! On receiving great praise for one,
she said, “ Yes, it was very good, and so it ought
—for it was the fourth I tried. The three other
legs of veal would’nt made a good one at all,
although I spent half the morning in beating and
larding them, but I was determined not to be
baffled, and the fourth leg answered very well.”
* * * * *

How delightful is the pure fresh air, the
sweet smell of the real country, the sights and
sounds of nature! I have become of late so
strangely intense and vivid. I feel so strongly
about every person or thing that interests me.
I can take nothing coolly. When I was a girl, I
was comparatively cold—my feelings were not
easily excited; I was like a hard rosebud, on
which the storms and showers beat without
inflicting much injury, nor did the sunshine
appear to infuse much warmth. Some secret
blight must have kept its young leaves closed ;
so that though it did not fade, it remained
A SIMILE 117

undeveloped, surviving in its joyless vegetation
the more brilliant companions which bloomed
and scented the air by its side.

Then on a late day of Autumn, when the
others had scattered their bright leaves, the little
hard bud began to blow. Its tender leaves
expanded joyfully to the sun’s rays. But at that
late season how could there be much sunshine ?
Cold blasts and heavy raindrops beat upon the
still youthful and opening flower, yet it caught
every passing ray, and emitted its long con-
cealed fragrance to the half wintry air.

And so it struggles on. Few, indeed, come to
visit that parterre in these cold autumnal days,
and there are no gay butterflies to hover round
the lonely flower. Those who walk in the
neglected garden are startled at seeing the pale
rose blooming at such an unnatural season, and
wonder that the frosts of advancing winter have
not been too keen for its endurance.

The days are getting shorter and shorter.
The long nights become bitterly cold, and the
late blooming and still unmatured rose must soon
die. Will it be left neglected on its stem to be
shrivelled and browned by the biting wind, or
will some kind hand place the opening flower in
a vase where it may bloom in a sheltered and
warm place, and be consoled by the bright faces
and cheerful voices of young companions ?

This simile explains to myself some of the
peculiar suffering I have had to undergo, and
excuses perhaps the oddity and apparent way-
wardness of my actions, which often perplex me.
118 SIMPLICITY OF GREAT MINDS

I feel the solitariness of my position more keenly
than ever. Certainly the shell that encased me
before is gone; and, therefore, the farther I live
from the excitements and struggles of human
feeling the better. Intellectual pursuits, es-
pecially composition, entail a wish for sympathy,
and force a feeling of mental and heart loneliness
upon me.
* * * * *

Hayle Place, April 8th, 1858.—The more we
approach, through suffering, love and knowledge
to the primitive simplicity of children, the better
we shall be. Most great minds—minds that
exert most influence on their fellow-creatures
attain this childlike humility and simplicity. It
is shown on their countenances as well as in
their words.

April 2rst——My normal state of suffering is
increased by contrast. I have gleams of happi-
ness at short intervals, and I see everything in its
proper light. Then, alas! everything becomes
dark and distorted again, and I feel that it is my
fault, yet I cannot see my way to remedy it.
Whether the usual distortion is caused by an un-
healthy state of body, or an ill-regulated mind,*
or both, or whether it is my especial trial, I never
can make out. I try so hard to be thankful—to

*Most certainly not. It was the best self-regulated mind of
which I have any knowledge. By self-regulated, I mean, that with
no human help, except from her own clear intelligence and honesty
of purpose, no guide but her own practical intuition, she acted on
Catholic principles long before she became a Catholic, and when she
did so, only required doctrinal instruction, her instincts and habits
being distinctly Catholic already.
“THE REIGNING BEAUTY” 11g

remember, and count over, and be grateful to
God for all my blessings, and comforts, and
powers. I cry over my ingratitude, but nothing
can make me rejoice unless the feeling of happi-
ness comes. Some things bring it—a letter, a
word, even a vivid recollection of kindness from
those I love.

April 28th.—This morning I received the
first proof of “The Reigning Beauty.” This is
actually my tenth work, the twenty-third volume
I have had to correct.* I received it with the
same bounding sense of satisfaction and hope
as when I opened the first proof sheets of “ Aunt
Dorothy” long, long ago! Perhaps this delicious
Spring day has something to do with it. Thank
God for that too.

April 23rd.—Will the “Reigning Beauty”
make a hit? I do not believe that any book of
mine ever will; and I should be ashamed of
caring, were it not that I try to do some good in
my writings, which cannot be fully accomplished
unless the book has an effect on large numbers.
It seems strange that in spite of all the praise
my works have received from Reviewers, and
from remarkable people, not one has really
made a hit. I have notes and letters praising
them, from Lockhart, Wilkie, and many others,
including some great critics not famed for
paying literary compliments. A review in the
Daily News of my anonymous work “Com-

* After we were married, she wrote eleven other works—twenty
volumes. The list of them, as I mentioned before, will be found in
the Appendix.
120 DISTRACTION OF SPIRIT

pensation,” which must be necessarily impartial,
seems to think that I have more power of
mental analysis and other qualities requisite for
a novelist than * *—yet his novels have made
extraordinary hits, and run through endless
editions. *

Sunday April 25.—Outward circumstances
much the same, but what a change in my spirits
since then! It is now as if nothing ever could
be, or ever had been, bright or happy. I have
discovered so many more faults in my disposition
and habits than I was aware of before. It is
so depressing never to be able to do or think
right. Yet I cannot even take this powerless-
ness as a trial—nor can I have the true humility
to cast my care upon the Saviour, and rest and
trust in His merits, and be satisfied to have none
of my own!

*One condition of general popularity is, that the standard of
right and wrong be lowered to the average tone of the multitude.
It is true that the most popular works have described extraordinary
acts of heroism and self-devotion; yet such acts do not appeal
to the reader personally. They are not within the range of his daily
life, and therefore do not tread on his self-esteem by reproaching
him for not doing likewise; whereas a persistently high tone of
thought and action in everyday life, which all her writings without
exception inculcated, has a personal reference to us all; and the
comparisons it suggests are perhaps the more personal internally,
because we have to make them for ourselves. The world likes to
have its conscience made comfortable; and the writer who does not
write in accordance with that liking will never be widely popular.
You may put in as much of the heroic as you like, so long as it is of
the volunteer kind and external to ordinary experience; but, within
the range of everyday life and duties, the general public resents
a higher model than its own—not through conscious aversion to it,
for that would indicate a moral tone lower than the average, but
because it is a puzzle, an annoyance, a disturber of self-satisfac-
tion.—E. H. D.]
WORKS OF FICTION 121

Distraction or the end! I must either figure
to myself the last moment of life—what I shall
feel or think then—or I must distract my mind
by deep occupation. Yet I always look to the
end in everything. Strange that I cannot better
prepare for the great end—death, which is so
seldom out of my thoughts!

* * * * *

Oh that I may find life! for truly I have fear
of eternal death! Employment, duty, effort;
these alone often make life bearable. I cannot
endure to do nothing.

* * * * 2%

One reason why * * and I never agree in
our admiration of works of fiction is that she
regards them solely as works of art, while I look
upon them as works of nature also, as pictures of
the author’s mind, as the out-pouring of his best
feelings. She would say, “Why, then, write
them in the form of a novel?” Fortunately she
does not know how glad one is to clothe
imaginary characters with one’s own ill-fitting
raiment, and put words into their mouths which
we shrink from uttering ourselves—to embody
by the help of a story floating thoughts that are
too fleeting to be caught in any other way.

* * * Es *

I am afraid that bodily health, and the in-
creased strength I seem to have acquired lat-
terly, does net agree with me so well as the
comparative state of invalidism which made me
vegetate through my real youth. It has caused
more longing for happiness. With greater
122 COVETOUSNESS

powers, I crave for more perfect enjoyment.
All is too vivid, as if a veil had been taken off.
* * * * *

July 5, Seamore Place-——Our parties and
dinners went off well. I am glad to have had
such pretty young people dancing in this old
house, for I felt that those I loved best would
approve of my endeavours to promote sociability
in a simple unostentatious manner, and to give
young people the opportunity of meeting plea-
santly without keeping up their coachmen or
servants all night, or ruining their own health
by late hours, or indulging in immoderate gaiety.
For I think that dancing all night is real dissipa-
tion, that there is the same want of moderation
in it which causes drunkenness, over-smoking,
gambling, and many other vices, and therefore
it is wrong. I feel that I could not have knelt
down and prayed so earnestly that God would
prosper my efforts, if I had given balls which be-
gan at eleven o’clock at night.

* cd * * *

Sunday.—I ought to be always breathing the
prayer contained in the Psalm of to-day, cxix, v.
16, “Incline my heart unto thy testimonies, and
not to covetousness.” What a variety of cove-
tousnesses there are! At different periods of
our lives we are inclined to different varieties of
covetousness. I began and now end by coveting
affection or love. As life grew on I was first
covetous of fame, then of other things. These
have in a great measure passed away, and left
only a painful longing for affection. Oh! that
FLIGHT OF TIME 123

I could turn all these energetic and passionate
longings into love of God, and satisfaction in
Him and his caring for me!

As we advance in life, time flies so fast that it
seems composed of nothing but Mondays. Dur-
ing the season in London, perpetual tumult and
bustle, scarcely possible to gain a quiet half-hour,
and then the rest of the time moving about
from one country house to another. Delightful
for the moment, but impressing upon one the
perpetual change of all things—the perpetual
passing away. For me life now consists in
cheerful goodbyes—(except with regard to
dearest Pysie,* who I trust will never say any
but the long “goodbye” to me at my last hour.)
“Goodbye,” say relations and friends who come
to us in London; “goodbye” say relations and
friends whose hospitable homes we leave. “ May
you be happy: may you enjoy yourself wherever

”

you go.” And so we pass on.
* * * * *

I ought to be grateful for the success of
my book, “The Reigning Beauty,” particularly
that it should be found interesting, since I have
followed nature instead of proceeding on the
supposed principles of art, and given equal
interest to two persons on the same side, both
good, and it is all light—no shadow, no bad
character. The interest is not produced by any
of the usual rules for fiction.

* Afterwards Mrs Ferrers. She had made a resolve never to
leave her Aunt, and in point of fact, after her marriage with
Marmion Ferrers, the two households, united together, lived in
unbroken harmony.—ED.
124 STRATHFIELDSAYE

The most agreeable persons are certainly
those who have the greatest faith in the good-
ness of others, as the best physicians believe
in good health. By appealing to the best feel-
ings of those with whom we converse, by giving
them credit for good qualities, we can often call
these qualities and these good feelings into play.

* * * * *

To-day we drove over to Strathfieldsaye,
which had once belonged to Lord Rivers, be-
fore it was bought for the great Duke of Wel-
lington. As I walked through the rooms where
I had so often played as a child, visions of
those long dead and gone came before my mind’s
eye, in that princely residence of their race.
I seemed to converse with the Pitts and Greys
of bygone times, and listen to the adventures
of Sir Walter Raleigh, and hear the rustle of the
old Duchess of Dorset’s starched ruff; gaze
on the Queen of Bohemia’s melancholy counte-
nance, as I used to do on her picture when I
was a child, and shed tears over her sad fate.
All the well-remembered portraits have passed
out of the family for ever, in the same manner
that the old residences have gone—Kingston,
Encombe, Strathfieldsaye and Sudeley Castle.
One well-remembered relic of the old days I still
possess, the portrait of Sir Walter Raleigh,
painted by Marc Gerard, that came from King-
ston House in Dorsetshire, after the death of my
Aunt Pitt. I also still possess (left me by her
will) a jewel for the hair, composed of many
coloured stones, like a large oblong broach,
LAST OF THE “LADIES” 125

and a square piece of lace for the bodice, both

of which are said to have belonged to Lady

Jane Grey.
* * * * %*

I was startled and grieved to-day by hearing
of the death of the dear good Duchess of Cleve-
land. It is only three months ago since we
enjoyed a most agreeable visit at Raby. The
loss of so right-minded and charming a person
from a position of such extended influence is
very great. She was nearly the last of the
“ladies,’—I mean of the old highbred type. The
race is fast becoming extinct, and there is nothing
to replace them. How glad I am that we
went to Raby, and that I passed those pleasant
hours with her alone in her little private bou-
doir, and saw the self-denying spirit which sus-
tained her through the evenings in the full
drawing-room, where she remained the last
(though suffering much), amusing, or putting
at their ease country neighbours, and making
her cheering influence felt in every part of it,
among the high and low components of the large
party. It was not the kind of life she most
liked, and, I believe, never had been, even in the
days of her better health; therefore she had all
the more merit in playing her large part so well.
CHAPTER XVII.

Reply to a Sceptic—The longing for Companion-
ship.

NortuINnG, except the fact that this world is a
place of trial can explain the otherwise inexplic-
able confusion of right and wrong which pro-
sperity and adversity present. Faith, which gives
the certainty of future happiness, if we fulfil the
conditions required, puts everything in harmony.
Otherwise all is chaos—nay, worse, it is a chaos
out of which nothing but increased disorder can
come. No one who loves much can endure the
thought of eternal separation from the loved
object ; nor indeed (though in a lesser degree)
from anyone of those they love on earth; so that,
apart from supernatural motivés, no one who
has any natural love for any human being can
rest satisfied with scepticism. All willing and
permanent sceptics are deficient in depth of
feeling. I have never known one that was not,
though it is not uncommon to find them ap-
parently the reverse. They are therefore such
bad specimens of the human race that their
opinions are worth nothing on any moral ques-
tion whatever, to say nothing of religion ; for in-
tellect without feeling is like a room into which
the sun never enters—unhealthy and dangerous.

These thoughts have occurred to me in con-
RESPONSIBILITY FOR OPINIONS 127

sequence of a letter from Mr ——, giving reasons
for his belief in the unbelievableness of every-
thing except the wisdom of those who think like
himself. The grand result of his arguments
appears to be that “no man is responsible for his
opinions” (faith and opinion seem to mean the
same thing in his mind) and that belief is in its
nature rational, not sensational.”

“Not responsible for his opinions?” How
then can he be said to‘exercise any intellectual
power—any moral control ;over his own mind?
His judgment would be regulated by Fate, which
has no meaning without a Creator, or by Chance,
which would be a kind of hap-hazard Fate. But
people are universally held responsible for their
actions, and actions take their character from
opinions. Would Mr ——say that we ought not
to punish malefactors? Yet, if they have no con-
trol over the opinions which make them commit
crimes, they are not free agents, and ought
no more to be punished than a man who shoots
another by accident ; for there is no more will in
the one case than in the other. To suppose that
God, the perfection of justice, mercy and wis-
dom, could cause people to suffer for doing what
he inexorably compels them to do, is so mani-
festly absurd that it is tantamount to saying
“There is no God.”

“Belief is, in its nature, rational, not sen-
sational.” Be it so! but, in my ignorance I
should have thought that the senses have a good
deal to do with belief of all kinds—for instance,
how could the Disciples have believed in our
128 A DELUSION

Lord, if they had not seen and heard Him? Or,
how could we believe in the Battle of Agincourt,
if the fact had not been handed down to us on
the word of people who knew it as much through
their senses as with their intelligence? But
suppose that it were purely rational, as if we had
no bodies. What then? It would not prove
that we have no control over the formation of
that belief; for we can use our reason either ill
or well, with or without care, or with or without
a foregone conclusion—the smallest amount of
self-knowledge tells us that. Poor C—— has
ended apparently where I began; but what made
me miserable seems to fill him with a sort of cold
satisfaction. In childhood I disbelieved—I had
no faith in the religion I was taught, though I
had the strongest possible desire to believe in it.
The great object of my life has been to obtain
Faith *—the great object of his to shut it out.
December 2nd, 1858. Thursday.—It must be
some strange delusion of an evil spirit which
makes me imagine there that can be no happiness
in this world or the next, unless my wishes
are fulfilled in one particular. Yet so itis. The
moment I fancy one thing is likely to happen,
then the whole universe—the past, present and
future—becomes tinged with the glowing hues of
hope and joy! Then I have Faith and Hope.

* As what they proposed to her belief was not the one true Faith,
and she never could persuade herself to believe in a counterfeit of
any thing, there could be but one result of these conscientious
attempts, viz., unsatisfied longings and self-reproach without any
apparent escape. All this melted away, of course, in an instant be-
fore the reality, like night shadows before the sun.—E. H. D.
MILL’S ESSAY ON “LIBERTY ” 129

December 13.—A beautiful journey here. The
young moon, this morning, shone through our
windows. I felt too much to think when I saw it.
All beautiful things in nature appear to intensify
one’s longing for the sympathy of one person,
and it seemed to me afterwards as if my intense
longing was far beyond a wish—as if I could
hardly presume to wish it!

Seamore Place. January. Friday.—I told Mr
Dering to-day that he could not have such a bad
opinion of the world as he imagines he has,
because his standard is so high. One must have a
considerable faith in possible goodness to have an
exalted standard, and to have passed through great
trials with an undiminished wish for excellence.

C is writing an Essay an Modern Litera-
ture. He is a worshipper of Modern Science and
Positive Philosophy. Poor inexperienced un-
thinker! How soon a blight, like the potatoe
disease, may come, and overgrow, with its
mysterious fungus, the budding tree which he
imagines is to grow and flourish as long as the
world lasts! He disbelieves the account of the
Scriptural Babel, and therefore cannot see that
the greatest of human discoveries may be lost—
that the law of “So far shalt thou go and no
farther,” which keeps this planet in its place,
may at any moment arrest the course of human
invention, and disperse the vain hope of per-
fection to be attained in this chaotic world-ball.

* * * * *

Tuesday, March r5.—I\ have just finished read-

ing Stuart Mill’s “ Liberty.” It is altogether the
9

 
130 FREDERIC DENISON MAURICE

most thoroughly temporal book I ever met with.
There is not so much as a trace of natural religion
in any part of it—not a gleam of hope, not a hint
of even an involuntary desire for anything be-
yond this world. His meaning is unmistakably
clear—cut out with a chisel. I was conscious of
a power acting upon, but not influencing me—
a kind of mechanical power, able to hurt and
weary, but not persuade. It made me feel as if
I were chained down in the dark centre of the
earth, and bruised between two enormous
mill-stones.

Yet, after all this grinding, I felt lighter,
larger in mind, more expansive than before.
My mind seemed to bound upwards from be-
neath the hard miry mass like a bird that had
escaped from a bird-catcher.

Maurice,* the distinguished author, is coming
to dine here to-day.

#* * * * *

[He was a large-hearted man, whose intel-
lectual powers were never fully appreciated,
owing to an apparent mistiness of thought,
which puzzled his admirers and frightened
steady-going Protestants, yet was too clearly
reverent in its tone to harmonize with the all-
questioning instincts of the advanced school.
As far as I know, he never had the slightest
inclination to become a Catholic ; nor did I ever
hear from himself, or others, or gather from

* Frederic Denison Maurice, author of ‘‘ Essays on Ecclesiasti-
cal History of the First and Second Centuries,’ and other works.
FREDERIC DENISON MAURICE 131

what writings of his I have read, that such an
idea had ever crossed his mind as even possible
under any conceivable hypothesis ; yet I know
that his Theological Essays, and other works,
gave the first Catholic bias to the mind of at
least one subsequent convert, by an inference
invisible to his own. In them he proved the
unity of the Church of God from the Creation to
the time of St Irenzeus ; and the reader to whom
I refer was unable to see how that unity, after it
had lasted so long, and had been confirmed by
our Lord when He founded His Church on the
Rock of Peter, could have broken up like a Club
whose members have quarrelled. He was of
the Broad Church school; but from what I could
read of his character in his writings and in him-
self, my own strong impression is that this was
the result of finding no room for his big heart
within the bounds of the Establishment, while
seeing only a wall beyond; and if, as I have
always heard, he was brought up in Uni-
tarianism, his religious tone of mind must be
measured by its growth, not by the distance
reached. I never heard him say an unchari-
table word about anyone, and his humility ap-
peared to be habitual and interior. Speaking
one day, for instance, of eternal punishment,
which he had been accused of denying, he said
to a lady, who just now reminded me of the
circumstance, “I can perfectly understand and
believe it as regards myself, but I dare not
apply it to individuals, or bodies of people.”
Here one reads the man and his position—
132 THE ONE SOURCE OF HAPPINESS

the Christian instinct of severe self-judgment,
and the impeded progress of a soul anxiously
groping in the dark.—E. H. D.]

Sunday, March 27.—The longer I live the
more convinced I am that the one source of
happiness belonging to this world is to love
and be loved by one who is worthy to call
forth our best feelings, and to gratify a high
standard of human excellence.

* * * * *

April 7—A lovely Spring day. All nature
seems to rejoice with me. I have for some
time past found one who truly realizes the high
standard of goodness which I had formed, and
now I know that he cares for me. We passed
the afternoon in Seamore Place Gardens, the
birds were singing so sweetly—the fresh young
buds, peeping out of little brown pods, yielded
such a pleasant fragrance that I could not help
feeling that all nature with her inarticulate voice
spoke to me of hope and joy, and moreover of
a far beyond unending joy—of which the bright-
est hours in this world are but a faint symbol.

END OF THE DIARY.
 
CHAPTER XVIII.
Our Marriage on June tst, 1859.

Two months later I had the happiness of being
her husband. I was utterly unworthy of her—
no one is so well aware of that as myself; yet I
have the unspeakable consolation of knowing
that there never was, never could be a hap-
pier marriage.

The happiness of married life is essentially
objective, and therefore opposed to introspec-
tion; but without introspection a Diary is im-
possible. Her Diary was not resumed.

The reader will pardon me if, in the course of
this Memoir, I am sometimes obliged to speak of
myself. I cannot help it, for my life and hers
were one; but I will do so as seldom and as
briefly. as possible, not only for the reader’s
sake, but for my own. It must be evident that
I had rather speak of her than of myself.

The day of our marriage was the most deeply
important as well as the happiest of my life, for
it marks the time when, through her influence,
I began to entertain the idea that it might be
possible to become a Catholic. Of course she
was as unconscious of influencing me in that
direction as [ was of being so influenced at that
time ; but it is a fact nevertheless that she did:
it is a fact that I owe my conversion to her.
134 UNCONSCIOUS INFLUENCE

The tone of her mind, the habits of her life,
the motions of her will, were essentially Catho-
lic. They had an imperceptible, permeating
influence that neither disturbed the mind nor
puzzled the conscience of either. I took in
what they suggested as we learn our native
language—unconsciously, without hindrance, and
when I became aware of having done so, diffi-
culties were already solved by conviction.

As I said at the beginning, this is not a
biography, but a memorial sketch ; and if in the
foregoing pages I may seem to have forgotten
the limits I had laid down for myself, the ap-
parent transgression was unavoidable, unless I
had decided on not making use of the Diary—
a course I could not take, because I felt that
what is written in the private diary of one who
has passed from this world, leaving a void that
can never be filled, has a special interest, and,
as it were, a special character of its own which
no other hand can supply. In what follows, the
reader will find nothing that does not directly
tend to the exclusive object I have had in view
throughout.

It is a common opinion, founded on much
experience, that happiness diverts our attention
from God and our own soul by attracting it
to the contemplation of present enjoyment—
but surely this requires distinction. If happiness
be understood to mean nothing more than a
sense of satisfaction .in the fulfilment of present
desires, there is no denying that it directly in-
fluences us to concentrate our interests on
PRINCIPLES THAT RULED HER LIFE 135

present things and shrink from what is sug-
gestive of their coming to an end; but if we
take it in a higher meaning, if we take it to
mean that sense of perfect oneness in marriage,
which makes each to be the objective part of
the other, its result is very different. It is com-
paratively perfect, and therefore comparatively
imperfect ; its one requirement is permanence,
but permanence in this world is limited, or at
the most conterminous with our life. Does not
comparative perfection suggest the idea of that
which will satisfy absolutely and for ever?
Surely it is calculated to do so. Misery may
be liable to recklessness, worldly prosperity to
materialism and self-satisfaction ; but true hap-
piness, if there be no impediment in the way,
is a help—almost a guide, to the One True Faith.
It certainly helped me into the Church (I wish it
were possible to avoid speaking of myself), and
she who was the cause of my happiness gave
the clue that brought me through the labyrinth.
I simply followed at a distance the example she
gave. Her example taught me three principles
that ruled her life. She always sought to know
the will of God and do it; she always tried to
see everything exactly as it was, without re-
ference to her own wishes; she never turned
aside from a difficulty, however easily avoided.
By acting on these three principles habitually,
she guided my aspirations and trained my will,
thus arming me against the two sophistries—
the sophistry of the mind and the sophistry of
the heart, through which one has to pass in
136 YEARS OF TRIAL

finding one’s way gradually out of Protestantism.
I saw my way more clearly long before I was
received into the Church—how long I cannot
exactly say, for the truth became apparent
sooner than the duty of submission, but cer-
tainly as long as was at all safe. I waited as
long as my conscience would allow. I waited
for her who had led me to the threshold of the
Church, and could not see her way to enter.
Perhaps I ought not to have waited so long;
yet I think that I could not have acted other-
wise, according to my knowledge and the cir-
cumstances of the case. I knew not then that
the time when Almighty God would give her
the light of faith was yet distant, and it was
impossible for me to realize the idea of taking
a separate course of action. We had always
had, as it were, one soul. I now had to face the
fact that I must rend that soul in two.

If I say that, when I had been received into
the Church (in 1865), I was like a man who,
from a sheltered harbour, sees all he loves in
this world exposed to a raging tempest and
unable to cross the bar at the entrance, the
comparison will be very incomplete, but it will
be the nearest I can give. There was a bar
that neither of us could cross. Almighty God
had chosen His own time, and that time as yet
was not. He had chosen His own way, and
His ways are not our ways.

Ten years passed in this manner—years of
trial and suffering that are impossible to realize
without having experienced them. What it cost
OUR RELATIVE POSITION 137

to maintain the relative position which con-
science had compelled us to choose, and which
neither could have changed at that time without
sin, no one in this world but ourselves could really
know. One consolation I had, and she had not.
Her wonderful goodness, conscientiousness and
patience during that prolonged and terrible trial
made me see some rays of light through dark-
ness, but she had no such comfort. She had
habitually a low opinion of herself, and her
aspirations were now above the actual dictates
of her conscience. In fact she was sacrificing
her happiness to a sense of duty, that did not
even satisfy the conscience at whose dictates the
sacrifice was made. Her conscience demanded
the sacrifice, but required something—some-
thing more as it then seemed to her, something
else in reality. I, of course, had not that par-
ticular trial; but, on the other hand, I knew
what she suffered, I could see that her health
was being injured, perhaps her life shortened,
and the fact was continually before me that the
course of action which her influence first, and
my own conscience afterwards, had led me to
follow, produced all the misery. Besides this,
my own conversion was the cause of a special
difficulty to her—the fear of being influenced by
a human motive. It was this that really held
her back, shackled her conscience, made her
misunderstand her own tendencies, barred out
the approaches of conviction. It was the one
real difficulty ; it gave to the others an impor-
tance they did not in themselves possess; it
138 THE BISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM

broke the unity of intention that had made our
two souls as one ; it brought sorrow and anxiety
where hitherto there had been nothing but un-
alloyed happiness; it was, at least, a remote
danger to a life that was dearer to me than any
life existing or possible in the world. I knew
this, I knew that I was the cause of it; and the
trial would have been intolerable if she had been
anyone else ; but her desire to know the Will of
God, and do it, which had always been the key-
note in the harmony of her character, was a note
so strongly marked that I could not, I suppose,
really lose hope, though at times it was so faint that
it did little more than register its own weakness.

It was the Bishop of Birmingham who taught
me to hope reasonably, and gave me _ solid
grounds for doing so. He read her character
through at once, understood her difficulties, saw
her honesty of purpose, her high aspirations, her
desire to do the Will of God. Whenever I men-
tioned the subject to him, his invariable direction
was, “Don’t hurry her.” From the first she had
the utmost confidence in the Bishop. She con-
sulted him about her difficulties as long ago as
1868, and continued to do so, from time to time,
till they ceased to be.

I have been obliged to epitomize the course
of events beforehand, in order to throw light on
the unity of the cause that produced them—I
mean the personal character that made them its
own. Having done so, I revert to the time of
our marriage, June 1, 1859.

We passed the first week at Woolston Hall
WOOLSTON HALL 139

in Essex, lent to us by its kind and interesting
owner, Miss Bodle, whose ancestors were ver-
derers of Hainault Forest, in the days when the
King shot deer there with a crossbow. The rest
of that season we spent in London, in the old
house, 5 Seamore Place, May Fair, where, among
the many invaluable lessons that I learned then
and afterwards from her words and example,
there was one which example seldom gives us
a chance of learning—I mean the duties of
Society viewed from a Christian standpoint.
I saw how a cultivated amiability and graceful
tact, spontaneous under conditions that seldom
fail to deteriorate the one and extinguish the
other, could, as it were, clear the way for the
presence of higher principles, implied rather than
expressed, and cause them to be received with-
out conscious resentment where they certainly
would not have been welcome on their own
merits. She enjoyed society with the freshness
of a childlike soul, the simplicity of a pure heart,
the discernment of an acute and cultivated mind.
Possessing in an exceptional degree those quali-
ties which the world recognizes as greater than
its own in its own sphere, she never applied
them to the attainment of any success which the
world rewards.

I have known many people who, more or less
deservedly, had the reputation of being un-
worldly—some who, with little or no right to
that attribute, obtained or assumed it, and not
a few who practised the virtue without acquiring
the reputation; but I have never known one who,
140 SOCIAL QUALITIES

endowed with all the gifts by which the world
may be won, and the heart naturally laid open to
the world’s fascination, was so entirely, so habi-
tually, so systematically not of the world. Had
she willed to make society an object of competi-
tive ambition, the result would not have been
doubtful ; for she had all the qualities, which, in
combination, give the power of acquiring ascen-
dancy over human beings. Those qualities are
essentially the same, whatever be the circum-
stances that called them into action; but they
vary in degree, and, therefore, in the results
which they are capable of producing. Without
them you can no more manage a child than you
can rule unruly millions; but what will suffice
for the one will not suffice for the other. Were
I to say how highly they were developed in her
—how wisely, and on how wide a stage I know
her to have been capable of exercising them if
opportunity and her own will had combined,
I should appear to exaggerate.

I have no inclination to exaggerate. I am
aware that beauty of character, as of form, con-
sists in proportion, which the slightest excess
will destroy ; and, moreover, I have, in the course
of this work, had many an inward struggle be-
tween my desire to tell the truth as I knew it to
be, and my fear of seeming to colour it by words
or inferences. But I have undertaken to de-
scribe her character and powers truly, which it is
impossible to do without showing what she was
capable of, as well as what she actually did—for
what we do is, to a great extent, dependent on
IMPRESSIONS OF THE PAST 141

occasion, and on conscience too, if we happen to
have one—and, therefore, I could not imitate
a certain sculptor, who, when taking her bust,
deliberately spoiled the likeness by diminishing
considerably the breadth of the brow, because,
as he said, it “looked too strongly intellectual
for a woman.”

We passed the next season also in Seamore
Place. As before, I enjoyed it with the fresh-
ness of a child that has found a congenial play-
mate, and wants nothing. Looking back through
the mists that gather round each pictured
memory as it recedes from the immediate past,
figures of the dead rise up before me, increasing
as I try to count them ; but so capriciously does
the mind’s eye retain its impressions, that
Thackeray, with whom I had but the very slight-
est acquaintance, is among the most vividly de-
fined of all. I can see his well known spectacles
towering above the uncrowded hundreds at
Lansdowne House, as plainly as if we were both
of us there at this moment.

The year after (1861) we remained all the
summer at Finchden, a very picturesque old
black and white house belonging to us in the
Weald of Kent. The diary, as I have said, was
not continued. I might of course write the sub-
stance of the continuation myself: it would be
a labour of love, in which memory for once
would serve me well, and affection supply the
place of ability. But after all, it would be a life-
less imitation, a poor supplement, an intrusion of
things that had lost their interest.
142 DEFENCE OF LORD GAMBIER

“The Reigning Beauty” had been published
a short time before we were married. The next
book, “ Memorials of Admiral Lord Gambier,”
her uncle, came out in 1861. _It was written to
defend his memory from the unjust attacks which
had been brought against him by Lord Dun-
donald during his absence, disproved before
a court-martial, and raked up again after his
death by their original author in the “ Autobio-
graphy of a Seaman.” The defence of Lord
Gambier was complete, and recognized as such
at the time by all fair and competent judges,
naval and otherwise. In one of the most noted
periodicals, the reviewer thought that she must
have had a lawyer and a seaman to assist her,
which most certainly she had not. The second
edition came out within a week.

But a calumny that is to be found reproduced
here and there in standard histories has more
lives than a cat, especially when the general
public has no personal interest in the reputation
of its object. “ Magna est veritas, et preevalebit !”
It is noteworthy that the verb is in the future.
The interval is often very long, and, without
a favourable combination of circumstances, we
can do very little to shorten it; but history,
sooner or later, does justice to reputations un-
justly depressed. At some future time, when all
who have any kind of personal interest in the
subject shall have long been in their graves, and
the progress of time shall have left the question
far beyond the range of contemporary history,
some historian, desirous of sifting the evidence,
CALUMNY REFUTED 143

and unbiassed by the false lights that mislead
contemporary opinion, will fall in with a copy
of “The Memorials”—perhaps in the British
Museum, perhaps on an old book-stall; and the
evidence to be found there, having no impedi-
ment, will do the rest. That evidence is, as
I have said, complete, but in the case of an old
prejudice there is no substitute for time.

The undertaking itself is eminently character-
istic of her; for she wrote the book, not because
Lord Gambier was her uncle, but because she
hated injustice. I am much tempted to give
a short notice of this work, for the purpose of
showing how complete is her refutation of the
calumny that induced her to write it; but the
story of her life cannot be interrupted without
breaking its continuity ; and, amid the stirring
events of the present time, the reader’s interest
in Basque Roads would be too languid to make
up for the interruption.

We were in Seamore Place again in 1862,
and then out of London for six years.
CHAPTER XIX.

Publication of “ The Heiress and her Lovers ”—
The Isle of Purbeck—A few Extracts from
“Leonore” and “Oswald of Deira.”

Tue Memorials of Admiral Lord Gambier were,
as already mentioned, written at Finchden, in the
Weald of Kent, to which, four years later, my
dearest wife made additions, planning and de-
signing, among other things, an immense room.
I mention this, because in those additions there
was visible proof of that strong common sense
and practical adaptiveness of the imagination to
limitations, whether unavoidable or otherwise,
which characterized all she did.

“The Heiress and her Lovers” was publish-
ed in 1863. The title was not her own choice,
but the publisher’s, and she disliked it excessive-
ly. The volume of “ Léonore and other Poems”
was written in the Isle of Purbeck, where we
passed a year, drawn there by her affection for
a county where she had passed much of her
childhood—at Kingston House, near Dorches-
ter, which was then the property of her uncle,
Morton Pitt, and was sold when he unaccount-
ably ruined himself without one extravagant
propensity.

We rented Smedmore in the Isle of Purbeck,
which was only two miles across the wild downs
PUBLICATION OF “GREYS COURT” 145

(nine miles by the carriage-road) from Encombe
—another property once belonging to Morton
Pitt. Here she sketched the plot of ‘‘Grey’s
Court,” and wrote the part called “Lora Grey’s
Diary.” I did the rest. It reached five editions,
which, considering its Catholic tone, was hardly
to be expected.

Perhaps it was the peculiar picturesqueness
of the scenery, at once wild and home-like, that
aroused into action some of the poetry within
her. Its intensely green meadows, its dark
brown cliffs that opened out into romantic bays,
with a background of blue sea stretching out to
the horizon, its old-fashioned homesteads dotted
about in quiet yet bodily shaped valleys enclosed
within blue lines of mountain-like hills, are
singularly adapted to do so; for they produce
a general effect that must be seen to be realized,
though, by the by, it by no means follows, either
in theory or in practice, that it is always realized
when seen. Perhaps that scenery aroused what
was dormant, or rather not in action; but I
think not. I think it only suggested what she
was ripe todo. Be that as it may, it was there,
as I before said, that she wrote “Léonore,
Marie de Ganges, and other Poems.” They
were published in one volume.* The two illus-
trations in the second edition of “ Léonore” are
by her niece, Mrs Ferrers (then Miss Orpen).
The distinguished amateur, Mr Ellerton, set
to music the following Bridal Song, in “ Léo-
nore.” It is supposed to be the welcome sung

* By Macmillan & Co.
10
146 BRIDAL SONG

by the vassals and minstrels of Anzizans on the
arrival of the Count and his bride.

BRIDAL SONG.
WOMEN.

Awake, oh ! silver moon— the heaving sea,
With many-pulséd life, doth wait for thee,
And lifts his crests, and moans thy face to see.

He, ruled in all his motions by thy will,
Can only thus his destiny fulfil!
E’en absent thou dost influence him still.

MEN.

As through the sea-fog’s gloom in darksome night
The trembling mariner doth strain his sight

To catch the faintest glimmer of thy light ;

So have we waited for thy herald star,
And strained our eyes to see thee rise from far,
And bring us joy for sorrow—peace for war.

SEMI-CHORUS.

Thou risest, and the many-pulséd sea

Smiles back with thousand eyes thy light to see,
And lifts his crested waves with trembling glee.

FULL CHORUS.
Thou comest—into haven fair we glide
At rest—secure from outward rolling tide,
Our moon, our guide art thou, oh, welcome bride!

I will quote a few lines from “ Marie de Ganges.”

Though fair the morning star,
When from afar
It sang of joy to new-created earth,
More bright the Orient gem,
The star of Bethlehem,
That shone upon a world of suffering dearth.
OSWALD OF DEIRA 147

The corn is ground for food—
The precious sandal wood

Gives sweetest odour ’neath the cruel blow ;
And thus the human soul
In sorrow learns control,

And riseth by the stroke that laid her low.

And all life’s varied ill,
Though ’gainst the holy will
Of God Creator it on earth appears,
Is turned by Him to good,
And made to serve as food,
For growth of virtue, through its mortal years.

By darkness know we light,
By wrong the right,
And labour has its rest eternally ;
And thus immortal Love
Doth brood all ills above,
Transmuting them to seraph harmony.

And after toil is balm,
And after storm is calm,

And, when the night has passed in gloom away,
Will rise for evermore,
On Heaven’s eternal shore,

The never-ending and unclouded day.

Her next poem was “Oswald of Deira.” *

The subject was partly suggested by the fact
of St Oswald being my direct ancestor. I had
not intended to notice her books, or rather, I had
intended not to do so ; and, as regarded novels,
it was of course easy enough to adhere to that
resolution, because one cannot notice them with-
out going into the plot, which would take up
more space than I have at command ; but I really

* Published by Longmans.
148 OSWALD OF DEIRA

cannot help extracting a few passages from her
poems ; for I am pourtraying her, and they help
to show what she was—what she was growing to
be. The poem is so evenly written that I have
great difficulty in picking out the few passages I
have room for.

Dr Newman said, in a letter of September
25, 1867:

“JT was very glad to see the Review of
‘Oswald of Deira’ in the Zadlet. It is full of
beautiful thoughts.”

The following lines represent Hermengarde—
the Queen-Mother of the King of Wessex, while
yet a Pagan, describing a kind of waking dream,
in which she sees Winchester Cathedral, after-
wards built over the ruins of the old Palace of
the Saxon Kings :—

And yet I try to banish care, and trust

In Wodin, or—ha! there it is again,

The sign that Alfred loved, the sacred sign
He wore upon his breast. It ever comes—
It comes between, or rather takes the place
Of Wodin’s image when I try to pray.

Now as I gaze, it brighter grows, and seems
With gems to glisten, and aloft is raised
Above an altar bright with many lights,*

And round it rises slow a temple vast.

Here it has risen—here, just where we stand;
Its arches, like o’ershadowing forest glades,
Meet high above ; their branching arms and leaves
Are white as if of stone ; and windows closed
With many jewels, like the dappled sky

Of Autumn sunsets, glow above the fane

* Above the High Altar in Winchester Cathedral is seen the
mark in the stone where the massive silver crucifix once stood.
OSWALD OF DEIRA 149

Where shines the Symbol. Kneeling crowds appear,
And priests with robes of crimson, gold and white,
Before it bow. Oh! see’st thou not, my child?

At page 29, there are some lines that exactly
represent the intense desire for the highest good
which actuated her all her life, and found its only
exponent in the one True Church.

Some moments seem to do the work of years,
To mark the impress of a century

On human minds and hearts—so, full are they
Of life intensified, of love divine,

Of all those essences of good required

To mould and perfect never-dying souls.

Yet are they oftentimes but the result

Of time and patience, sorrow over-lived,
Self-discipline, and hope, and charity ;

And daily should we seek to garner them,

To cull the truly beautiful and good,

In other men, and in ourselves. Who knows
How many half-unconcious acts and thoughts,
The overcoming of some pet desire,

The vanquishing of some small faults, may give
Such life to the expression of a face,

That e’en the worst of sinners, looking on’t,
Will feel not only shame but penitence,

And hate the conscious discord in his heart,
Which jars against that perfect harmony.

And evermore will dwell with silent charm,
Within his breast, the memory of that face,
An evidence of better things to come—

E’en as some vision, pure and beautiful,
Tending, perchance, long afterwards to prove
That there exists a God, Who loved as well,
And Who created us for hope.

The following lines describe her mind, partly
as it was at the time, partly by anticipation :—
150

OSWALD OF DEIRA

At first, and for a while, I found it hard

To fill the unseen avenues of faith

With unreserved consent ; but, by degrees,

An evergrowing hope and consciousness

Of full belief possessed me; then I felt

(What erst I had conjectured) that, in fact,
The mysteries of evil—inborn sin,

And sufferings entailed—can only find
Solution in ¢Aat Faith. I rested thus

Quite peacefully, until the Evil One,

Who never rests, but watches unperceived,
And ever seeks an unprotected spot

Along the winding frontiers of the mind,
Through which he creeps disguised into the heart,
And taints the conscience, raised a spectral form
Of self-distrust and insufficiency

In fancied tests of Faith. I shrank with dread
From closer contact with the mystery.

I feared the real presence of the Cross—

The nearer sight of Jesus crucified.

I readily could comprehend, admire,

And look upon with grateful awe and love
The notion of a voluntary death,

T’ atone to God for man’s transgressions vile.
The distant form I could revere right well,
And even learn with humble reverence

And trust to bow before the sacred sign,

The instrument of sufferings entailed

By mine own sin upon a God of Love.

But when still more advanced in faith I learnt
To view in it a bar—the awful bar

That crossed the line of our most proud intent,
The stop ordained by God, upon our love

Of lore, of progress, and discovery,

The Cross—the Cross alone I learnt to love,
In all its meanings clear. For this I prayed,
And felt the answer ringing through my soul
In harmonies of peace, distinct and clear,

As audible response.
OSWALD OF DEIRA 151

I cannot resist quoting some charming lines

on page 103, spoken by the Dwarf, or Jester,
of King Cynegils.

Greater far than Wodin bold,
Than the Giant men of old,

Was the God who taught all good,
And then died upon the Rood.

CADWALLON.
Nay, silly fool; how didst thou learn all this?

JESTER.
Fairies whisper this to me

When I sleep beneath the tree ;
Flowers, birds and stars tell this,
Pointing to unending bliss ;
And they bid us seek for rest,
Striving here to do our best.

Birds and stars, and flowers say,

All night long and every day,

In their blissful tones and looks
More than can be learned by books ;
They disclose a better part

Than can e’er be learned by art ;
And with harmony they teach

More than any mortal speech.

On the breezes blessings come
From a far off happy home,

Dreams of flowers, and odours sweet,
Dreams of sounds melodious, greet
All my senses with delight

As I clime the topmast height.
There to beauty I am nigh,

There the rainbow spans the sky,
Spans the tangled waterfall

Where the murmuring echoes fall ;
Regions thence I see of light,
Golden cloudlands, dazzling bright,
152

OSWALD OF DEIRA

And on wingéd zephyrs ride
In the purple eventide.

Happiness without an end,
Mother’s prayers the fool doth send—
Mother’s prayers when I was born,
All amid this great world’s scorn,
’Mid the laughter of mankind;
She who taught me to be kind,
Bade me seek the brightest side
Of all men and things—to bide
With all good—from cuffs to hide,
Patiently to take a blow,
Hopefully to live below.

Come, oh King! I’ll show thee now,

If thy heart and head thou’lt bow,

And with me wilt lowly creep

Where the willow branches weep,
Underneath the sheaves of corn,

There abide ’till dawns the morn.
Come! Ah, no! thou shaks’t thy head,
Far too wise to be thus led

By a little crooked fool

Thou who wouldst all Anglia rule.

* * *
Neither couldst thou pass a day
With a dwarf and fool at play.
Nor the perfumed breezes catch
Which our brightest wishes hatch ;
Neither canst thou see the sights
God doth show to poorest wights—
Sights bestowed on dwarfs and fools,
Not where proud ambition rules ;
Thoughts which lead us to the sky,
Wishes aye to dwell on high,
’Mid all good and holy scenes,
Where we see what this world means—
See the goal, the solemn end,
Whither human efforts tend.
CHAPTER XX.

Her Niece’s Marriage—Removal to Warwickshire
—Letter on the Immaculate Conception from
the Bishop of Birmingham.

In 1867 we moved into Warwickshire in con-
sequence of Miss Orpen’s marriage with Mar-
mion Edward Ferrers, of Baddesley Clinton.
My dearest wife published another novel called
“Country Coteries” in 1868—a name, by the by,
little less distasteful to her than that of the
“Heiress and her Lovers”; but one cannot
always have one’s own way in naming a book.

We rented Wootton Hall for that year, where
our Bishop, Dr Ullathorne, visited us for the
first time, in August, 1868. She asked him some
questions about this time touching the “Im-
maculate Conception,” either verbally while he
was with us, or in a letter—I forget which—and
he wrote as follows :

“August, 1868.

“Dear Lapy Cuatrerton—Since I re-
ceived your letter, for which I thank you, I have
been incessantly engaged, which fact I offer as
an apology for the long delay in replying to it.
Let me first thank you for the copy of Richter.
I read it in the railway-train, as well as the
translation from Plato. The Plato has the
flavour of that wise and sweet thinker, but
154 THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

Richter is more new to me, and what you have
extracted is quite charming—the thought so
keen yet delicate, and the big heart mantling
over the mental light. Itis a casket of gems, and
the rolling tumbling German words have formed
themselves into such good smooth English.

“Let me now turn to your questions on the
Blessed Virgin. I think they are reducible to
the following points :

“7° “The Immaculate Conception appears to
do away with the necessity of the atonement
in one case, therefore in all as a logical con-
sequence.’

“This, however, as you know, is only an
appearance to those who misconceive the Catho-
lic doctrine; and if the Church were to with-
hold her truths because of the world’s miscon-
ception of them, she would have very little truth
left. It is not the Catholic doctrine that ‘One
was created sinless,’ but that Her body was
generated as other bodies are, imbibing the same
disorder perhaps, for the Church touches not
that point ; but that Her soul when infused into
the body was preserved, in view of Christ's merits
to come, from being involved in any contagion of
disorder contracted through the body. Thus, as
the Saints of the Old Testament were saved
through the merits of Christ to come, so she ob-
tained a more perfect salvation through Christ.
‘For His Sake’ and ‘for His Honour,’ to use St
Augustine’s words, she was preserved from
having her soul involved in original sin. This
fact and doctrine is as a luminous point in theo-
THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION 155

logy, which throws a great light upon the whole
question of the nature of original sin, as well as
upon the whole of the doctrines related to the
mystery of our redemption.

“The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception
always flourished so vigorously in the East and
was held to be such a beautiful illumination of
many divine truths, that the Greek Schismatic
Church considered it a reproach to us of the
West, that what they had always held to be
a doctrine of faith we only now have declared to
be such, although virtually, even in the Western
Church, the point had been settled for some
three hundred years before the formal declara-
tion of it. All that has been done in this matter
of late has been to accord the formularies of the
Church with her practical teaching on the subject.

“There can be no doubt but that the defini-
tion will help materially towards conciliating the
Eastern Schism with the Western Church when-
ever the hour of God’s providence comes. To
the faithful within the Church I can witness that
in a time of difficulty the definition gave a great
consolation. Its influence upon those without
the Church can only be manifested in the course
of time, when it comes to be fairly understood
and theologically appreciated. Certainly the
Church herself has been rising, and strengthen-
ing, and expanding in a remarkable way since
the definition ; and that was anticipated. God’s
ways are not our ways, nor His judgments
our judgments, nor are the workings of super-
natural light as the workings of reason.
156 THE IMMACULATE CONCEPTION

“A simple Faith is something so large and
free, that it takes in all God’s teaching through
His Church with an equal facility, and finds in it
an endless illumination. Whereas the process of
putting reason before Faith, after its general
evidence has been mastered, instead of employ-
ing reason in religion as the logic of Faith, is
sure to lead to a desolating scepticism. Prayer,
by which we humbly subject our hearts and in-
telligence to God and to His communicated
Truth, is the true aid to Faith; and not that
reasoning process which naturally leads us to
measure God’s minds and works by our own.
Reasoning is an admirable instrument for draw-
ing out what is contained in the body of Truth
conveyed by Faith, and as such it has built up
the luminous structure of Catholic Theology.
But the body of light, contained in humble and
simple Faith, precedes.

“2° You ask : ‘How can it add to the vene-
ration of the Blessed Virgin, since her merit
would have been greater if, born in sin, she had
lived without sinning or being liable to err?’

“Tt adds to her veneration that she has been
the object of a grace and of a redemption incom-
parably greater than that of any other mortal.
For the true basis of veneration in any creature
is the force and splendour of God’s gifts in that
creature. What we venerate is not what is hu-
man, but what is of God’s divine gifts. Thus
John the Baptist, whose festival we this day
celebrate, received the exceptional gift and grace
of being sanctified in his mother’s womb before
DIVINE GRACE 157

he saw the light, and on him the Lord pro-
nounced an exceptional eulogy, that he was ‘a
burning and shining light’; and no one greater
had been born of a woman than he. The Pre-
decessor has a part of the prerogative of the
Mother of our Lord. All this hangs together,
and throws great light on the grandeur of the
Incarnation. It all goes to exalt the Son of God
and Son of Mary by His holy surroundings. It
leaves not the Incarnation as an isolated fact, but
shows that the Saviour of the world acted as
a great Monarch, giving special honours and
prerogatives to those who stood in intimate re-
lations with him. The God become man acts in
analogy with humanity. The Sovereign en-
nobles the Mother of the Sovereign with a
singular nobility of holiness and dignity.

“As to the question of her merits being
‘greater had she been born as others were, and
still kept free from sin, we must consider in
what merit consists as before God. It con-
sists in the freely conforming ourselves with,
and the equalizing ourselves to the Light, Law,
and Love of God, through our co-operation with
the gifts of His grace. The greater the grace,
and the greater our co-operation with that grace,
the fuller and more complete is the merit. Hu-
man merit, as of man towards man, is but the
the result of the one principle of human effort,
if we abstract from his grace as a Christian ; but
pure Christian merit, merit as towards God, im-
plies two principles, the principle of divine grace,
and the human effort in working with that grace,
158 THE BLESSED VIRGIN

and God is its supreme and dominant object.
If we measure the merits of the Blessed Virgin
by these principles, which are the true ones, we
shall find that her merits are higher in propor-
tion to the greatness and purity of her grace,
and the greatness of her free co-operation with
that grace. So far as original sin itself is con-
cerned, it is not in itself a subject of personal
merit or demerit, it is an inherited defect or dis-
order, that is removed in the infant through
Baptism. Certain consequences however re-
main, not in themselves sin, but which give
rise to future combats, and which, if not op-
posed and mortified, may become the occasion
of sin. To enable us to oppose this feebleness
of our nature, we receive the gifts of Faith,
Hope and Charity in our Baptism, which lie in
us in the germ until developed by the expan-
sion of our faculties and our training in the
Church, as helped by actual grace.

“But merit may be looked at in two direc-
tions, as it regards our combat with our weak-
nesses, and as it regards our co-operation with
the light and love of God; and the last is the
highest merit, that by which we ascend towards
God and live in God.

“Tf the Blessed Virgin was free from sin, she
was not free from mortality, its pains, its trials,
and its sorrows; and incomparably greater are
the patience, endurance, and fortitude required
of one who, by reason of great purity and holi-
ness, sees much more of the nature of evil, and
feels much more of the trials of this mortal
PRAYERS TO THE VIRGIN 159

life, than of one who has been born in sin, who
has lived in sin, and whose spiritual senses are
dimmed and deadened to the evils and horrors
of sin.

“Our blessed Lord suffered more and merited
more in his combats with human nature than all
men, precisely because He was sinless, most
pure and full of charity. His merits have sup-
plied the grace which is the basis of all merit
before God in other men. And this fact I ad-
duce in proof of the principle that sinlessness
increases instead of diminishing merit. The
Blessed Virgin had great sorrows, and trials,
and sufferings from observing sin in other souls,
which to her was incomparably greater affliction
to bear with by reason of her humility, purity of
heart and charity. And when we measure her
higher merits, we must ascend to the co-opera-
tion of her free will with that of God, both in the
work of the incarnation, in her love of God and
her love of man. She was not sinless through
incapability of sinning, for she might, by revolt of
her own will, have fallen as the angels fell, and as
Eve fell ; but she was sinless because she greatly
co-operated with God’s great grace, of which she
was full. It would be a sad thing if sin were
a condition of merit.

““3° You ask, ‘ Does not the moral necessity
of invoking the Blessed Virgin imply that an
appeal to God is not sufficient ?’

“On this subject you rightly state the scrip-
ture doctrine that there is only One in whom we
may be saved. All our appeals are to God alone,
160 PRAYERS TO THE SAINTS

all our salvation is through Jesus Christ, our one
and only Saviour. This is the Catholic Truth, and
sums up the whole Catholic Truth in its briefest
form. Therefore we never pray to any saints,
not even the Blessed Virgin, to help us: if such
terms are ever used, they are purely figurative.
And though we may say ‘ Help us,’ it is only in
this sense—‘ Join your prayers with ours to the
Throne of Mercy.’ Intercessory prayer in this
case is but prayer to the One great Intercessor,
or prayer through that One great Intercessor,
Jesus Christ Himself. Our Blessed Lord has
said ‘Where two or three of you are gathered
together in my name, there am I in the midst of
you ’—plainly intimating that when in humility
of heart we do not trust in the force of our own
prayers alone, but join our prayers to Him with
the prayers of others, our prayer is the stronger,
the more humble, and therefore the more effica-
cious. When God prescribed to the friends of
Job the conditions for their forgiveness, He
required that they should go to the more inno-
cent Job to offer sacrifice for them. Job's sacri-
fice was more precious in His sight than theirs,
and so He received their submission with greater
readiness when joined with the submission of Job.

“Tt is a great proof of our humility when,
not content with our prayers, we seek to join
the prayers of holy souls with our own, and it
is a mark of self-sufficiency and pride when we
imagine that we want no one’s help in obtain-
ing all we want with God. And, though I do
not remember the passage in Dr Newman to
ST PAUL 161

which you allude, I imagine that all he meant
was, that this nation had suffered in soul from
the arrogance of its individual members, in
thinking that they had need of no one’s help,
and that each was enough for himself.

“Tf St Paul is frequent in asking the faith-
ful in his epistles to pray for him, and for the
success of his ministry, he was humble enough
to feel that the ‘prayer of the just man availeth
much.’ Now whether we ask holy souls in
heaven, or holy souls on earth to pray for us,
or with us, the principle is the same; and this
is all that is involved in the prayers to the
saints, except this further, that the nearer they
are to God, the more holy and pleasing to Him,
the more their prayers for us will avail in sup-
port of our petitions. So also it is with prayers
to earthly powers, we get those who are near the
throne to support our petitions.

“This leads me to your fourth question.

4° ‘Is it imperative to implore her aid? And
will a judgment follow on those who do not
invoke her aid?’

“ Belief in the principle of invoking the saints
is an article of the Apostle’s Creed—The com-
munton of Saints. This implies the communi-
cation by mutual help, prayer, and good works
of all holy persons, whether in earth or in
heaven, in and through Jesus Christ, with
Whom they form one mystical body. Common
prayer with our fellow-servants on earth is one
part of this principle ; common prayer with our

fellow-servants in heaven is another part of it.
II
162 PRAYERS OF THE CHURCH

This principle is clearly retained in the Anglican
Church in the collect on St Michael's day.

“The only prayers of the Church that are of
obligation, and that for those who are appointed
to them, is contained in the Rituals, that is the
Missal, the Breviary, and the Rite for administer-
ing sacraments. All the rest, the ordinary ver-
nacular prayer-books, are private prayers, drawn
up by private individuals for private use, and not
stamped with any other authority than such
episcopal revision or toleration as implies that
there is nothing in them contrary to faith or
morals.

“Catholics are free to choose from those
private prayers what they are attracted to for
their private and personal devotions. In the
veritable books of the church—that is, the Litur-
gies, the prayers addressed to the Saints are
quite limited. In collects on feasts of Saints, °
we sometimes ask of God through the inter-
cession of the Saint, sometimes ask that we
may imitate this or that virtue for which that
Saint is conspicuous, but the collects are direct
prayers to God.

“The chief prayers to the Saints, indeed,
I may say, almost the only ones in the Liturgy
addressed directly to the Saints, are the Litany
of the Saints, and the Litany of the Blessed
Virgin. The Litany of the Saints is prescribed
to be said four times a year, the Litany of the
Blessed Virgin not once. But in recent times it

has been sung as a matter of choice at the Bene-
diction.
PRAYERS TO THE SAINTS 163

“Thus direct prayers to the Saints is an
exercise very much more used in private devo-
tions than in the public Liturgies of the Church.
It is therefore a devotion left equally as much to
the free choice of individuals. But the more
faithful, devout, and humble souls grow in the
Church, the more inclined they generally are, in
worshipping God, to ask the Saints, and especi-
ally the Blessed Virgin, as Queen of Saints,
to join their prayers and supplications at the
Throne of Grace with their own. I know that
this method of prayer fosters faith, humility and
love of sanctity, and that it is a great thing to
make friend’s with God’s friends, and to have
their prayers with God. The Apocalypse, which
reveals Heaven to us under certain allegories
drawn from the rites of the Church on earth, of
which Heaven is the transformation, is full of
this spirit of the Saints in Heaven, praying for
and interesting themselves in the conflicts of
God's servants on earth. And the incense from
the golden thurible which the angel offers before
the golden altar on which stands “the Lamb
that was slain,” and the odours from the phials
of the white-robed elders, are ‘The prayers of
the Saints.’

“T have explained your questions as far asa
letter will allow, and now, dear friend, pray, and
ask the Saints to pray, that you may receive
from our Blessed Lord the full gift of a pure,
perfect, and simple Faith, that ‘you may be able
to comprehend with all the Saints what is the
length, and breadth, and height, and depth
164 TIME OF TRIAL

of God’s Holy council, and the fulness of His
revelation to them that believe ; and to know al-
so His Eternal Charity passing all understand-
ing, and I pray God to bless and sanctify you.
“T remain, dear Lady Chatterton,
“Your faithful servant in Christ,
“W. B. ULLATHORNE.”

She was deeply impressed by the foregoing
letter itself, but the light between her and it was
as yet dim and broken. Seven more years
passed. Her soul seemed to expand with the
pressure of her prolonged trial, the tone of her
mind grew even more Catholic than it had been
before ; still there was no advance, or at least no
apparent advance towards the conviction. At
times, when the Bishop honoured us with a visit,
a few words from him (which were never said
except in answer to a direct question) appeared
to be effective for the time being; but the light,
without which truth is invisible, was not as yet in
her mind. I often felt sick at heart, and knew
not where to look for hope. The Bishop took it
all as a matter of course, as one who read the
whole story and foresaw the result. His invari-
able answer to me was, “ Don’t hurry her.”

During those years anxiety permeated my
happiness, but did not mingle with it. Both
were distinct then, both remained distinct in my
memory.

In March, 1869, while we were at Malvern
Wells, an event occurred which the reader
will of cause take for what he may think it worth ;
DEATH OF FATHER HEWITT 165

but which I cannot see my way to explain as
a coincidence. She had a great regard for Father
Hewitt, O.S.B., and he had always shown a very
marked sympathy for her in her difficulties. One
afternoon she said: “I am sure that dear Father
Hewitt is dead. I saw him just now when I was
upstairs, as clearly as possible, dressed in the
Benedictine habit, only it was of dazzling white-
ness. He seemed high above me in the air, and
he looked at me. I knew then that he was dead.”
It was about two o’clock in the afternoon.

The next morning’s post brought us the news
that he had died at the time when she saw him.
CHAPTER XXI.

Removal to Baddesley Clinton — Publication of
“Lady May ”—The Bishop of Birmingham’s
Letter on the Holy Eucharist.

In 1869, we moved into Baddesley Clinton. In
that year she brought out “Lady May,” a
Pastoral Poem, opening with

A homely valley in a Midland shire,

Before my grateful memory doth arise—

A scene most English in our land of homes,

A village where the church’s Norman tower

Still speaks of steadfast Faith to later times,

And seems with bold and massive strength to guard
The greater glories of a later art

Which pierced those mullioned windows down the nave
In good King Edward’s reign.

Dr Newman wrote:

“The Oratory, April 12, 1869.

“My pear Lapy CuatTrerton—I ought long
before this to have thanked you for the present
of your beautiful poem (‘Lady May.’) I think
it is the nicest thing you have written. It is
so graceful and the lines so musical.

“And there are such poetical ideas in it—
as that of the face of the Knight's effigy being
a sort of sun-dial.

“Thank you so very much for it, and with
LADY MAY 167

my kindest remembrances to Mr Dering and
your niece.

“Believe me to be most sincerely yours,
“J. H. Newman.”

He also wrote: ‘That he preferred this to
anything he had seen of hers.” The lines he
alluded to are as follows:

The sun was shining on the highest tower

While yet the ruined cloisters where in shade ;

So Nelly knew ‘twas early morning still,

Although impatience made her think it late.

For like a sun-dial to her practised eye

Were all the beauteous features of the vale;

The rippling stream, the dark o’erhanging woods,

The dome-like downs, furze-gilded, rising fair.
And as a child, she knew when it was time

In summer morns for school, because the knight

In armour lying on the altar-tomb,

Then seemed to smile with joy, as if he felt

The morning sun that slanted o’er his face,

And warmed, as Nelly thought, his hands upraised

In ceaseless prayer. At noon, he was in shade,

And then she thought he frowned; for stern and sad

The marble features grew. And when the mists

Of twilight fell, she was almost afraid

Of coming nigh, she fancied that his hands

Moved slowly ; and that murmured sentences,

And whispers strange passed through his marble lips.

>

The passages in the book which she herself
liked the best are those at pages 88 and 89, too
long to quote, where the old nurse is watch-
ing outside the dying Viscount’s room; but
the whole poem is exquisitely touching, full
of imagery, and pictorial descriptions.
168 DEATH OF BABBAGE

In 1869 we came to London again for the
season, but not to our own old house, which
we had let on a long lease five years before.
We had done so with much regret—myself es-
pecially, for I loved the old house, and all my
recollections of it were of unmixed happiness ;
but she was right, as I always found her.
London, especially during the bad climate of
its winters, had ceased to be worth the incon-
venience ; and an inconvenience it is, to have
a valuable house on your hands when you can
only inhabit it at intervals. Death and the
ceaseless progress of change, gradual and rapid
as the advance of the ocean on a receding coast-
line, made London seem half new, and more
than half altered, at the end of those six years.
Poor Babbage was dead, and the brass bands
that had inflicted so much real suffering on him,
as well as loss of most valuable time, were bray-
ing as loud as ever for the delectation of coarse-
eared idlers. I remember his telling me one
afternoon at Harrington House that he had just
paid his lawyer’s bill for struggling against that
abominable nuisance during the past six months,
and that it amounted to more than sixty pounds.

One remembrance leads on to another, and
and I must not be tempted to follow their direc-
tion, or I shall take the reader too far out of
the road; but as I have happened to mention
Harrington House, in connection with the
changes which a few years produce in the list
of friends and acquaintances, changes which, as
every one knows, are not always the result of
PUBLICATION OF TWO NOVELS 169

death only, I feelimpelled to remark that I am
writing the life of one to whom, through a long
period of years, Lady Harrington was ever true
and kind, and who always spoke of her in terms
of affectionate friendship.

She wrote two more novels, ‘“ The Lost
Bride” in 1872, of which a cheap edition was
published in the Standard Library, and “Won
at Last” in 1874. Of the latter work Dr New-
man wrote:

“The Oratory, May 26, 1874.

“My pear Lapy Cuatrerton—I thank you
very much for your kindness in sending me your
new publication, which I lost no time in reading.

My first thought upon it was the pleasure it
must have been to you to write it. I cannot tell
why, but this thought was forced upon me,
whether by the succession of incidents or by
your style. I saw you also in the knowledge
you have of old family houses, and the interest
and satisfaction you have in describing them.
There is another thing which brought you be-
fore me, and that is the earnest desire which
it seemed to me you had in writing the book,
not only of keeping clear of what is low,
vulgar, and rudely sensational yourself, but, if
so be, of writing what would suggest a higher
standard of thought and conduct, and would,
as far as one work could, act as a substitute
for at least some portion of the immoral trash
which, if reviews speak truly, is the staple of
so many of the novels of the day.
170 LETTERS FROM DR NEWMAN

“As to the story itself, what pleased me
most was the portion of it which lies in India—
which has the air of truth about it, and doubt-
less is what happened or might happen, and is
so arresting, yet without exaggeration. But
there are touches of nature and of personal
knowledge of matters of detail, all through the
work. I have to thank you too for your men-
tion of myself.

“With kindest remembrances to your do-
mestic circle,

“Tam, most truly yours,
“Joun H. Newman.”

In 1875, she printed in one volume, for
private circulation, some selections from the
works of Aristotle which she had translated
from the Greek. Dr Newman, to whom she
sent a copy, wrote as follows:

“The Oratory, February 28, 1875.
“My pear Lapy Cuatrerton—Thank you
for your translations of Aristotle. They are
well selected, clear and good, and must have
involved a good deal of trouble. But it must
have been pleasant trouble.
“T fear you must have suffered from this
trying season—which is not yet over.
“With my best remembrances to the family
circle at Baddesley.
“Tam, my dear Lady Chatterton,
“ Sincerely yours,
“Joun H. Newman.”
CHANGE IN HER RELIGIOUS FEELINGS 171

In 1876, she translated “II conforto dell’
anima divota.” This was her last work, ex-
cept what I may call a design for rewriting a
story written some years before.

In 1874-5 I could perceive a change in her
feelings towards the Church. Her mind began
to find repose in the contemplation of it. Her
sympathies were attracted. She prayed con-
tinually for guidance, and in the month of April,
1874, wrote a few lines on a scrap of paper which
I value more than anything and everything I
possess, or might possess in this world. The
lines were written in pencil one morning when
about to attend the Communion Service in a
Protestant church. They are as follows :

“Keep me steadfast if I’m right,
If I’m wrong, God give me light,
Let me feel Thy presence near,
Give me Faith to banish Fear!”

One of the first—if not the first evidence of the
change was her writing a number of letters in
the winter of 1874 to ask alms for the Convent.
She had always loved and reverenced the Poor
Clares at Baddesley Convent in themselves, but
now she loved and reverenced them also in their
representative character as nuns. She had al-
ways felt the greatest veneration for the Bishop
as a man, but now she looked up to him as a
Bishop.

I said that her mind had now begun to find
repose in what had before disturbed it. I must
add that her difficulties had been kept up, in-
172 DIFFICULTIES DISSOLVED

creased, complicated, made harder to deal with
in every respect, by certain books and pamphlets
which cropped up continually before, during and
after the Vatican Council. Had they been ex-
pressly designed for the sole purpose of keeping
her from the Church, they could not have been
more mischievous in their effects. They veiled
the unity of the Church, which she had never
doubted before : they made the seat of authority
seem like an ignis fatuus that changes its place
as you approach it: they eliminated the super-
natural, when that was all she required to see
in the Church in order to become a Catholic,
when she had a longing desire to see it, when
other circumstances were favourable to her
seeing it.

All this had now passed away and left no
trace behind. The final resolution was not
being deferred; it was ripening. Practically
the struggle was over, and if she once or twice
threw out an objection or raised a difficulty, it
was to disburden herself of something that
could no longer convince, but only disturb for
a moment.

We left Baddesley Clinton for a visit to Lon-
don about the end of April, but a very severe
influenza that she caught on the journey made
us go to Cowes instead, after having been de-
tained three weeks at a friend’s house. We
went on to Southsea, and returned home early
in June, travelling by road as we were in the
habit of doing. We stopped one night at Win-
chester, and of course went to the Cathedral.
WINCHESTER CATHEDRAL 173

It was the very place that might reasonably be
expected to bring out subtle sophistries of the
heart against the light already dawning in her
soul ; for no counter-influence, accessible to her,
could have the subtle power of her earliest re-
ligious impressions, hallowed as they were in
her memory by the strongest ties of filial affec-
tion and just reverence. But it had no such
effect. She only felt what the Cathedral had
once been, and seemed in imagination to have
crossed the chasm of three centuries. Soon
after we had reached home she placed herself
virtually under the direction of the Bishop.
Two or three difficulties, old and trivial of
course, came to the surface, as they often do
just before they are silenced for ever. Practi-
cally there was only one, and it was this: The
Faith was in her, but she had yet to be shown
that it was. I said to her: “It is not faith
you are searching for—it is sight, which we
cannot have in this world. If you had not
the Faith, you would not cling to it as you
do, and have so high an idea of it as you
have.” Incomplete as this suggestion was, and
badly expressed, it threw a fresh light on her
position, and she saw it. In July the Bishop
honoured us with a visit. She was evidently
prepared to seek and follow his direction. She
asked him many questions, and was deeply im-
pressed by all he said. After his return to Bir-
mingham he wrote the two following letters in
reply to one from her :
174 LETTER FROM DR ULLATHORNE

“ Birmingham, July 26, 1875.

“Dear Lapy CuaTterton,—I do not recol-
lect that the Anathema* you quote with relation
to Communion under both kinds, is in St Igna-
tius’s Exercises. I have examined the copious
index to that book, and find no reference to it.
I cannot understand how St Ignatius should
have anticipated the Council of Trent; but in
the Council of Trent there are two Canons.
Session XIII., Canon 3rd., is as follows: ‘If
anyone shall deny that, in the venerable Sacra-
ment, the whole Christ is contained under each
species when a part is separated, let him be
Anathema.’

“ Anathema, which Protestants are fond of
rendering by the word curse, in the language of
Councils means separation ; let him be separated
from the Communion of the faithful. It is the
mark of heresy.

“The heresy here condemned is as grave as
the heresies on the Incarnation, which agitated
the world, and were condemned in the great
Councils of the fourth and fifth centuries. It
was a logical result, probably not at first fore-
seen to result from the affirmation of the so-
called Reformers, that Communion under both
kinds was necessary for all persons. That heresy
affected the very nature of the body of Christ.
It implied that the body and blood of Christ still
exist separate, as when He was Crucified, and to
the time of His Resurrection. This would give

* This refers to a statement in some Protestant book that had
been lent to her. I forget what the book was.
COMMUNION UNDER BOTH KINDS © 175

us, not a living Christ, but a dead Christ. But
St Paul says: ‘ Christ having died, dieth now no
more ; death no more hath dominion over Him.’
At His Resurrection, Christ resumed the blood
He had shed, and rose from the dead whole and
entire ; hence the famous sentence of St John of
Damascus, the great Eastern Theologian of the
twelfth century, ‘What Christ once took, He
never let go. He resumed His blood, from
which His divinity was never separated, and
arose in the complete body including His blood.
From the moment of His Resurrection the blood
of Christ is inseparable from His body, and His
body from His blood. Christ is not subject to
division, for that would be a new death. There-
fore, whoever receives His body receives His
blood ; and whoever receives His blood receives
His body. The Reformers, having once com-
mitted themselves to the necessity of Commu-
nion under both kinds, were pushed with this
difficulty in the language of St Paul, ‘Is Christ
divided?’ And the condemnation of a divided
Christ, therefore a dead Christ, because the sepa-
ration of the body and blood is death, is contained
in the Canon of doctrine I have quoted.
“Moreover, the Canon quoted teaches that
under each part of each kind when separated,
the whole Christ is contained, and that for the
same essential reason that Christ is indivisible.
This is shown in the words of Christ instituting
the sacrifice and sacrament. He took bread and
blessed, and broke, and said : ‘ Eat ye all of this,
for this is my body, which shall be broken for
176 CHRIST INDIVISIBLE

you.’ And in like manner He blessed the cup,
and gave it to be divided among them ; yet after
blessing and consecrating, He told them to take
the cup divided among them. Yet each received
the whole Christ.

“Why the Apostles received under both
kinds of necessity, I will explain later on.

“Tt is obvious from the indivisibility of the
living Christ, that whoever receives under one
kind, receives both the body and blood of Christ,
and so fulfils the injunction of our Lord in the
passages to which you refer. ‘Unless you eat
my flesh and drink my blood, you shall not have
life in you.’ Christ does not say, ‘Unless you
eat the bread and drink of the cup,’ but ‘ unless
you eat my flesh and drink my blood,’ which is
done under each separate kind. But the Scrip-
ture has not left us without intimation that we
may communicate in the whole Christ under
either kind ; for in the 11th Chapter of the First
Epistle to the Corinthians, verse 27th, St Paul
says : ‘Whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink
of the Cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be
guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.’
Here the Apostle tells us that either to partake in
one or the other kind is to be guilty of the body
and blood, if taken unworthily. I know that
the Protestant version puts and for or, this has
been its standing reproach. The alteration of
text was plainly introduced to get clear of the
Catholic doctrine. But Tischendorff found that
the Sinaitic Code corresponded with the Va-
tican Code, in having or, and these are the
NATURE OF SUBSTANCE 177

two oldest copies in the world; the Sinaitic is
supposed to date from the Emperor Justinian.
See the note in the Tauchnitz edition, by Tischen-
dorff, of the Anglican New Testament.

“We cannot penetrate to the ature of sub-
stance by any sense, or by any faculty of our
mind, we know that it zs, and that it sustains and
underlies the accidents or phenomena that we do
perceive, but what it is, God has withheld from
our knowledge in this life. The great philo-
sophers and divines of the Church define sub-
stance to be a hidden force; St Thomas of
Aquin so defined it. After the Reformation,
and until recent times, the gross sensuality of so-
called philosophers laughed at the notion; but
since the discoveries in modern sciences of the
imponderables, such as light and electricity, men
have been compelled to go back to the old defini-
tion, and to declare that substance is force, and
that even the noblest material force is the least
in weight, resistance or grossness. And you
know how much is written in these days about
transmutation of forces, which is a kind of tran-
substantiation, forces such as heat and electricity
passing from one group of phenomena to an-
other. Again, the transubstantiation of vegetable
into animal life, and of meat and drink into the
body and blood of man, goes on incessantly, and
is the sustainment of human life. Still the gross-
ness of Protestant theology goes on perpetually
denying the possibility of transubstantiation,
denying to Christ the power they constantly

exert in an inexplicable way themselves of
12
178 TRANSUBSTANTIATION

changing meat and drink into their body and
blood. In like manner, all men are the multipli-
cation of the one body of Adam, and that by the
forces derived from the power of transubstantia-
ting meat and drink into their body and blood.
This power is at the root of all human strength
and multiplication. So does Christ, the new
Adan, by force of transubstantiation in a mystical
manner, multiply His presence, the one fertile
olive grafted on each stock of the wild olive, to
use the illustration of St Paul. But it is all
mystery, whilst yet it is a fact. This, however,
should be kept in view, that the body of Christ
is no longer either a mortal or a dead body, but
a living body and indivisible, having altogether
different qualities from our mortal bodies. It is
a body risen from the dead, glorious, immortal,
Spiritualized, instinct with spiritual life, the
vehicle of the divine nature, full of grace and
benediction, of the utmost purity, the ductile and
responsive instrument of the spirit, hypostatically
united with the Godhead of the Eternal Word.
“St Paul says, 1 Corinth., chap. xv., ‘All flesh
is not the same flesh, and there are bodies
celestial and bodies terrestial: but one is the
glory of the celestial, and another of the terres-
tial. One is the glory of the sun, another of the
moon, and another the glory of the stars. For
star differeth from star in glory. So also in the
resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corrup-
tion, it shall rise in incorruption. It is sown in
dishonour, it shall rise in glory. It is sown a
natural body, zt shall rise a spiritual body.’ Then
CHRIST’S RISEN BODY 179

the apostle applies this to Christ: ‘The first
Adam was made into a living soul, the last Adam
into a quickening spirit. The first man was of
the earth, earthly ; the second man from heaven,
heavenly.’ Both His body and blood are spiri-
_ tualized and glorified, and are instinct with His
divine Spirit. We must not, then, take a carnal
view of Christ’s body and blood, but consider
them as they are, as living, life-giving, and in-
separably one. To deny this is a great, a very
great heresy.

“But to say that Christ’s body is now sepa-
rable from His blood, and that we do not receive
the whole Christ under one kind, is to fall into
this heresy. And to receive under one kind is
to affirm the doctrine of Christ’s living unity, and
to protest against that heresy. This is the
reason why the Council of Trent, after affirming
the doctrine in the Canon I have quoted, gives
the second Canon, which is in the Twenty-first
Session, Canon 2.

“On Communion under both kinds, the Canon
runs thus: ‘If anyone shall deny that the Holy
Catholic Church was not led by just causes and
reasons to communicate the laity, and even the
clergy when not celebrating (the Sacrifice) under
only one kind, or that she has erred therein, let
him be anathema.’ And in again the Third
Canon: ‘If anyone shall deny that the whole
and entire Christ, the Author and Fountain of all
graces, is not taken under the one species of
bread, let him be anathema.’

‘“The reason why in the Mass the priest must
180 SACRIFICE AND COMMUNION

celebrate under both kinds is obvious. After
blessing and breaking the bread and giving the
cup to the apostles, declaring that by this con-
secration the bread and wine were His body
and blood, Christ said to them: ‘Do this, and
as often as you do it, you show (that is, you
exhibit) my death until I come.’ He enjoined
on His ministering priests that they should
exhibit His death by doing what He had
done. But His death is His sacrifice, and
death was owing to the separation of His
body and blood. As St Paul says, there is
no remission, no sacrifice, without shedding of
blood. And this shedding or separating of
Christ’s body and blood, though it cannot again
actually take place, is shown or exhibited in
remembrance of the real blood-shedding, by the
separate consecrating and separate taking by the
priest of the same body and blood, under the
separate forms of bread and wine.

“The body is there by virtue of the consecra-
tion, but the blood is inseparable from it. The
priest consecrates under both forms to exhibit
the separation in the sacrifice of the Cross, and
must, therefore, consume under both kinds. But
the Sacrifice is one thing, and the Communion is
another. In the old law the body and blood
were separated by the priest to represent pro-
phetically the sacrifice of Christ, but whilst both
the priest and the laity partook of the body of the
victim, they did not take the blood in any form:
that was strictly forbidden them.

“Let me now give you a brief history of
MASS OF THE PRESANCTIFIED 181

Communion in the Catholic Church, and so I
finish the subject. First let me draw your atten-
tion to a celebrated remark made in the Council
of Basle, that in Chapter vi. of St John Our
Lord speaks of this sacrament eleven times
under the form of bread, and only four times
under the name of flesh and blood, as if under
the species of bread were the entire sacrament.
And in the Acts of the Apostles, chap. i, the
believers are described as ‘persevering in the
doctrine of the Apostles and the Communion of
breaking of bread and of prayer.’ Those who
lay so much stress on the mention of the two
forms together, should not forget how often
the form of bread is alone mentioned for the
whole sacrament, especially when they find the
Church in possession of both methods of com-
municating.

“The history of communicating is extremely
interesting, but I must be brief. Zhe Mass of the
Presanctified is one of the most striking proofs
of the perpetual doctrine on Communion under
one kind. In the Latin Rite it is to be found in
the oldest Rituals, traced to St Peter. On Good
Friday no Mass is celebrated, but two Hosts are
consecrated the day before, and one is reserved
until next morning, when the priest receives
it alone with no consecration of wine. It is still
more practised in the Eastern Church, and from
the old Rituals, traceable to St James and to
other Apostles. On Sundays, Saturdays, and
the Feast of the Annunciation they celebrate
Mass as at other times, consecrating under both
182 COMMUNION WHEN IN DANGER

kinds, but on the other days of Lent they have
the Mass of the Presancitified, in which the priest
or bishop only communicates under the form of
bread, reserved from the previous Mass. There
is a decree to this affect in the Council of Trullo,
which took place in 692.

“During the early days of persecution the
faithful received, besides their Communion, other
particles in form of bread on their hands, and the
women on a linen cloth spread upon the hand,
which they took home in little boxes, some of
which still exist, and from which they communi-
cated themselves when in danger, or when the
priests were in hiding, that they might have
Spiritual strength to meet their persecutors. The
same practice was observed by the hermits of
the deserts. It is mentioned by Tertullian L. ad
Uxorem, c. 5; by St Cyprian, Serm. de Lapis ;
by Saint Ambrose, Orat. de obitu Fratris sui;
by St Augustine, Serm. 222, and by others. St
Augustine says expressly that the women re-
ceived the Eucharist on a clean linen cloth on
their hands, which cannot be understood of wine,
and none of these authorities speak of wine.
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, Cateches 5, and Saint
Gregory Nazienzen, Orat. contra Arianos, say
that the species of bread was given into the
hands of the laity by the priest or deacon, but
not the species of wine, for it was by no means
lawful for them to touch the cup.

“Eusebius tells us, in the days of Constan-
tine, that when Serapion was dying the priest
sent a youth with a small particle of the Euchar-
COMMUNION OF CHILDREN 183

ist, and told him to moisten it in water, and so
get it into the old man’s mouth, who, the moment
he had absorbed it, expired. And Paulinus, the
Deacon of Saint Ambrose, says that Honoratus
of Vercelli gave to Saint Ambrose, when dying,
‘the body of the Lord, which being swallowed
he expired, carrying his Viaticum with him.’ Yet
as a general fact in the early ages, and up to the
12th century, it was very frequent to receive at
the altar under both kinds. Yet when that was
inconvenient, there was no difficulty in com-
municating under one kind. Evagrius and Nice-
phorus, those two early historians of the Church,
tell us that on the Wednesdays and Fridays the
crumbs that remained after Communion were
administered to Christian schoolboys, which was
a real Communion. And there were other in-
stances when children were communicated solely
with drops from the chalice, without anything of
the form of bread. But when the Manicheans
arose, and maintained that wine was of the evil
principle, Saint Leo the Great tells us that all
the faithful were ordered to communicate under
both kinds, in order to repel these frightful here-
tics, who would come to the Catholic churches
and receive only under the form of bread. This
shows that even in the 4th and sth century this
mode of communicating under one kind was
common. And Saint Jerome says in his 22nd
Letter to Eustochius that there were certain
virgins at Rome so abstemious, and abhorrent
of wine that even in communicating they
would not receive under the form of wine, from
184 MANICHEANS

which they got the nicknames of muserables and
Manicheans. So Venerable Bede, in his His-
tory of the Anglo-Saxons, L. 1, C. 5, tells us of
some Pagan princes, who went to the Bishop
and said: ‘Why will you not give us of the fie
bread that you give our father and the people in
the Church?’ And he told them they must first
give up their idolatry and become Christians.
But let these examples suffice to show that the
Church has always communicated her children
under one kind or under both, according to cir-
cumstances and requirements.

“Why then, after the beginning of the 12th
century, did the Church establish a uniform di-
scipline of communicating under one kind? First
because, with the increase of the faithful, the
danger grew more and more of frequent sacri-
leges in spilling the wine. The rule was in-
spired by the necessity of reverence for the
Divine Mysteries. Secondly, in preserving the
Communion, there is always danger of the
species of wine corrupting. Thirdly, to keep
uniformity of rule in the sacrament of unity.
Some there are to whom wine in any form is
repulsive ; many there are who would nauseate
the communicating from one cup with those who
have dirty and fetid mouths. Fourthly, to affirm
sound doctrine against those who condemn as
sacrilegious the partaking under one kind, and
against those who affirm that Christ is not
wholly received under one kind, but is divided
under the two forms.

“These reasons are assigned for the Church’s
UNIFORMITY OF DISCIPLINE 185

discipline in the Catechism of the Council of
Trent. And so cogent are they found in prac-
tice that, although the Moravians and Bohe-
mians obtained leave for Communion under
both kinds from the Council of Basle, experi-
ence taught them its great inconvenience from
the sacrileges and irreverences that arose from
it, and they gradually returned to the common
usage of the Church.

“T have thus briefly and rapidly treated the
subject, as time would let me, and whilst agree-
ing with the Sarum Missal that Communion
under both kinds was practised up to the 12th
century, I have likewise shown that Communion
under one kind was practised from the begin-
ning, that the language of Scripture leaves an
opening for both, and that withholding the cup
does not deprive us of the blood of our Saviour.

“Praying our Lord to bless you and give you
the inestimable light of faith,

“T remain, dear Lady Chatterton,
“Your faithful friend and servant,
“W. B. ULLATHORNE.”

“Birmingham, July 26, 1875.

“Dear Lapy CHaTTERTON,—Since writing to
you my long letter this morning, a point has oc-
curred to me which ought to have entered into
it. It is this: that the Catholic doctrine of the
indivisibility of Christ’s body and blood naturally
points in the direction of Communion under one
kind, whilst the Protestant doctrine of there
being no reality of Christ’s body and blood, but
186 THE REAL PRESENCE

only symbols of it, naturally necessitates Com-
munion under both kinds, for, not having the
reality, and not believing it, there is no other
way left of having Christ’s body but in the out-
ward and visible sign, and so both the visible
symbols must be required in every case. But
where the real presence is, there the undivided
Christ is actually under each separate symbol.
This will only be intelligible after reading the
longer letter.
“God bless you.
“W. B. ULLATHORNE.”

Almost as soon as she had read these letters
—it may have been a day or two after—she wrote
again, reproaching herself, as she had often done
in conversation with him, for not feeling within
herself her own ideal of Faith. He answered as
follows.
CHAPTER XXII.
The Bishop of Birmingham’s Letters on Faith.

“ Birmingham, July 30, 1875.
“My pear Lapy Cuatrerton,—In your kind
and confiding letter of to-day you have given
me proof that you quite understand the nature
of your difficulty, and have penetrated to its
cause. This is a time of God’s visitation to
you, and the visitation is making you thorough-
ly uncomfortable, mortifying your intellect, and
making you discontented with your state of soul.
And why is this, but that our good God desires
you for His loving and obedient child. ‘ Faith-
ful are the wounds of a friend.’ And our God is
our One great friend. It is the flatteries of the
enemy that are deceitful. Your heart is simple
and affectionate as that of a child, and you have
a certain quickness of perception on the surface
of your mind, which, through incessant play on
the countless images and notions presented in
art and literature, has not permitted you to pene-
trate with the firm hold of your heart into the
deeper truths that underlie whatever is presented
to the mind. Yet this incessant passing of light
and shadows, however broken, over the surface
of your mind, has not destroyed that simple,
which means integral, affection of heart, that,
making you winsome to your relatives and
188 DR NEWMAN

friends, has led to your having been from
earliest years a beloved child, ‘spoilt’ by affec-
tion, and by multifarious literature that breaks up
the unity and solidity of the mind, whenever
there is not a deep under-lying faith from which
everything comes to be set at its true value.

“T know Dr Newman’s vigorous way. De-
pend upon it, my dear friend, it was from no
want of sympathy, but from strong sympathy
restrained, that he wrote. He wished to give
you an electric shock, to startle you out of
security, and to urge the exercises of faith as
the means of entering into faith. Surgical
operations are painful even though they come
from a loving hand. Prayer, and prayer with
the heart open, and as near to God as it can
come, is the way to win the grace and gift of
faith. Faith is a divine light and a divine force,
which God alene can give; a light to see its
principle, a force to lift up the heart, and cause
it to cleave with unwavering adhesion to that
principle. And what is that principle? It is the
authority of God, the one true voucher of super-
natural truth.

““« Faith,’ says St Paul, ‘is"the certain proof of
things unseen, unseen by our senses, unseen by
our reason. The certain proof of those things is
the word of God, who does see them, and the
Testimony of the Church in which He has de-
posited that word, promising to keep her in His
truth to the end of time. ‘ Faith comes by hear-
ing,’ said the Apostle again, ‘not, therefore, by
sight. Faith comes first, and after Faith comes
FAITH 189

understanding. Unless ye believe,’ says the
Scripture, ‘ye shall not understand.’ So it is in
nature, so it is in the supernatural still more. As
simple docile children, we first believe our
parents ; through that belief our reason is de-
veloped, and so we begin to understand. We
believe our teachers, resting first on their autho-
rity, then by degrees we see ourselves and
understand what in their teaching is true. We
believe historians, or the past would be a blank.
We believe voyagers and travellers, or we should
know but little of this world. We believe the
observations of men of science, or we should be
contracted to our own narrow experience. We
believe what truthful persons say of themselves
and of others, in conversation, and in biography,
and in correspondence, or our knowledge of
human nature would be marvellously limited.
The vast body of our human knowledge rests on
human Faith, and upon that knowledge, once ob-
tained, our understanding is exercised. But, to
quote Southey’s beautiful poem in its consum-
mating point, ‘The talisman is Faith.’ No Faith,
no reception of knowledge. Heaven is a distant
country, distant not by space, but by the gross
intervention of the body. And the communica-
tions of God with man are only perceptible to
Faith. ‘The talisman is Faith.’

“We cannot rise above ourselves to reach
the truth that is greater than we are. It must
descend to us, and God must prepare us for it.
This is grace. The first effect of a truth greater
than ourselves, greater than our natural reason,
190 OUR LORD’S DIVINITY

is to shock us, and to cause a recoil. When our
Lord declared His Divinity, it was such a shock
to His hearers that they took up stones to stone
Him. The Apostles were inwardly prepared,
and so received it, and Peter first confessed it.
But when our Lord said: ‘Unless you eat My
flesh and drink My blood, you shall not have life
in you, many went back and said: ‘This a hard
saying, who can receive it?’ And as of the
multitude only the twelve remained, our Lord
said to them: ‘ Will you also go away’? Peter
answered for the twelve : ‘ Lord, to whom shall
we go? Thou hast the words of Eternal Life,
and we have known and believed that Thou art
the Son of God.’ They did not understand more
than the rest, but they had the gift of Faith, and
they had the reward of understanding His
Divinity from the resurrection, and of under-
standing about His body and blood in its practical
reception at the Last Supper.

“Why does the first hearing of a great super-
natural Truth give us a shock? It is a blow, not
at our reason, but at our experience. For there
is nothing so reasonable as to think that we must
expect very extraordinary things in the mind of
God, and in His ways with us, beyond all our
natural experience. ‘ My thoughts are not your
thoughts, nor My ways your ways ; but as far as
the Heavens are exalted above the Earth, so far
are My thoughts above your thoughts, and My
ways above your ways.’

“The human mind is no measure for the
Divine mind; nor is human reason the test or
FAITH IN DIVINE TRUTH 1g1

measure of the Divine Reason. We have no
measure or standard in us by which to criticize
and judge the all-wise mind, or the all-mighty
operations of God. His Divine Reason is in-
finitely above the modicum of reason that He
has vouchsafed to us ; it does not contradict our
human reason, but it transcends all our human
experience. The shock His great truths give to
them who have not Faith is because Faith has
not yet, by the Divine gift, enlarged and laid
open the soul to receive it. It knocks outside
the soul that is as yet too narrow to receive it.
But when Faith opens the soul in simplicity and
humility to receive the revelation, then, once
entered within, it enlarges, and tranquilizes and
frees the soul. ‘If,’ says our Lord, ‘the truth set
you free, then are you truly free.’ But God first
requires, even as all true teachers require, that
we be open-hearted, open-minded, subjective and
docile to its teaching, all which is summed up in
the word Humility, and humility is rewarded
with the Truth. To understand is to stand
under. When our soul is subject to God, God
enters into the soul with His light and love.
“How can God enter into a soul that is self-
sufficient ? that has already set up itself as the
measure and standard of truth? that assumes
superiority in taking the tone of criticism? that
measures God by self? and His truth and
operation by our poor experience? Those who
would measure the supernatural things of
Heaven by the scale of the natural things of
this earth, or the Divinity by humanity, make
192 RECEPTION OF TRUTH

the least the greatest, the human the Divine,
and reverse the Eternal order of things, setting
the pyramid of Truth upon its cone, on which it
cannot possibly stand.

“We are not the measure of Divine truth, but
it is the measurer of us.

“Truth descends from above. God is Truth,
and as all Truth descends from Him, it is in its
nature one and indivisible. Man cannot invent
it, but God gives it, and gives the conditions on
which it is received ; and these are confidence in
Him—faith and love. We are His children, and
faith and love are the attributes of children.
How could our parents train us without faith and
love? How can God train us for Himself with-
out faith and love? The test of a good child is
obedience and docility, not merely to father and
mother, but to those whom father and mother
put over us invested with their authority. This
is the great test, to obey in those we see, Him
we see not. The Church is God’s nursery and
school, in which He tests and trains His children.
Always has God so acted. God sent the offend-
ing friends of Job to Job himself, to plead for
them, ere He forgave them. He required the
children of the Patriarchs to believe His revela-
tions to their fathers; and all Israel to believe
and obey Moses; and the Jews to hear and obey
the Prophets ; and Saul to obey Samuel; and
when St Paul was cast down, and his heart
changed by Christ, he was sent to Ananias of
Damascus to learn from the Church what to do.
So Cornelius, after the Divine vision, was sent
UNITY OF FAITH IN THE CHURCH 193

to Peter. Always and everywhere, after the
inward conversion, God sends man to the Church
for incorporation in the Church, which is the
body of Christ, animated by His Holy Spirit.
And what more astounding proof can we have
of the Church than in its succession and exis-
tence through the ages as Christ promised ; than
the way it has held the nations through so many
ages ; for example, it was the religion of all
Englishmen for a thousand years. Then the
way in which all sects, generated by human
pride, error and sensuality, have fallen off, as
predicted, bearing as Bossuet observes, ‘each
the reminiscence of its former union, each the
bleeding wound of its separation, each its in-
ternal divisions that mark it off from that mar-
vellous union in one faith and one truth which
ever distinguishes the one Church. Then,
again, that wonderful way in which the Church
holds all revealed truths in their positive form
which can be spoken of as _ revealed, while the
sects shape themselves by negatives in denying
one this—another that; whilst the Church,
through all its vast numbers, holds the whole
body of revelation.

“Tt made a tremendous impression on the
great mind of Edmund Burke, when Bishop
Gibson pointed out to him that, ‘if all the sects
separated from the Catholic Church were as-
sembled in jury to judge any one single
Catholic, on each poimt there would be a
majority to approve his Faith. For where
any Protestant sect raised a point, the majo-

13
194 AMAZING TRUTH

rity derived from the Eastern sects and from
other Protestant sects would be on the Catho-
lic side; and where there is an error in an
Eastern sect, the other Eastern and the higher
Protestant sects would be on the Catholic side.’

“*« But,’ said Burke to the Bishop, ‘there is
one thing you forget—the Pope.’

““Not at all,’ replied the Bishop. ‘The
Easterns still recognize him as the Head Bishop
of the Church, and the President of her Councils,
and the final voice; only they say he is in error
on some one point that they maintain, be it the
procession of the Holy Ghost from the Son as
well as the Father, or be it the two natures in
Christ, or be it the two wills in Christ, and on
each of these points the other sects of the East,
and the great Protestant communities of the
West are with the Pope. And you must re-
member that whilst the adversaries of the
Church, all taken together, give a majority on
each point of doctrine to the Catholic, that
one Catholic is one of a body which alone
constitutes the majority of Christians, which
has possession from the beginning, and undis-
puted succession, and that all others who claim
succession profess to have brought it from the
Catholic Church.’

“Burke sank his head between his hands,
and remained astounded. After a time, he lifted
up his face full of awe, and exclaimed :

“An amazing truth! an astounding argu-
ment! I will go and tell it to Fox, and I hope
to see you again.’
THE WAY TO FAITH 195

““ But soon after,’ concludes Bishop Gibson,
‘he died.’

“ My dear friend, the way to Faith is through
prayer. Get as near to God as youcan. Love
Him as muchas you can. Ask Him with Peter:
‘O Lord! give me faith.’ Or, with the man of
the Gospel, ‘I believe, O Lord, help my un-
belief’ The affair is between God and your
soul. Doubtless you have rightly divined that
endless reading on endless subjects by count-
less writers, many of them trivial, or tainted with
unbelief, and unworthy to instruct your soul,
has, by breaking the integral soul into endless
multiplicity of thoughts and sentiments, made
the soul as shifting as sand, without true con-
sistency for the anchor of faith to hold by. But
there is a remedy, and that is to get your soul
as near as possible to God, to pray very earnestly,
to remember that God has made us for Himself,
that nothing but God is really worthy of you,
that many things, amusing and not consolidating
the mind, are not worthy of you. And God will
clear your soul with His light, strengthen it with
His grace, open it for His truth, and to His
single-hearted child will give that ‘Faith which
surpasses all understanding.’

“Believe me always to be with very sincere
respect,

“ Dear Lady Chatterton,
“Your faithful servant in Christ,
“W. B. ULLATHORNE.”

She wrote to him again in a very few days, as
may be seen by the date of his answer.
196 COMPENDIOUS WAY TO GOD

“ Birmingham, August 7, 1875.

“My pear Lapy Cuatrerton—I have been
incessantly engaged in business since I received
your last confidential letter until now.

“ All you say of yourself I believe to be quite
true, as it is also very humble and sincere. I do
not think that you have formal doubts of the
facts of a divine revelation, but only troubling
suggestions that belong more truly to the imagi-
nation than to the soul, that in fact are outside
rather than inside of your soul. In the depth of
your soul I believe there is a conviction that our
good God has not left us without His certain
truth and certain guidance as to what we are to
do to be saved.

“Our very weakness and helplessness _ pro-
claim to us that we need a divine guidance. And
the declaration of Plato, that we know not what
we require and therefore what to ask for our-
selves until a divine one come to teach us, is the
cry of our poor nature, of which Plato was the
mouth-piece. The divine one came and estab-
lished His one Church, to deliver His one truth,
and to minister the ordinances of salvation.
From our own weakness we fly to Him, and to
Him, living in His Church, we go for the supply
of our soul’s needs, which He alone understands,
and He alone can supply. To settle every point
and difficulty for ourselves is more than in our
weakness and defect of light we can do. But in
believing the Church we believe whatever Christ
has taught and ordained. This, as St Augustine
says, is the compendious way to God. The
THE PROTESTANT PRINCIPLE 1Q7

Church, One Holy Catholic, Apostolic, is the
one article that includes all the rest. How
simple God makes everything for the simple
child-like heart. Resting upon the Church, we
have ‘peace in believing.’

“As to which is the true Church, I do not think
you can have much difficulty, because you do not
fail to see that the Catholic Church alone is one
in unity of Faith and government; holy in its
Saints and in the multitude who follow the laws
of mortifying the flesh to free the spirit, and
follow the eight beatitudes as well as obey the
commandments, who, in short, follow the laws
of sanctity ; Catholic in its universality of time,
place and doctrine, embracing all that which is
elsewhere divided; Apostolic, holding the Apo-
stolic succession unquestioned, and having still
all the Apostolic qualities in its principal See.

“In vain do we look for the fulness of these
marks elsewhere, especially in their complexity
and complete combination. You must accept of
that authority where it is truly claimed, and as-
serted and exercised, not where it is not merely
not claimed and exercised, but is actually denied,
rejected and protested against.

“The Protestant principle is rather a negation
than a principle, and God can found nothing on
anegation. It is a reduction of the Catholicity
of the Church to individuals, and of its teaching
to opinion, of which there are so many heads, so
many creeds, which are not creeds, because they
rest on individual minds, and not on a great ex-
ternal teaching authority come down from Christ.
198 NEED OF FAITH

Its result is neither unity nor certainty, but doubt
and confusion, a Babel of tongues each giving a
different sound. You have been the victim of this
many-opinioned, many-tongued protest against
the Church, of which human pride is the ex-
planation, not as applied to you, but to the
authors of this miserable revolt. You have
that, my dear friend, within you, that tells you
so, and you know that only God can form a
Church and a creed on which souls can rest in
safety. Whatever memory or imagination may
say, there is something deeper in you, a grace
from God which makes you unhappy in your
position, and that prompts you on to pray for
Faith. Pray on—pray on; and God will hear
your prayer, and after purging your soul with
fear will give you rest in faith. Faith you need,
faith you seek, faith you want, faith in the true
Church of Christ, whose grace and doctrines
lead to Christ. This is the deepest cry of your
heart, and in reply to your cry God will give it,
provided you put off and away the temptations
that rise from the storehouse of countless memo-
ries which being opposed to God’s Church fight
against your belief in God’s Church.

“The ingenuousness with which you have
laid open your heart to me, fills me with a
respect and a sympathy in your sufferings con-
stantly increasing. I am sure Almighty God
has His holy designs over you, and that He
will help you on to Faith, trust and peace.
Your conscience is all looking one way, what-
ever be pulling in the shape of temptation in
POWER OF PRAYER 199

the opposite; and, no doubt, Dr Newman felt
that, and wished you to follow, even at some
cost of a struggle, the deeper and more divine
intimations that reach your soul. This is my
construction of his advice. Still pray as you
pray, and before all other things pray from your
whole heart with concentrated desire for faith,
and God will not let you die without it.
“ Believe me, my dear Lady Chatterton,
“ With sincerest respect,
“ Always your faithful servant in Christ,
“W. B. ULLATHORNE.”

A few days later, she wrote to him again,
but this time on a different subject, and with
a different purpose. The difficulty (if it may be
called so in any sense) was quite external, one of
those educational parasites that hang on to the
surface of a convert’s mind, more or less, until
the final resolution has been taken. Notwith-
standing his very numerous occupations and
engagements, he answered her at once.

I subjoin his letter.
CHAPTER XXII.

The Bishop of Birmingham’s Letter on Celibacy
and the Education of the Clergy.

“ Birmingham, August 16, 1875.

“My pear Lapy Cuattrerton,—The ques-
tion of sacerdotal celibacy and of the con-
secrated virginal life rests on very profound
principles. And flesh and blood cannot dis-
cern the things of God, because, as the
Apostle says, they are spiritually examined.
The virtues are in their nature reflections and
responses to the attributes of God. And some
virtues which imitate in their degree, that is,
according to human capacity, the higher attri-
butes of God, are too great to be demanded
of the common run of fallen humanity. Yet
these virtues are the highest witnesses on earth
to the powers of grace, and to the attributes of
God in Heaven. These are not virtues com-
manded to all men, but virtues counselled and
commanded to those who have the special call
to them, which implies the special grace for
them. One of these classes of high virtues of
counsel is the eight Beatitudes which open the
sermon on the Mount. They are not com-
mands, but counsels, with promise of especial
blessings and joys as their reward. Another,
that of the virginal life devoted unto God, is
ORIGINAL JUSTICE 201

contained in the 7th Chapter of St Paul's ist
of Corinthians, enforcing our Lord’s words re-
specting those who keep themselves eunuchs
for the kingdom of God. But St Paul ex-
pressly says that he has xo command, but gives
counsel. Read from the 25th verse of that chap-
ter carefully.

“One of the supreme attributes of God is
His Divine Purity, having infinite society with-
in Himself in the Three Persons. He is in-
finitely pure, and His purity is His Sanctity.
Sanctity is purity.

“Man was created pure, and by gift of grace
was at the same time constituted in justice,
which implies a perfect order and subordina-
tion of the material body to the spiritual soul,
the soul being perfectly subject to God in grace.
This was original justice : it implied a complete
purity or sanctity. There was no rebellion of
the body against the spirit, as there was no re-
bellion of the spirit against God. The light of
God was man’s law, and freely he obeyed his
light with the help of supernatural grace.

When, using his freedom, which alone en-
nobled his virtue and made it such, he rebelled
against his light, that is against the God who
enlightened him, his body also was let loose
from the control of his spirit, and broke into
rebellion of that kind which we call concupi-
scence, and that fuel of sin which, in place of a
passionless and unlustful mode of increasing the
human family, generated a sensual passion that
disorders the soul, perturbs the whole man,
202 THE PRIMITIVE STATE

blinds the intellect, and leads to countless evils,
but above all disturbs and violates the tranquil
purity, holiness, and contemplative power of the
soul through its excesses. This is one of the
terrible consequences of the fall : with the loss of
immortality came the reign of concupiscence,
which carried man so far from God, and gave a
rank growth to so many vices.

“Yet in the traditions of mankind there ever
lingered a tradition of the primitive state, and
of the golden age. And an impress everywhere
remained that virginal purity is expressly and
singularly pleasing to God. You find it among
the earliest creeds of the human race, among
the Hindoos, the Buddhists, the Persians, the
Greeks, the Romans, and among the Scandina-
vians, recalling their Eastern origin, that he who
sacrifices to God must be pure. The sacrifice of
a virgin was to save the hosts of Greece before
Troy. The Vestal Virgins alone were worthy to
keep alive the perpetual fire ; and this came from
the Etruscans. The theory of all the East, the
cradle of the human race and seat of divine reve-
lations, was that at least, when he sacrificed, man
must be pure. The pure alone must approach
the All-pure. In the Old Law, the priests, dur-
ing their week in the Temple to offer the sacri-
fice, lived apart in the Temple from their families ;
and, as the Talmud delivers down the tradition,
the women before the tabernacle, and serving in
the Temple, were young virgins, whoafter a period
returned to the world. David and his followers
were not allowed to touch the bread of the Taber-
LAW OF CONTINENCE 203

nacle, even in their hunger and need, until they
gave assurance to the High Priest that they had
been continent for some days. There was a law
of continence for the chosen and prophetic nation
taken as a whole, that they should be continent
from all those of the nations around ; and when
Solomon and other kings violated this law, they
fell from God, and their reigns were troubled,
calamitous, and scandalous. But all these laws
and traditions foreshadowed the holier dispensa~-
tion. Christ on His human side was a pure vir-
gin, born of a pure virgin of the Holy Ghost, that
all might be perfectly pure in Him without touch
of the disorder of concupiscence. This was the
perfect reflection in His human of His Divine
nature; fit therefore to be a perfect High Priest,
and a perfect victim: as His figure in the Old
Law was the pure and immaculate Lamb. From
Him all priesthood springs, and of all Priesthood
He is the type and example. In the Old Law,
the shadow of better things, bringing nothing to
perfection, that purity was imperfectly exercised
and expressed : yet there was a law of purity for
the priesthood. In the New Law we must ex-
pect to have it perfectly exercised and expressed,
as far as human nature working with grace will
permit ; and so we find it.

“Whoever heard of a married clergy in the
times of the Fathers of the Church? Which
of the Fathers, almost all of them bishops or
priests, had a wife? We have all their biogra-
phies, mostly by contemporaries ; but who of
them all has said of any one of them that they
204 A FUNDAMENTAL MAXIM

had wives or families? Take the whole line of
the Roman Bishops, and which of them had a
wife? Peter had one, indeed, before his call, but
it is the universal tradition that they lived sepa-
rate after his Apostleship. What Bishop of Con-
stantinople had a wife? Or of any of the Sees
whose succession we have? The clergy were
trained from youth in the Bishop’s houses under
the Archdeacon, and kept free from the world
up to their ordination, until the University sys-
tem arose, and corrupted the Church, through
the mingling of the aspirants to the Ministry
with overwhelming numbers of secular youths
full of the worldly spirit. To this fact I will re-
turn.

“A great fundamental maxim of the Church
ever prevailed, that the pure alone should handle
the all-pure mysteries, and reflect in their lives
the sovereign purity of God. This is a sentiment
so deeply rooted in humanity that in India and
other parts of the East the Pagans to this day
cannot comprehend a married clergy ; they look
on them as common men, whilst the Catholic
Priest is everywhere received with unbounded
reverence as a man sacred to God. Hence the
unanimous testimony of travellers that the Catho-
lic Religion makes constant progress in the East,
whilst, notwithstanding all that is repeated at
Exeter Hall, Protestantism is everywhere a fai-
lure with the natives. See Martial’s ‘ Missions’
for overwhelming evidence of the fact, which

I could confirm by my own experience in the
Pacific Ocean.
LAW OF CONTINENCE 205

‘When St Paul says, ‘Let a bishop be chosen
the husband of one wife,’ he laid down an obvious
maxim which the whole tradition of the Church
explains. At the beginning of the Church, ma-
ture men of a grave age could not often be found
who were not married, and the converted Pagans
—I mean the Pagans before their conversion—
who were not married, had commonly led dissi-
pated lives. When ordained bishops, they sepa-
rated each from his wife, and their wives became
what St Paul calls widows, devoted to religious
and charitable lives. But it was a maxim then
and a law, and has been a part of the Church’s
practical law ever since, that no man who had
ever had two wives should be promoted to the
priesthood, and above all to the Episcopacy. It
was considered a mark of incontinency in a man
to have married twice, not of sinful incontinency,
but of that less perfect continency which was not
tolerated in the ministry. The text of St Paul
is the basis of the Canon Law, not only of the
Catholic, but of all the Oriental Schismatical
Churches, including that of Russia.) No man
can be ordained who has ever had two wives.
St Paul’s words should not be forgotten in con-
struction with that sentence, where he says,
speaking to all the Christians of Corinth re-
specting virginity, ‘I would that all were even
as I.’ That is, he would prefer that all the
Christians at Corinth were virgins as he was.

“When you quote Bishop Milner, my vene-
rable predecessor, you give the strongest proof
that the Church does not dissemble abuses. All
206 THE CALVINIST DOCTRINE

her history records them with pain and sorrow.
They are the distressing proof of another part of
our Lord’s Doctrine, that a man may fall from
his estate, as Judas fell. Our Lord said, ‘It
must needs be that scandals come ; but neverthe-
less woe be to that man by whom the scandal
cometh.’ Of such scandals there are ample re-
cords in the Apostolic writings, nor are the falls
confined to the laity. What are the letters of
St Paul to the Bishops Timothy and Titus, as
to whom they should choose for the Ministry,
but guards against such scandals and falls? The
higher the position and the purer the virtues
demanded, all the more terrible is the fall, as
was that of Judas, one of the Apostles, chosen
of Christ.

“Tt is not the Catholic but the Calvinist
doctrine that a man cannot fall from the state of
grace and justification; and this is intimately
connected with their denial of free will, and their
frightful doctrine that God predestines some to
Heaven and some to hell, over-riding their will
to His predestination. If Adam fell from inno-
cence and justice, if David fell, though he rose
again, if Peter fell, though he rose again and
learnt compassion for all sinners, if Judas fell
beyond repentance, if Solomon fell, then every
man through his free will may fall. Therefore,
St Paul admonishes us to ‘work out our salva-
tion with fear and trembling.’

“You put before me the excellent example
of the Winchester clergy of your time. I believe
it. Butthat settles nothing. You have excellent
SCANDALS 207

men and models of family chastity in all ages and
creeds, and even in Pagan times. Close by them
you had the exiled Catholic clergy of France.
living lives of supernatural purity. You must
have known something of those men likewise,
who suffered much and kept the purity of their
state for the love of God, and in view of the
high sanctity of their state.

“Even a married clergy is not exempt from
scandals; and in this respect if we take the
whole history of the Anglican Church from its
commencement, the crop of scandals has been
large. I think there has been great improve-
ment in this respect since the clerical spirit has
been raised through the action of the Tractarians,
who reinvigorated the Establishment from Catho-
lic doctrines. But look at the eighteenth century
and beginning of the nineteenth. I say not this
wn odtum, but simply to point out that one story
is good until another is told; and that in every
epoch human weakness working with free will
has produced its scandals, more or less even in
the sanctuary. For our Lord says that it must
be that scandals come. And He portrays His
Kingdom, that is, His Church, as consisting of
good grain and weeds, as good fish and bad fish,
as men with the wedding garment and men with-
out it, as wise and foolish virgins, until the final
separation. This is the doctrine of the Church,
because it is the doctrine of Christ, and blessed
are they who, remembering the doctrine, are not
scandalized at the Church for what so little be-
longs to her that she holds it in horror. For sin
208 ABUSES

is not of the Church, but of the man. Therefore
the Church has always recorded the scandals of
her children with a horror of them, and as a
warning to others, even as the Holy Scriptures
do, that is, the Holy Ghost who inspired its
writers.

“Tf we are to condemn what is high and holy,
and what is the nearest representation of God’s
purity, because there have been abuses and falls
from it, especially in lax, weak and troubled
times and places, what is there that we must not
condemn and put aside? and what would be
left? Marriage has its abuses ; are we therefore
to condemn marriage? A life vowed to purity
has had its abuses ; are we therefore to condemn
this supernatural life? The Holy Scripture com-
mends it.

“In wild and unsettled times, after long wars
and pestilences especially, discipline slackens,
training gets neglected, education is got any-
how or not at all, and grave abuses arise in all
states and conditions of life. It is not easy for
us, sitting in comfort and peace in our quiet
chairs, to estimate those times. But there was
always a grand protest on the part of the holy
and faithful men of the Church; and it has often
been noticed that, as in the lax times of Israel the
great prophets arose, and as in a troubled state
great rulers spring up, so in the lax times of the
Church, in whatever part of it, (for we must not
allow ourselves to generalize what is local and
partial) the great Saints were raised up to put
things right again, and to re-establish discipline,
WEAKNESS OF THE ENGLISH CHURCH 209

which was commonly done by great religious
orders. Men vowed to purity, and they alone,
have ever been the great reformers of the
Church’s moral discipline.

“ Look on the other side, and see how mar-
vellous and how countless have been the men
and women who have glorified God and the
Church by their pure and innocent lives and
their great works. For this is most certain,
that God has attached spiritual fertility to purity,
reflecting His own. What has the English Es-
tablishment done since the time of Henry VIII?
It has built up nothing. It has simply preserved
fragments of Catholic doctrine and of Catholic
morality, and that with difficulty. For outside
the true Church they are always lowering and
slipping away. The lamp requires to be relit at
the Catholic Church. So it was under Charles I
and Laud. But Protestantism could not stand
it, and executed both Charles and Laud. So it
it was with the non-jurors under William III.
But they were driven out of the Church. So it
has been with the Tractarians. They have bor-
rowed Catholic doctrines and practices by halves,
and the Establishment is heaving and loathing
against this Catholic importation. Yet what-
ever it has it owes to the Church, but, built
on a negative, it cannot endure the full light
of Catholicity.

“T return to the Universities, established and
privileged by the Popes in favour of learning in
the thirteenth century, and developed in the four-
teenth. The aspirants to the priesthood resorted

14
210 SELF-REFORM OF THE CHURCH

to them in great numbers. But what can a col-
lection of ten thousand young men of all classes,
nobles, gentles, professors of law and medicine,
and speculators of all sorts, be, to serve as a
society in which clerics might be trained. Many
of them contracted worldliness, and the Church
suffered. Think again of that forty years’ war
of the Roses, when every youth of spirit held
a sword, when learning and the arts necessarily
sank, when even households were divided in the
quarrel, when, as in all civil wars, morality sank,
and all was confusion. After such a preparation
came the so-called Reformation. It was the out-
come of these two elements, the corrupt uni-
versities and the civil wars. After them a king
became all powerful. I have read somewhere
that after the Battle of Bosworth only sixteen
peers remained. A new nobility had to be
created, and the monasteries were plundered to
establish them. Then was the king’s will the
law of the land, and it has taken three centuries
to restore the freedom of the subject.

“But at the great Council of Trent the
Church reformed herself, and how could she do
that without enumerating abuses? She frankly
enumerates them, and since then her discipline
has ever been rising and strengthening.

“How did she accomplish her reform? The
great historian of the Council, Palavicini, will
tell you: or the Protestant Ranke will tell you.
She took the education of the clergy out of the
universities and placed it in those episcopal
seminaries of which Cardinal Pole drew up the
INFALLIBILITY OF THE POPE 211

first sketch, and from that time when her di-
scipline returned to its ancient methods, the
clergy rose up renovated with the true spirit of
the Church.

“Putting aside the world’s view of our doc-
trines, which it neither knows nor understands,
let us take its testimony on the purity of the
Church. And who can speak for the world like
The Times. In an article of its issue of this day,
The Times says :

‘“““ Whatever may be the blunders and follies
of the Papacy in our time, it is free from crime.
Whatever may be the bigotry and the ambition
of the clergy, they lead pure lives and they are
passionately devoted to their work.’ But this
purity in a body so vast, counting by legions if
we take the clergy, religious men and consecra-
ted women of all classes—amounting altogether
even in infidel France to two hundred thousand—
is so far beyond nature, so much the result of a
high grace and of a wonderful training and di-
scipline supplied by Saints, that it is a marvel to
the world, and a vast hymn of praise ascending
ever unto God, a praise and a homage not of
words but of lives, that, as far as mortals may,
are imitators of the divine purity—the purity
of Jesus.

“As to the infallibility of the Pope, it has
always existed in practice, and until the great
schism the Easterns appealed to it as well as the
Westerns. A council has never been anything
until the Pope approved of it: that approval
alone ever gave it authority. And who is to
212 VOICE OF THE CHURCH

judge between council and council? for rival
councils have met in great strength on one and
the same question on opposite sides: but the
Pope has ever settled which was the true one.
The mystery and the power of unity lies there.
One God, one Christ, one final representative of
Christ. Unity is not possible without it. What
the Church had always practised she ultimately
defined. And then was seen a grand spectacle.
What the Council defined and the Pope defined
after the Council, every bishop who opposed—
and almost all of them who did so acted on the
ground of expediency, not of doctrine, for I
heard them proclaim their adhesion to the doc-
trine with my own ears—all those opponents, to
a man, submitted to the Church’s voice. Theirs
were opinions: they knew that those opinions
were not infallible: they bowed in faith to the
voice of the Church in the great majority and the
Pontiff. Gratry wrote a retractation, in which he
declared that what they defined was not what he
had anticipated, and that what he had written
against was the defining something else. Then
it must be recollected that the apostleship con-
tinues in the See of Peter alone, and it is the
apostleship, sustained by our Lord’s creative
word, that is infallible. The line of the Apostolic
Pontiffs is the wonder of the world.

““We must have either one or all the Bishops
infallible, and God can as easily make one infal-
lible as athousand. But one is made infallible
to represent the Divine Unity, and to keep the
Church in Unity.
THE BISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM 213

“T have given you a long letter, my dear
friend—but my pen, having begun on these grand
themes, could not easily stop.

“Praying our Lord to bless you, I remain,

“My dear Lady Chatterton,
“ Your faithful servant in Christ,
“'W. B. ULLaTHORNE.”
CHAPTER XXIII.
The Month of August—Trials and Results.

Durinc the next ten days after the date of the
foregoing letter, the arch-tormentor of sensitive
consciences did his utmost to impede the action
of grace by suggesting more scruples as to the
reality of her Faith and the sincerity of her con-
viction. Of course he did, for he knew very well
that it was the only vulnerable point he could
find.

The Bishop’s remark upon this was :

“T should be much distressed at her suffer-
ings if I did not think that they are the result of
such conflicts with nature and habit as lead to
final rest . . . . purging the soul through fear, to
prepare it for Faith and love of God.”

His words were verified not many hours after
he had uttered them.

On the 24th of August she made Mrs Ferrers
write a note for her to the Bishop, saying :—
“Tell him that he knows me thoroughly. It is
for him to command, and I will obey.” On
the 25th he replied in the following letter :

* * * * * * *

“Those earnest yearnings for Faith show
plainly that grace is moving, soliciting, and in-
viting her. Your aunt knows in the depth of
PROFESSION OF CATHOLICISM 215

her soul, whatever imagination may temptingly
suggest, that there is but one Church esta-
blished by Christ to teach His truth and minister
His grace, and that the Catholic Church alone
has come down from Christ with unbroken suc-
cession and authority.

“ Let her make her act of Faith in the Catho-
lic Church, as the Authority for God’s revelation,
a simple act of belief that the Catholic Church
is the true Church and that she accepts its teach-
ing ; to this simple act of Faith let her cling with
her heart and will, in spite of all that her imagi-
nation may suggest, and she will begin to find
peace in believing. In this Faith let her make her
confession, which she had better write to facili-
tate communication with the Priest, and abide by
his judgment with reference to Holy Communion.

“This letter could be shown to the priest who
is invited, that he may understand the case.”

The confessor she chose in obedience to the
foregoing directions, was the Rev. Joseph Kelly
of Warwick, a valued friend as well as a wise
and experienced priest. On the 27th she wrote
to him, and asked him to appoint a day when he
could see her. He did so, heard her confession,
then a few days afterwards came over to Bad-
desley, and gave her Holy Communion.

Thus, before the end of August she was a
Catholic. The transition was scarcely percep-
tible—it was not a change: it was a life’s work
accomplished—a ripening of a life-long growth.
CHAPTER XXIV.

Letter to Dr Newman, his Reply—Letter from the
Bishop of Birmingham about the Rosary.

AFTER my dearest wife had become a Catholic,
not only had her own difficulties passed out of
her remarkably retentive mind as completely as
if she had never had any, but the very existence
of such was the greatest of all puzzles to her.
I never can forget the child-like simplicity with
which she said one day, in reference to some
old friends whom she longed to bring into the
Church :

“But I can’t understand how it is that
everyone doesn’t see it.”

One of the first things she did was to write
a pamphlet for private circulation, as a sequel
and final result of one previously written ; but,
owing to various causes of delay, it was not
printed till November or December. The names
of the two exactly express the different states of
mind that dictated them, for the first was called
“ Misgivings,’ the second “Convictions.” Her
reason for writing them is characteristic. Both
were written for the sake of friends and rela-
tions, not for herself. An instinctive perception
of whither she was tending led her to write
the first, just as it led her at times to take the
Catholic side in conversation with Protestants,
PAMPHLETS 217

which she did so well that Father Kelly used
to say to her in joke, “Whom have you got
under instruction now ?”

She wrote the second for the purpose of
setting before those whom it certainly con-
cerned, whether they thought so or not, a few
considerations that had influenced herself, and
would not be likely to come before them ex-
cept in that way. I fear it had not the effect
she intended on those for whom it was written.
A higher nature is seldom if ever able to in-
fluence a lower one in a Catholic direction.
The lower one will either resent the influence,
or escape it by attributing its force to personal
qualities exclusively. Some were stolidly as-
tonished, and took no particular impression of
its contents. A few wrote kind and affectionate
letters, expressing a real appreciation of her
character and motives, but respectfully declin-
ing to take any account of either as regards
the merits of the case. Three or four composed
small sermons, assuming that she had read no-
thing on the subject, except what had been
written by the Bishop of Birmingham or Dr
Newman, and recommending divers Protestant
books, most of which she had read long before.
Two only, and one was a very old friend, wrote
letters that I will not characterize, for I could
not do so without using language unsuited to
the occasion that called them forth from the
depths of their writers’—I had better say—
deficiencies.

This second pamphlet, as I said before, was
218 LETTER TO DR NEWMAN

not printed till November or December, but she
was during that time engaged in translating “ //
Conforto dell’anima devota,” about which I shall
have more to say farther on.

In the meanwhile, she was, of course, receiv-
ing instruction from her director, Father Kelly,
and sometimes from the Bishop.

In the middle of September, about three weeks
after she had been a Catholic, she wrote the fol-
lowing letter to Dr Newman :

“Baddesley Clinton, Knowle, Warwickshire,
“ September 18, 1875.

“Dear Doctor Newman,— When I sent you
a little printed paper of my ‘Confessions,’ two
years ago, you expressed great sorrow, and that
it pained you to read it. You will see, from what
I now send you, that I have, thank God, been
able gradually to see that I was wrong. It has
been a long process, and has caused me many
most painfully sleepless nights and suffering days;
but I know you will be kindly glad of the result.

“But I have been very ill, and am still so
weak and nervous that I can do nothing. I hope
you will, in your great kindness, send me a few
lines that will help me to be satisfied that I have
endeavoured to do right, and that you will pray
that I may feel more and more peace, and always
do what is most pleasing to God, and that I may
be able to bear with patience the bitter censures
of my old friends and dear relations.

“ Heneage’s new novel, ‘Sherborne,’ which is
now going through the press, was, as you will
LETTER FROM DR NEWMAN 219

see in my little Confessions (which I send you
under a separate cover), the chief cause, at last,
of my seeing light. I will send you a copy of it
as soon as it is published. I feel sure it will
interest you very much.

“Your beautiful hymn, ‘Lead kindly Light!’
has, I am certain, helped me much, for I have
repeated it several times in the dark painful
nights for more than two years.

“ Believe me, dear Doctor Newman, with sin-
cere thanks for all your kindness,

“Yours most sincerely,
“G, CHATTERTON.”

To this Doctor Newman wrote the following
answer :

“The Oratory, September 20, 1875.

“My peaR Lapy CuatTTerton,—You will
easily understand how I rejoiced to read your
letter this morning. You will be rewarded abun-
dantly, do not doubt it, for the pain, anxiety and
weariness you have gone through in arriving at
the safe ground and sure home of peace where
you now are.

“T congratulate, with all my heart, the dear
friends who surround you upon so happy a termi-
nation of their own anxieties and prayers.

“ May God keep you ever in the narrow way
and shield you from all those temptations and
trials by which so many earnest souls are wrecked.

‘This is the sincere prayer of yours most truly,

“Joun H. Newman.
220 THE ROSARY

“P.S.—Thank you for your Confession of
Faith, which is most interesting to me.”

On October 5 the Bishop wrote the follow-
ing letter in reply to some questions about the
Rosary :

“ Birmingham, October 5, 1875.

“You will find an account of the Rosary in
Butler’s ‘Lives of the Saints,’ Vol. X, on the
1st of October, that book of prodigious learning
of all sorts, which Gibbon so highly commended
for its accurate knowledge. If you have it not,
you will find it at the convent—it is in all Catho-
lic Libraries.

“The principle of the Rosary is very ancient.
Beads were used as an instrument of prayer in
the East before Christianity. The Fathers of
the desert counted their prayers, in some re-
corded cases, with pebbles. But St Dominic
at the beginning of the thirteenth century gave
it its present form. The Paters and Aves, at-
tached to the beads, are but the body of the
prayer ; to get at the religious philosophy of the
Rosary we must go to its soul. The soul of the
Rosary is the meditation. To understand this
you must have a little Manual of the Rosary,
to be found in most prayer-books. There you
will see that the Rosary is divided into three
parts, and one of these parts is represented by
the material Rosary, or string of beads—one
part only being said at one time, as a rule.
First is said the Creed, then Our Father repre-
sented by the large bead next the Cross, and
BODY AND SOUL OF THE ROSARY 221

three Hail Marys, represented by the three
beads next it. Then come the mysteries of
our Lord’s Life—sufferings and triumph, which
are the objects of meditation. The first part is
the five joyful mysteries, put in two or three
sentences, each in the Manual, to help the mind
to its subject. Each of these is thought upon
whilst saying one ‘Our Father,’ holding the
large bead, and ten ‘Hail Marys,’ holding in
succession the ten little beads. Then the next
mystery is taken in the same way, until the
whole circle is completed. After which there
is a little prayer. For the five sorrowful my-
steries of the Passion, the same round of beads
is similarly used on another occasion. And so
likewise the five glorious or triumphant mysteries.

“The body of the Rosary is the vocal Our
Fathers and Hail Marys; its pith and soul is the
meditation. The beads, as they are held in the
fingers, give escape to nervous restlessness, and
so leave the attention more free. Thus the
weakness of a nervous, or restless, or extro-
verted mind is provided against. Many people
can only think freely on a point when in action,
walking for example: their nerves and senses
must have employment to free the mind for con-
centration. The famous preacher who could only
find his ideas flow when twisting a thread on his
fingers is a case in point—his thread snapped, and
his thinking stopped. The fingering of the beads
and the vocal prayers do this function, disposing
and freeing the mind for meditation. Human
nature is very complex; and its complexity of
222 USE OF THE ROSARY

activity, which is in the Rosary provided for,
is the source of those distractions that arise when
we kneel inactive in body, and repeat customary
vocal prayers. A little activity of the hands and
a fixed object for reflection to animate our vocal
prayer cures much of this distraction. A lady
can think over her needle, who cannot think so
well sitting still with unused hands.

“The Rosary was the Book of the unlettered
before the ages of printing, which familiarized
their hearts with the chief mysteries of the Gos-
pel; it is excellent for two classes, those who
like it, and those who don’t like it. Millions of
souls have been made contemplative and inter-
nally spiritual, in all classes, by its use, who
without it could never have become so. As to
those who don’t like it because it is childish,
I once gave a Rosary to a gentleman of high
character, great attainments, and extraordinary
shrewdness—a convert. I said, ‘Say that for
three months, and ask me no reason for it : after
that you will give me, yourself, a good reason.
He did so, and at the end of it he said: ‘I under-
stand. You wanted to pull down my pride, to
make me simple-hearted and childlike, and to
get into the habit of spiritual reflection. I shall
never leave it off again.’

“Some people don’t like to take the medicine
that would heal them, and call it nonsense. The
Rosary is exactly that nonsense which cures
an amazing deal of nonsense. Call it spiritual
homeceopathy if you like. Many a proud spirit
has been brought down by it. Many a faddy
PHILOSOPHY OF THE ROSARY 223

spirit has been made patient by it. Many a
queasy spirit has been made strong by it.
Many a distracted spirit has been made re-
collected by it. ‘The weak things of the world
hath God chosen to confound the strong.’
“As to the relative number of Hail Marys,
I will not give the Irish carman’s solution in
reply to the interrogation of his Protestant fare—
that one ‘Our Father is worth ten Hail Marys
any day.’ There is a deeper solution. You will
remember in Ivanhoe what a thrilling interest is
created where the wounded hero on his bed of
pain sees the whole conflict as it rages round the
fortress through the eyes and heart of the Jewish
maiden, who beholds and describes it with tender
accents from the window of his apartment.
There you have the sense of the Hail Marys.
Through the pure and the tender soul of the
Mother, more allied to our human weakness, you
behold the life, acts and sufferings of the Son,
whereby our own soul is opened to tenderness, to
simplicity, to all of the mother within us ; whilst
we look on Him through her, invoking her to
join our prayers with hers, the Mother and the
Queen, by His Heavenly Throne. Wonderful is
the Rosary! For its history see Butler’s Lives
ofthe Saints. I give you its beautiful philosophy,
for so St John Chrysostom calls Christian Wis-
dom. Praying Our Lord to bless you,
“T remain,
“Your faithful servant in Christ,
“W. B. ULLATHORNE.”
CHAPTER XXV.

The Bishop of Birmingham’s Letter on Cere-
monial.

Towarps the end of October we went to Malvern
Wells, and, on our way there, spent two very
pleasant days at Spetchley Park, where she heard
Mass for the first time (her health not permitting
her to do so before), and where we met the
Bishop. After remaining three weeks at Mal-
vern Wells we returned to Baddesley. It had
been our intention to go farther, and the plan
of our journey was sketched out; but her pro-
tracted struggles against interior influences ad-
verse to her aspirations, her nature, her happiness
had undermined her health. It is not till the
ship is safe in port that the damage done by wind
and waves can be fully estimated.

The following letter was written after our
return home.

“Birmingham, November 19, 1875.

“Dear Lapy CuHatTrerton—Your letter and
paper* reached me at Liverpool, where I have
been preaching in a Benedictine Church, on the
Festival of All Saints of the Benedictine Order.
On my return I was delayed to profess a Bene-
dictine nun. I send for your amusement a pen

*«< Convictions.”
BISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM’S LETTER 225

and ink portrait of the sermon and preacher,
which only proves how little a man, who only sees
me once in a pulpit, can judge his, I will not say
sitter, but stander. As to the timidity of which
the portrait-writer speaks, I am afraid it sprang
not so much from modest-mindedness as from
shivering cold, especially as certain windows
of the large church, being under repair, were
not glazed. So now to your paper.

“The beginning is very good. When you
get to the point of ceremonial, it may be well to
take hold of the general principle. Ceremonial
is a language, and the most expressive of all lan-
guages. Printing is a comparatively modern in-
vention, but in all ages ceremonial, or the lan-
guage of action, has entered into the religion of
man, and that in all races and religious systems,
until we come to the Puritanism of the last
two centuries, when the Quakers alone succeed-
ed in throwing off this mode of expression so
natural to man. Yet have they succeeded? On
the contrary ; by their dress, their form of keep-
ing on their hats, their shunning titles, in all their
formalism, they have stamped themselves a cere-
monial people.

“With respect to other forms of Protestan-
tism, it is a question of more or less, proportion-
ed with great accuracy to the greater or less,
amount of doctrine retained. What is Baptism?
What the Communion Service? What the
position of the altar or communion-table, on
which such a controversy is raging? What is
standing, or kneeling, or confirming, or funeral

15
226 CEREMONIAL

rites, or bowing at the Sacred Name, which
St Paul commands? Or the burying the head
in the hand or hat, on first entering a church and
taking a seat or kneeling-place? What is all
this but ceremonial? Man cannot express him-
self without it ; and it is always in fact a question,
not of the principle, but of more or less in practice.
God Himself was the inventor of the ceremonial
of the Old Law, and our Lord never does any-
thing of importance without some significant
action or gesture, which is ceremonial.

“ Outside of Protestantism, there never was a
religion, sect or creed, Jewish, Christian or
Pagan, of which the centre was not sacrifice ; and
sacrifice is all action, with words as accompani-
ment. Nay, what are words but symbols, and
symbols with mouth articulated and features
moving, to express the inward thought or
emotion? And what are the printed letters of a
Bible but the symbols once removed of those
spoken words which the Spirit of God has
expressed through the hand and pen of man?
Which hands and pens, and the living bodies
that moved them, are essentially in their action
ceremonials.

“In our present compound state everything
must come to us through sense, and both God
and man speak to us through human symbols and
ceremonials. God has given to us two modes of
expressing ourselves, by words and by signs ; and
the signs are the most vivid language of the two.
They compel us to speak with body and soul, and
leave not the body inertly to resist the expression
TWO MODES OF EXPRESSION 227

of the soul, but to go with it, and give us security
that with our whole unresisting being we wor-
ship God or declare His Will. Whoever would
reject ceremonial must not only stand stock still
and refuse to speak, but, to be consistent, must
even refuse the features expression, and the lips
their movement. I am simply showing the
absurdity of professing to reject a principle with-
out the use of which you cannot even express
what you would reject.

“But the great ceremonial of the Church
gathers round the Sacrifice and Communion, of
which we have the whole ceremonial type in the
Last Supper. What we see with faithful eyes,
as Horace tells us,* affects us more than what is
addressed to the ears. Ceremonial speaks to the
soul through the eyes, and in large churches all
can read with their eyes what only a limited
number can hear. Then what a language to
those afflicted with deafness! they read the whole
progress of the sacred rite with their sight.

Ceremonial is pre-eminently the language for
multitudes assembled, and a universal religion
must contemplate all, whether they can hear or
read, or not. Of the two languages given by
God to man, and ever used in conjunction by all
the races of the earth in His worship (until Pro-
testantism arose to reject the principle, but to
retain the practice to a great degree) Protestan-
tism has in principle rejected one, and that the

* Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem,
Quam que sunt occulis subjecta fidelibus.
Horace, Ars. Poetica, 1, 180.
228 PROTESTANT ANTI-CEREMONIALISM

most subjugating of body to soul—the language
of action or ceremonial. Protestants have for-
gotten that ceremonial runs through the whole
Scripture, from Genesis to the Book of Revela-
tions. They have lost sight of the fact that the
latter sublime Book has for its pictorial frame-
work the array of the Church with its grand
ceremonial around the Lamb standing on the
Altar for ever slain, that is the Christian sacrifice.
They forget in religion what Demosthenes says
of oratory, that is of expression, that the first,
second and third secret of success is action, action,
action. They would bury, if they could, the soul
in a dull, stupid, disobedient, lifeless body. This
has made the British race of recent ages the half
inanimate mortals that other nations pronounce
them to be. But if I had never been able to use
my eyes to construe your lively features, ex-
pressive lips and kindly hands in their offer of
kindnesses, I should never have read your soul ;
and if anti-ceremonialists would be consistent, all
should be covered as to the face with veils, should
hold their arms in tranquillity by their sides, and
utter their sense in the purest vowels—the mere
breathings of the soul.

“T have often regretted that we have not
a little dictionary of the sense of ceremonial acts,
and have often threatened to write one, but have
not the time. This of course is an excursus
for your own reading, but you may find out of it
a few sentences for your /zbretto.

“ By the way, I met a Welsh lady last week
just entering the convent at Stone, who became
SAFEGUARDS OF THE PRIESTHOOD 229

a Catholic solely through testing the Protestant
version of the New Testament by the Greek.
“In your final remarks on the corruption
of priests, I think that, unintenionally, you leave
the impression that this may be frequent, from
seeming to assume that the Protestant notion of
it is correct, but needs vindication. <A glance at
it again, with its abrupt termination, will show
what I mean. Falls are not only few, but rare,
as they are in the New Testament. Protestants
can have but little notion of the way in which
a priest is guarded in his state of life. The long
and pious training ; the daily recital of the Divine
Office, mostly taken from Holy Scripture, and
the greater part consisting of the Psalms; the
fixed hour of meditation; the use of the confes-
sional; the strict canonical discipline that sur-
rounds the priest’s life; all these are perpetual
helps, supports, and guards against human weak-
ness. Then will these good Protestant souls
who are ever talking of grace be pleased to
remark that a vocation to the priesthood implies
an extraordinary gift of grace from the Holy
Spirit, and that grace, unless much abused, is
stronger than nature. Nay, I may add that those
reserved manners, so offensive to the Prote-
stant mind, are the outcome of that internal self-
control and caution become natural, through long
training from youth, and habit, which, however
artificial it may look to those who have no key
to it, is the necessary accompaniment of the
sacerdotal character. Our Lord said to them de
mundo non estis, and no one ought, if he be
230 THE TOUCHSTONE OF FAITH

a Christian, to be shocked that their life, and
therefore their manners, are not those of the
world.

“My concluding remark is that a profession
of faith cannot be fairly grounded without some
reference to the Church as the Divine institution
of Christ, the holder of His authority, and His
witness to mankind. The question recently put
to Lord Redesdale, but left without a reply, is
the true touchstone of faith. ‘Is the Church of
Christ divine in its authority?” Did the Incar-
nate Truth establish the authority to last for
ever, or like Moses did He point to its fall and
reformation? And if so, did He point, as Moses
pointed, to some one who should come, some
other Divine One, who should reform His work
as Christ reformed the Law of Moses? If so,
who is that Divine One? Whence came He?
By what signs should we know Him? And has
His work become divine in its authority, whereas
the work established by Christ must have failed?
There is one Church of Christ, with one truth,
taught by one authority, received by all, believed
by all within its pale; or there is no security for
faith. If we examine our Lord’s words and acts,
such a Church there is. If we follow the inclina-
tions of our fallen nature, ever averse to the con-
trol of authority, we there find the reason why so
many who love this world receive not the autho-
rity that He planted to endure, like His primal
creation, to the end.

“It is pleasant to human pride, and indepen-
dence to be a little god, having but oneself for an
THE CHURCH AS CHRIST’S WITNESS 231

authority, and a light and a law from oneself to
oneself.

“But does this, or does it not, contradict the
fact that we are dependent beings, and that the
Lord He is God? This spirit of independence,
with self-sufficiency for its basis, and rebellion
for its act, is just what Sacred Scripture ascribed
to Satan. And as we expect the character
of God—that is a superior and unquestionable
Authority in the work that emanates from Him
(God) and leads to God; so must we expect the
character of Satan, that is to say, self-sufficiency
and independence, in whatever has been inspired
by him, and leads in his direction.

“ But all this is not for your paper, only some-
thing about the Church as Christ’s Witness and
authority to man for His Truth and His require-
ments.

“Praying our Lord to keep you,
‘“T remain, dear Lady Chatterton,
“Ever most sincerely yours,
“W. B. ULLATHORNE.”
CHAPTER XXVI.
The First Mass in the Old Chapel at Baddes-

ley Clinton, after an interval of Sixty Years
—The Bishop of Birmingham’s Letter on
Feeling and Will.

AFTER our return her health seemed to be
improving, but she thought differently. She felt
convinced that she should die in the coming
year, and she told the Bishop so when He came
to see us at Christmas, but begged Him not to
mention it to us. She did not tell me so. Yet
she often mentioned the subject in such a way
that it would seem impossible to have misunder-
stood it. Still I never realized the danger till
I was struck down suddenly.

When the Bishop left us, she drove him to
the Station as usual. After he had said good-
bye, and gone into the Station to wait for the
arrival of the train, she sent the servant to call
him back once more, and kneeling down in the
carriage, she asked him to give her his blessing,
and said :—“ How can I thank you enough for all
that you have done for me!” The Bishop took
her little fingers in his own, and with one of them
made the sign of the Cross on her forehead.
This paternal action broke down the last bul-
warks of reserve—from that moment she was
a Catholic outwardly as well as in heart, and
MASS AT BADDESLEY CLINTON 233

never hesitated to make the sign of the Cross in
public.

Soon after Christmas Day, the Holy Sacrifice
was offered up in the old domestic chapel at
Baddesley Clinton, after an interval of sixty
years, by our kind friend Monsignor Virtue.
Lord Gainsborough was also staying with us at
that time. As we were not yet provided with
what was necessary, Monsignor Virtue brought
with him a chalice, vestments, altar stone, etc.

She had a first thought of building a new
chapel over an enclosed space inside the Court,
and even sketched the plan. It could not be
outside, on account of the moat; moreover, she
wished it to be where everyone must see it
on entering the Court. It would have been
an act of Faith written in stone; but the restora-
of the old chapel leaves a deeper mark. It is
founded in the history of the past, hallowed
by the former presence of martyrs and confes-
sors, and it bridges over the broken continuity of
the Holy Sacrifice in an ancient Catholic house
that never had an apostate owner.

During the Bishop’s visit at Christmas she
had expressed to him her fears that she loved
human beings, especially one, more than she
loved God, and in order to demonstrate that it
was not so, he wrote the following letter:

“ Birmingham, December 29, 1875.
‘DEAR Lapy CuattTerton,—Feeling and Will
are, in their nature, distinct one from the other,
and very often act independently of each other.
234 FEELING AND WILL

How many feelings do we have that we wish we
had not. In such cases the feelings go one way,
and the will another. The subject in which our
feelings, or sensibilities, reside, is our senses
both external and internal, both of body and
soul; the subject in which our love resides is
our will, Hence, feelings are various and com-
plicated, but love is simple.

“The Willis the central and sovereign power
in us, and what we will, that we love; what we
will, that morally we are ; whether the exercise
of our will, that is of our love, be accompanied
with sensible feelings of pleasure or not. The
will can only act towards one object at one time,
and the nature of the object towards which our
will is moved determines the nature of our love
and its moral character. Love is concerned with
what is good, and every object that we love we
represent to ourselves as a good: even when we
love what is evil, we first delude ourselves with
the notion that it is good.

“The greater the amount of real objective
good is in the object of our love, all the nobler
is our love, and all the more reasonable. It is
the nobleness of the object of our love that en-
nobles us in our love. In loving God, the one
supreme, all perfect good, and source of all good
in whatever kind of good, we reach the end of
all desires, and join ourselves to the Eternal
Good, and find the resting place of our soul.
This is the secret of our soul’s peace. ‘My
peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto
you, not as the world giveth it do I give it unto
THE LOVE OF GOD 235

you.’ The love of God above all things and in
all things brings us peace, because it brings us
to the object of our soul, to the end of the soul’s
desires ; to that divine Good for which the soul
is created. For the soul in herself is the created
spiritual recipient of good, to which the light of
truth leads her on. Truth alone is not the Good,
but the luminous reflection and image of Good,
let into our mind to awaken up our heart to love
the Good of which Truth is the harbinger and
forerunner. Light is of the mind; but love is
of the will. And the love of God is called
Charitas, Charus amor, because it is the ap-
preciative love of the Best.

“In Heaven, love and sense are one, the will
and the joy are inseparable, because there is the
vision of the Supreme Good : there nothing dis-
tracts the spiritual sense from the Eternal Beauty,
and Life, and Love of us, on which the will is set.
‘We shall see Him as He is.’ And ‘eye hath
not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath the heart of
man conceived the things which God hath pre-
pared for them that love Him.’

“But ‘in this world we walk by Faith, and
not by vision,’ and ‘we see darkly, as through
a glass ina mystery.’ This is the trial of love,
and the crucifixion of love, and the purgation of
love. For, as St Augustine says, ‘God would
have us love Him as He deserves, before we see
Him as He is. We must love Him in faith,
without the joys of the sense of an overwhelm-
ing love; love Him with the appreciative love
and cleaving of our will, whether our nature
236 THE TRIAL OF LOVE

swims contentedly and pleasurably on with our
will, or is heavy, dull, and irresponsive in so far
as we have any sense of it.

“ But remember this, for it is all-important,
that the greater the reluctance of nature to fol-
low our will with enjoyment, so long as the will
seeks God, the greater is the actual love of the
will, by reason of its working against the weight
of our dull, corrupt, and irresponsive animality.
When our Divine Lord came to His agony in
Gethsemane, the sacred Type and Example of all
the true lovers of God began to be weary, and
heavy, and sorrowful, and sad. The Divine Vic-
tim and scape-goat of our sins bore upon Him-
self, all innocent and pure, the iniquities of the
world and their punishment, and this was the
human effect, and a bitter portion of the pe-
nance. But whilst His Divine Soul was in this
sorrow, bitterness, and joylessness, did He love
the Father less or more? Certainly more ; for
the work of His human will, devoid of all human
joy in loving, was immeasurably greater. The
love was then all in the pure will, and not at all
in sense. ‘Father, if it be possible, let this cup
pass from Me, yet not as I will, but as Thou.’

“Remember this also, because it touches the
root of the question. The end of our love of
God is not to please ourselves, but to please
God, so long as we are in this life of trial. But
all that sensible sweetness in loving is the pleas-
ing ourselves. Nevertheless, God sometimes
gives us joy in loving Him, to encourage and
draw us on. At other times He gives us the
LOVE IN THE WILL 237

drier graces of love, lest we should take too
much delight in the sense of love, and so in the
sense of self which is apt to degenerate into
self-love, and so into the elation of pride, by
which we lose the grace and the progress in the
true and pure love of God. These alternations
belong to the providence of Divine Grace, treat-
ing us as the wayward children we are; now
encouraging us with sweet things and loving
smiles, now checking us with a drier counte-
nance and more austere fare, lest we grow
elated and presume of ourselves. For grace
has two functions to accomplish in us, to heal
our pride as well as to perfect our love. And
love can only grow upon the lessening and
lowering of our pride. Self-love, which is the
fount of our pride, cannot consist in one with
our love of God. With this preparation I come
to the point of your question. Even humanly
speaking and putting the wicked aside, whose
souls are buried in sensuality and self-conceit,
the love that we most feel is not always our
highest and most perfect love. The love of
a most dear friend, or of one yet more closely
united to us, is a love in which not only the
will, but all the senses, inward and outward,
are engaged; there all the sensibilities flow to-
gether with the will. Here, if anywhere, is joy
in loving. And where the love is pure and holy,
still nature and grace move in one and the same
direction. And yet a love that is purely of the
will, and is divested of all this sensible pleasure,
reigns supreme over it; and when the emergency
238 GOD AND GOOD

comes it will reveal its power; and that is the
love of truth and of justice. Let the one beloved
gravely violate these principles, and, however
painful, however much of a martyrdom, we find
that we can be prompt in asserting this love in
the dry will, above the whole of our sensible
love of the person who violates them. The love
of truth, which has but little of sensibility in it,
and the love of justice, which has less, assert
their supremacy over all that strongly sympa-
thetic affection.

“ But why do we love truth and justice above
all our sensible loves, except that they are God’s
truth, and God’s justice, to which we are subject,
and without which everything runs to disorder,
trouble and chaos. God is truth, God is justice,
and moreover God is goodness. God and good
are the same words variously spelt. God is the
Good, the nature and the source of good in Him-
self first, then in all by communication. Truth
is the reflection of that good, the splendour ra-
diating from it. Justice is the order of that
Good, the Good itself, or God is the All-being,
the All-life, the All-joy, from which is every life,
and every pure or real joy, peaceful without alloy
or tribulation. Pure spirit, without gross body
with its gross senses, because infinitely perfect
—pure spirit alone can taste Him perfectly. To
taste God perfectly then, the spirit must first be
purified. And this is a work of labour and self-
abnegation. For ‘the body which is corrupted,
weigheth upon the soul, and oppresseth the sense
whilst musing in many things.’ Here is the whole
GOD’S COMMUNION WITH MAN 239

complicated obstacle to the soaring of the soul
with delight to the One Supreme Good in whom
we find all those things in perfection which we
so eagerly seek for through our senses, in the
world around us, in the world outside of us, and
in the world of letters, that reflects the endless
multiplicity of the extern world.

“But there is only one point of communica-
tion between God and us. For although He is
everywhere, He is not everywhere to us. There
is but one point of communication between God
and us, and that is the centre of our own soul.
‘The kingdom of God is within you,’ says our
Lord to us. The Church preaches faith, and
hope, and love to us, and in the sacraments
brings to us their graces; but it is God who
through His Word touches us inwardly with
the light of faith, aud raises our hope and de-
sire of the Supreme Good that the light of
faith presents to us. And how have we the
sense of God? Loving Him above all things,
with His Spirit He gives the remote and veiled
touch to the centre of our spirit, and then we
joy in Him.

“But if we live not in our own interior,
where for us is the kingdom of God, where is
the place of God’s communion with us, how
can we have the consolation and peace of
charity, that is the sensible union of our heart
with God? Multiplicity of external solici-
tudes and pursuits, and evagation of our mind
into all sorts of minds, must take off the heart
from God. ‘Turn to me, and I will turn to
240 THE TEST OF LOVE

you, is the admonition of the Holy Spirit in
the Scripture. Our God is a jealous God, be-
cause He loves us and wants our love. And
hence again the Divine admonition, ‘ My child,
give Me thy heart.’ The order of love is
the order of life. When the love of God is
supreme in us, then every other love partakes
in this Divine love, becomes exalted, purified
and sanctified. For this is the grandeur of
Divine charity, that it draws all loves into the
Divine love, and regulates them all. Then we
love our neighbour, in whatsoever degree of
propinquity, in God and for God, and so we
love God in him. For this is the grand double
law of Catholic charity, that whilst we love
God, and are subject to God, we likewise love
God in our neighbour, and are subject to God
in being humble to our neighbour. We love
in them what is of God, and are subject to
them in what is of God, and all this is referred
to God, and not merely to the creature as such.
Then we learn to see God’s side, which is the
beautiful side in all persons.

“The test of love is not feeling, but obedi-
ence. ‘If you love Me, keep My command-
ments.’ Then the love of God devours our
self-love, and our susceptive sensitiveness. The
great nourishers of Divine love are the Sacri-
fice, the Sacraments and Prayer. The Sacri-
fice is the mystery of eternal love, the most
costly of all the works of love which opens
for us the way to heaven. For what other
way is there for us except through Jesus
HABIT OF PRAYER 241

Christ, our dear Lord and Redeemer crucified.
The sacraments flow from that sacrifice, and
bring its graces home to us; and prayer is the
exercise of subjection and of love. Yet what
prayers can approach that prayer in which we
are joined to our Lord in His sacrifice, where
with strong cry and tears He offers the propitia-
tion for our sins, and opens His wounds from
which to pour the life of His love upon us.

“Until we get the habit of often lifting our
hearts to God, not merely at fixed times of
prayer, but at all times and in all places and
companies, as St Paul advises, ‘In every place
lifting up pure hands to God,’ as our Lord ad-
monishes, ‘Pray always, pray without ceasing,’
we shall never reach the joys of life, we shall
never understand how sweet this present life
may be. There may be many failures, destroy-
ing many conceits ; but with patient effort, trust-
ing in God, this blessed habit is won at last.
Then is found what that wonderful book, second
only in its inspiration to the Holy Scriptures,
the Following of Christ, tells us. ‘ Blessed is
he who sees all things in one, and to whom all
things are one. O my God, make me one
with Thee in eternal love.’

“Not feeling, but desire, is the true test of
love. What we desire that we love; what we
desire intensely, that we intensely love. What
we willingly obey, and to what we willingly
subject, ourselves, to that we give all proofs of
love. Not what we feel, but what we do, is
the manifestation of our love. Feelings change

16
242 BISHOP OF BIRMINGHAM’S LETTER

in this mortal state, but the works of love
endure.
“Praying our Lord to give you abundance of
His love, and of the works of love,
“T remain, dear Lady Chatterton,
“Yours very faithfully,
“W. B. ULLATHORNE.”
CHAPTER XXVIL.
The Bishop’s Last Letter to Her.

“Birmingham, January 6, 1876.

“Dear Lapy Cuatrerton,—Your points are
three ; 1st.—‘ How can I feel sure that, having
had so many advantages beyond others, and
yet having sinned, I shall not incur eternal
punishment?’ 2nd.—‘How can those who
have met with nothing but hatred, whilst I
have met but love, comprehend the God of
love?’ 3rd.—‘I have had a high standard, and
have felt most deficient, finding all others better
than myself.’

“The light of order requires that we take the
second of these propositions first. The love we
receive from our fellow-creatures, however ex-
cellent, is not the source of our love of God, nor
can it be so in the nature of things. If they are
animated with the love of God, and we are in
sympathy with them, 77 that respect they may be
the means of awakening in us, or of keeping
alive in us, the disposition to love God. But
the love of God springs in us from a divine
principle and force, the gift of the grace of
charity which our Lord has purchased for us
with His Blood, and which is an operation of
the Holy Spirit in our soul, acting upon our
will, energizing it, lifting it above the order of
244 TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF LIFE

nature, and setting it with affection and desire
upon God as the Supreme Good in Himself,
and as our supreme Good. Here is the true
philosophy of life. The power to love God,
who first loved us, descends from God; and
we, working with that grace, give ourselves in
love to God. The love which our fellow-
mortals give to us, and we to them, is either
a human love, which goes not beyond the
powers of nature, and then it is the love of
benevolence ; or it is taken up into the love of
God, so that we are loved, not merely for our
own sake, but also for God’s sake, whose
children we are, and’ then it is the love of
Charity which sanctifies and pervades the en-
tire human love, and raises it to a super-
natural order, having present reward and the
reward to come. Such love when accompanied
with prayer for the one beloved, does much to
obtain the grace of love, or its increase, for the
one beloved, provided that one is not proud to
resist the visitation of God.

“But it by no means follows that those who are
the most loved, even by good and holy people, in
this world, are those who most love God. Too
much manifestation of love, especially to the
young and wayward, is often injurious to their
spirit, giving rise to much self-consciousness,
self-love, and all the spiritual evils that flow
from these dispositions of the heart. Every-
body understands what is meant by a ‘spoilt
child.” The old Arab chief spoke with a pa-
ternal heart when he said: ‘Many sons have
THE LOVE OF GOD 245

I: it is not befitting that I should smile upon
them.’ I knew a prudent and holy mother who
had a large family, but she had one son among
them who, though very affectionate, could never
receive any marked expression from her without
an elation that threw him off his balance and did
him harm ; and to him she durst not reveal much
of her affection. This is but one of many ex-
amples in human nature. It does not therefore
follow that those who are most loved of men
love God most. Nor does it come out that those
whom God loves most, are those who love God
most, or we should all without exception love
God the very much. Nor do all respond to
graces they receive to lead them to the love
of God.

“There is another way of love. It was the
way of the one perfect man—the way of the
Man-God, the way of St Paul, the way of all
the martyrs and saints; and that is the royal
way of the cross. St Paul tells the Philippians,
‘To you it is given by Christ, not only to believe
in Him, but also to suffer for Him. And he says:
‘If we suffer with Him, we shall also be glori-
fied with Him.’ But one of the greatest hu-
man crosses or sufferings is that in which we
are opposed, contradicted, and even hated by
those to whose love we deem ourselves en-
titled. And our Lord prepared us for this
when He said, ‘ You shall be hated of all men
for My sake.’ And again, ‘These things I
command you, that you love one another. If
the world hate you, you know that it first
246 LOVE IN SUFFERING FOR CHRIST

hated Me. If ye were of the world, the world
would love its own; but because you are not
of the world, but I have chosen you out of the
world, therefore the world hateth you.’ Here
is a grand providential order in which God
draws good out of evil for His elect lovers.
By the opposition and even hatred of the chil-
dren of this world, the children of God be-
come crucified to the world, and the world to
them. The blandishments of life soften and
weaken our soul in its hold on God; its rebuffs
and crucifixions brace us inwardly and throw
us upon God. Even the Saints have often,
with purest intentions, misunderstood each
other, and have tried, opposed, and contra-
dicted each the other. For God, when He
loves a soul much, is sure to crucify that soul
where it is most sensitive. These things purge
the spirit, cut down its conceits, humble its pride,
drive it for refuge to God, and purify it for purer
visitations of the Holy Spirit. Love is from
God, and returns to God, and the Cross puri-
fies our natural affections, that we may love
God the more. Even our own bodily and
mental pains, when resignedly accepted and
endured in union with our Lord’s sufferings,
both purify as a true cross, and increase our
love of God in the offering of them. Love of
God and the Cross are inseparable, and so far
from being opposed to the love of God, what
we suffer from our neighbours in faith of the
Cross augments our love of God as well as of
our neighbour, even our neighbour who afflicts us.
LIGHT OF GOD IN THE MINDS 247

“ond.—The next point in the order of light
will be your third.

“The light of God in our minds contains
that truth which is the standard of what we
ought to be. It would be very bad for us,
very bad indeed, if we did not see and feel
that we are very far below the standard set
before us. To imagine ourselves equal to it
would be the consummation of pride. Where-
as the very nature of humility is this, that it
is the confession of what of ourselves we in
truth are. ‘The reason,’ says St Vincent of
Paul, ‘why God loves humility so much is
this, that He loves truth; and humility is no-
thing but truth.’ It is the acknowledgment of
the vileness of our nature of itself, as seen in
the light of God, and that of ourselves we can
do nothing, unless what God works in us to
do. ‘I can do nothing of myself, says St
Paul, ‘but I can do all things in Him that
strengthens me.’ And again he says, ‘I see
a law in my members warring against the law
in my mind (the standard), so that what I
would I do not, and what I would not that
I do. Unhappy man that I am: who will de-
liver me from the body of this death? The
grace of our Lord Jesus‘ Christ.’

“We feel our own restless, petulant, discon-
tented nature, with its endless crossing of de-
sires and aspirations, now up, now down, now
sinking into our bodily pains, wants and cravings,
now ascending into contemplation of supernal
truth ; now drawing our desires out of their en-
248 HUMILITY PRODUCED BY CROSSES

tanglement in the senses and carrying them
upwards in search of our Supreme God and
consolation. And then we see in ‘the law of
our mind’ the standard or form revealed to us
in the Revelation of our Lord, of a law of life
which is perfect in order, justice, peace and
eternal love. In short we feel our nature, its
weakness, its remembered offences, and its in-
capacity of itself to reach eternal good things.
But it is also a part of humility, and therefore of
truth, to know what God does for us and to con-
fess His gifts; and if we do not, we proudly
appropriate them as if they were our own good
qualities. And this is consummate pride, which
stays their flow into us. Therefore God leaves
to us the sense of our own wretchedness, and of
what we are by nature, and we feel ourselves,
more than we feel the gift of God working in
us, that we may not presume, and that we may
be kept humble and at a distance from self-
conceit. And even when our sins are removed
by the Divine Grace, the sense of their conse-
quences in us remains to keep us from that pride
which separates from God, and that, hating our-
selves and finding nothing lovely there, we may
turn from self to God, in Him to find all order,
justice, beauty, rest and peace. God scourges
us away from the world to Himself by outward
crosses, and He scourges us away from loving
ourselves by the inward cross of our nature,
that we may perforce love Him, finding no-
thing to love in ourselves. The cross brings
humility, humility opens our soul towards
OUR JUDGMENT OF OTHERS 249

God, and this same humility is the recipient
of that grace of love which God only gives to
humble souls. But unless by devotion we
convert our humiliation into humility, it turns
like soured fruit into pride and revolt. But if
in anything you have good will, or good de-
sire, or movements of faith, of hope, or of
charity, or prayer, or do any good whatever
for God’s sake, know that it is God who moves
you to it, and confess the gift of God. For this
is humility, and faith, and worship. For St Paul
says, ‘It is God who worketh in you both to
will and to perfect according to His good will.’
Judge not then what you are of God by what
you are of yourself; but in what you are of
yourself be humble, and in what you are of
God be thankful.

“ How can anyone having the light of Christ
think any other really worse than himself? To
form true judgment of any soul, we must have
the sum of all these elements of knowledge be-
fore us. We need to know the chain of all his
lights from beginning to end, the chain of all his
training, the chain of all his providences, the
chain of all his opportunities, the chain of all
his helps and graces, the chain of all his acts,
thoughts, desires and motives, and the chain
of all his temptations. But what know we of
the interior history of anyone except ourselves?
What again do we know of the native interior
character of any soul except our own, or of
the trials of that body to that soul? We
know some of the external acts of another,
250 SELF-JUDGMENT

something perhaps also of his external con-
ditions ; but there our knowledge ends. We
know no one by their interior and its course
of life but ourselves. We have vast evidence
of our own weakness and sinfulness against
light and grace; but we cannot judge another
except superficially. Therefore, God commands
us to judge and sentence ourselves, but not to
judge another. ‘Judge not, and ye shall not
be judged.’ We cannot do it without enormous
presumption. But, as far as we can have evi-
dence, each one must see, if he see himself in
God’s light, that he has no reason whatever to
think anyone worse than himself. St Paul says,
‘He came into the world to save sinners, of
whom I am the chief’ He saw his own misery,
he could not so see the misery of any other man.
And David, contemplating himself in the light
of God, says, ‘I am brought exceeding low, I
am as nothing before Thee, and I knew it not;
I am as a beast of burden before Thee, yet I am
always with Thee.’

“Every Saint has proclaimed the same truth
of him or herself, ever each one accounting
themselves the greatest of sinners, because
they judged themselves by what they knew of
themselves, and by what they knew not of
anyone else besides. Yet all the while they
took refuge from themselves in God, loved
Him exceedingly, and looked for that happy
deliverance from the body of sin when God
should transform their nature and make it like
unto His glory.
CONDITIONS OF SALVATION 251

“T am now prepared by what goes before
for your first point. There is no eternal suffer-
ing for those who have faith, hope and charity;
no, never for those who believe, who hope and
who love God. Whatever sins one may have
committed, and against whatever light, and
under whatever circumstances, the change of
the heart, with the grace of the sacraments, re-
moves them all. Such is the power of the
Divine mystery of Redemption. The grace
of Jesus brought home to our souls removes
our sins, although for our humiliation their
memory remains, as well as for keeping us
watchful and patient.

“Preach the Gospel to every creature: he
who believeth not shall be condemned.’ This
is our Lord’s injunction to the Church. And
‘by faith we are saved,’ is the doctrine of St
Paul. No one ever hoped in God and was
confounded,’ is again the teaching of the Holy
Spirit. And our Lord says, ‘If any love Me,
My Father will love him, and We will come
to him and take up Our abode with him.’
Faith, hope and charity are the conditions of
salvation ; and although we have not that abso-
lute certainty which is metaphysical or mathe-
matical, for that is not in the nature of the
case, yet may we have every moral probability
that we are in the grace of God, and that we
have faith, hope and charity. Faith is to be-
lieve, without doubting, all that God has re-
vealed to the Church, and that the Church
proposes to our belief. ‘If we hear not the
252 FAITH, HOPE AND CHARITY

Church,’ says our Lord, ‘let him be accounted
as the heathen and the publican.’ Well, we
do believe the revelation of God proposed by
the Church. This is the first guarantee that
we are in the grace of God. For it is the
grace of God which illuminates our mind, and
moves our heart to believe. Hope is the as-
sured trust that through the help of God we
Shall receive the good things of eternal life.
St Paul says, ‘By hope we are saved.’ The
principle of this hope or trust is the Divine
Grace moving us to exercise this hope; and
we surely know whether we put our trust in
God’s goodness, mercy, and fidelity to His
promises through the merits of our Lord’s
death and passion.

“Charity is the love of God above all
things, and of our neighbour for the love of
God, and surely if we seek God, and worship
Him as He has prescribed, and keep His
commandments, we have every proof that we
love Him.

“Why then should we torture ourselves
with vain fears and idle comparisons, which
occupy us with ourselves, and trouble us, and
disturb our peace, and take us off from God
to ourselves? All this implies a secret trust
in oneself, weakening our trust in God. How
is it to be remedied? By passing at once, by
an elevation of our heart from ourself to God,
and making an act of hope and trust in Him.
‘All my hope is in Thee; let me never be
confounded.’ ‘O Lord, I believe in Thee; do
REMEDY FOR HARASSING THOUGHTS 253

Thou strengthen my faith. I hope in Thee ;
do Thou increase my trust. I love Thee with
my whole heart ; teach me to love Thee more
and more.’

“When troubling thoughts arise, when the
old man within us tries to assert his own and
to claim our confidence, when the devil tempts
us to keep within oneself and to nurse our fears
and discontents, an elevation of the heart to
God, an inspiration or two, the giving up of
our attention to the Divine presence and the
Divine help, works two effects ; it takes off our
attention from our troubling thoughts, which
can only feed upon our attention given to
them, and it brings down life and peace from
God. ‘Turn to Me, and I will turn to you.
And if your sins be as red as scarlet, I will
make them as white as snow. This is the
secret of the spiritual combat, and the way to
peace, that peace which is the assured sign
and token of God’s presence with us. ‘The
justice of God is sown in peace.’ Fight no
fear or troubling thought: directly; that is to
enter into it, and to foster it, and to get en-
tangled in its coils; but turn to God, dwell on
Him, and the trouble drops off for want of the
attention on which it feeds.

“Tf another quarrel with us, and we enter
into the quarrel, we lose our temper, our peace,
and our very spirit, and, falling below ourself,
we do and say many foolish things. If we keep
our spirit above, and fix our mind on God, we
keep our peace, and perhaps after a time win
254 THE OLD AND NEW ADAM

our quarrelsome neighbour. There are two
within us, the inferior man of the old Adam,
and the superior man of the new Adam, who
is Christ. Now the inferior man is very apt
to quarrel with the superior man—that inferior
man, I mean, who is all made of bodily sense
and imagination. He sends up all sorts of fears,
remonstrances, heats and fantasies against our
superior man, or spirit cleaving to God. He
wants the whole superior man’s love and atten-
tion for himself, and in that inferior man it is
that the devil works, for he can never work
in the substance of our spirit without our free con-
sent. To enter into the inferior man’s quarrel is
just what in his self-love he wants: then we
come down to his level and live in his trouble.
But if we keep our spirit up in its lawful su-
periority, fix it in prayer on God, and cling to
the eternal source of our faith, hope and charity,
then the inferior man with all his troubling and
disturbing suggestions loses his power over our
spirit, and that spirit, however tried, neither
loses peace nor hope, but finds its life and hope
in loving God, and in cleaving to Him. ‘They
who adhere to God are one spirit,’ and peace of
heart is the testimony that God is in the heart.
So St Paul says : ‘What shall separate us from
the love of God?’ And then he enumerates
every cause of separation, and is confident
in his trust that neither life nor death, nor
things present, nor things to come, shall sepa-
rate him from the love of God which is in
Christ Jesus.
SUDDEN ILLNESS 255

“Praying our Lord to bless you and all at
Baddesley Clinton,
“T remain, dear Lady Chatterton,
“Your faithful servant in our Lord,
“W. B. ULLaTHOoRNE.”

She worked at the translation of the “Conforto
dell’ Anima Divota” to the last. Her health was
apparently variable at one time, making me
vaguely anxious, at another seeming to im-
prove, but in reality her life was fading away.

On the 5th of February she was better than
she had been at all since we went to Malvern
Wells. That evening she really seemed herself
again, and joyous as a child, bright and sparkling
as a crystal fountain in the sunlight. The last
thing she did before going upstairs was to look
at and arrange some pieces of old painted glass
that she had put together for the purpose of
seeing whether they would be suitable for the
chapel. Between one and two o'clock she com-
plained of a sudden pain in her head, and as her
appearance alarmed us, I sent for the priest and
the doctor. The Priest, Father McCarten, came
without a moment’s delay. The distance is a
mile. He was in the house within half-an-hour
of the time when I sent off the message to him.
The Poor Clares had just entered their choir to
say matins, when they heard quick steps hurry-
ing into the church. Then they heard the taber-
nacle door unlocked, and knew that it was the
priest who had come for the blessed Sacrament.
They at once began prayers for the dying, and
256 DEATH OF LADY CHATTERTON

thus it happened that the nuns whom she loved
so well, were praying for her in the last moments
of her life on earth.

She was unable to receive the Holy Viaticum.
Father McCarten waited a little to see if it would
be possible, and then gave her extreme unction.
She had asked for her Rosary, and tried to say
it. She was very calm, and evidently did not suf-
fer, more especially after having been anointed,
when her breathing became so gentle and so
regular that she appeared to be sleeping, and for
a while I had a very faint hope that she might
sleep off the attack. But her pulse grew weaker,
the expression of her countenance more and
more spiritual, more and more detached from
earth. I might have known that her beautiful
soul was passing away to its rest.

About three o’clock her pulse had ceased to
beat. It was the only evidence of her death.

‘“Non come fiamma che per forza & spenta,
Ma che per se medesma si consume,
Se n’andd in pace anima contenta:
A guisa d’un soave e chiaro lume,
Cui nutrimento a poco a poco manca;
Tenendo al fin il suo usato costume.
Pallida no, ma pit che neve bianca,
Che senza vento in un bel colle fiocchi
Parea posar come persona stanca.
Quasi un dolce dormir ne’ suoi begli occhi,
Essendo ‘1 spirito gid da lei diviso,
Era quel, che morir chiaman li sciocchi.
Morte bella parea nel suo bel viso.”

Fo * * * *
The doctor came soon afterwards : it could
APPEARANCE AFTER DEATH 257

not be said that he was too late, for the case did
not fall within the compass of his art or the
scope of his science. It was the adorable Will
of Almighty God to take her from this world
in the bloom of her settled faith and the ripe-
ness of her soul.

The beauty of her countenance in death will
not be forgotten by those who witnessed it.
When I saw her for the last time in this world,
her expression was unchanged, her cheeks were
soft and full, her fingers as pliant as in life, and
there was a fresh aromatic odour as of Spring-
flowers mingled with incense. This was never
absent, but sometimes it seemed as if waves of
that strange perfume were passing through the
air. In the chapel, when she was taken there in
her coffin six days afterwards, there was the
same perfume, even sironger than before. I am
simply recalling a fact that was noticed by many,
one of them a singularly matter-of-fact Catholic
squire of the old school. He thus wrote to a
cousin : :

“She looked so beautiful after death, and her
limbs and flesh never became rigid, but were

supple and fragrant, so like what we read of
the Saints.”*

*Letter of Marmion Edward Ferrers to Mrs S. Chatterton.

17
CHAPTER XXVIII.

Letters from the Bishop of Birmingham, the Very

Rev. Dr Newman and others. Rest. Con-
clusion.

Tue number of kind and sympathizing letters
that I received within the next few days was
very great, and I should be unfaithful to the
truth did I not quote some of them, at least in
part. Dr Newman wrote :

“The Oratory.
“My pear Mr Derine,—I have felt for you

very much. There are wounds of the spirit
which never close—and are intended in God’s
mercy to bring us nearer to Him, and to pre-
vent us leaving Him, by their very perpetuity.
Such wounds then may almost be taken as a
pledge, or at least as a ground for humble trust,
that God will give us the great gift of perseve-
rance to the end. As she has now passed the
awful stream which we all have to ford, and is
safe, so in the fact of having been taken from
you, she seems to give you an intimation that
you are to pass it safely also, when your time
comes, and are to meet her again then for ever.
Your losing her here is thus the condition of
your meeting her hereafter.

“This is how I comfort myself in my own
LETTER FROM DR NEWMAN 259

great bereavement. I lost last year my dearest
friend unexpectedly. I never had so great a loss.
He had been my life, under God, for thirty-two
years. I don’t expect the wound will ever heal,
but from my heart I bless God, and would not
have it otherwise, for I am sure that the bereave-
ment is one of those Divine Providences neces-
sary for my attaining that heavenly Rest which
he, through God’s mercy, has already secured.
“So cheer up, and try to do God’s Will in all
things according to the day, as I pray to be able
to do myself.
“Yours most sincerely,
“Joun H. Newman.”

Father Walker, of Kenilworth, wrote :

“Her dear soul was ever yearning and a-
spiring after what was true and beautiful and
pure, as every line of her writings testifies.
Her very lingering for a time outside the por-
tals of the Church was owing to the intense fear
and dread she had of whatever appeared to her
at the time in the least degree contrary to truth
and holiness.”

* * * * *

The Bishop of Birmingham wrote :

“ Birmingham, February 7, 1876.
“My pearR Mr Derine,—I was unwilling to
obtrude upon your first pains after the wound of
separation. But now, as your Bishop and your
affectionate friend, I venture to do so. You
know that from the time of our acquaintance
I have had a true regard for, and have taken
260 LETTER FROM BISHOP ULLATHORNE

a genuine interest in your departed companion.
You know likewise that what I am now writing
comes from both heart and head. Notwithstand-
ing the desolation that comes upon such a priva-
tion, and that so sudden, you have much to con-
sole you and for which to thank God.

“T know what your solicitation has been, and
your prayers for her conversion. And God has
answered them. You know what an accumu-
lated load of early and acquired prejudice she
had to throw from off her naturally simple and
single mind, what quantities of the scales of false
knowledge she had to detach from her, and what
importunities of assiduous friends she had to re-
pel. Well, God enabled her to do all that, and
with agonized efforts to bring her mind and
heart to the Church and to God. Her state of
soul must be measured by all the intellectual
and moral ligatures from which she had to break,
and by all the habits of life which she had to
reverse, and that in her suffering state of health.

“You cannot but be conscious that God has
employed you as His chief instrument to bring
about her union with the Church of the Saints.
She spoke freely to me on that point, and with
great simplicity and fervour of affection.

“We are not to judge her as if she had been
a trained Catholic. God visited her—she open-
ed her heart; grace entered into it, and she
strove on towards greater light, and practice
of the Catholic faith, which had become seated
within her soul. When I last came over to
Baddesley, it was, to say now the truth (though
LETTER FROM BISHOP ULLATHORNE 261

I made another excuse at the time), principally
to see how she was progressing—hoping to help
her if needed. I then saw that she had broken
her shyness about the outward expression of her
faith, and was hearty in it—and I was satisfied.
I saw that all was coming by degrees from the
interior to the exterior, and that when on part-
ing from her in the carriage on my previous visit
she sent for me back, expressed to me her grati-
tude, knelt down and asked my blessing, and
I made a cross on her brow with my finger, a
shell had been broken.

“She had a strong feeling that she would
die this year—are not such impressions such
as guardian angels make? She was therefore
weaning herself from her old world, and looking
forward. Her asking for the Rosary was as
complete an act of Catholic Faith as could be
made: it placed her departure under the Blessed
Mother’s protection. And she received the unc-
tion of Christ’s death in the last of His Divine
Sacraments.

“ How kind and how charitable she was ! and
how her heart was set after her conversion on
benefiting religion! That you know best, but it
is worthy to be recalled.

“T think from me all this will give you con-
solation. May her dear soul rest in that light
and peace of God for which she craved, and
which God gives to all His children who seek
Him with desire.

“ Always your affectionate friend,
“W. B. ULLATHORNE.”
262 A VISION

On Friday afternoon the Bishop came ; also
Father Walker, from Kenilworth, and Father
Morrall, O.S.B. On Saturday morning they
all said Mass in our chapel. Father Kelly and
many more priests, nearly twenty, arrived, and
the Requiem Mass was sung at eleven o'clock.

“The day was beautiful for the funeral, one
emblematic of the departed; for nature refused
to put on mourning, as though it said, ‘ Lament
not for One in bliss... Every twig and blade of
grass was robed in white, and glistened in the
sunshine—the fir trees were one mass of frosted
silver, and only slight tints of their dark green
foliage were visible to distinguish them from
other trees. Nature seemed not to mourn, but
to put on its best attire, and though we all did
indeed deeply mourn, we had a peaceful joy re-
specting her happiness, which is our consolation
now.” *

This was on the 13th day of February—the
Feast, on that year, of the Commemoration
of the Immaculate Conception. To read the
Bishop’s letter again on that subject was one
of the last acts of her life, and she expressed
strongly the consolation she had derived from
it. I think it was during his last visit to her at
Christmas that he was telling us of a beautiful
appearance that had been seen a month or two
previously at York by two or three little children
returning home from the convent school. They
saw a brilliant light, glowing like a fire, shining
behind the stems of some trees : as they watched,

* Letter of Marmion E. Ferrers to Mrs S, Chatterton.
THE BISHOP’S SERMON 263

the light gradually rose above the trees, and they
saw, as they said, a beautiful vision, which they
knew to be our Blessed Lady, although the face
was so bright they could not distinguish the fea-
tures. Her arms were extended downwards as
she is represented on the medals of the _Imma-
culate Conception. There was a ring of light
round her head with a few stars in it, and the
quarter of a moon under her feet. While they
gazed in wonder and delight the vision rose up
slowly, and gradually vanished in the sky.

She often alluded afterwards to the descrip-
tion of this vision, and obtained from the convent
the full particulars of what the children had seen.
On one of those last days she said, as if half to
herself: “I wonder why our Blessed Lady ap-
peared,’—and then added softly with a far-off
look in her eyes, ‘Perhaps it was for me.”

During the celebration of the Requiem Mass
the Bishop preached a sermon that never can be
forgotten by those who heard it, and least of all
by myself. The impression I received cannot
even be weakened by time, so long as I am able
to remember anything at all. I will not venture
to repeat his words from memory, nor could
I do so. When the heart is most deeply im-
pressed by the effect of words, the mind is least
able to retain the words themselves; for an
impression on the heart is one and indivisible,
whereas words necessitate sequence and dis-
tinction. I do indeed remember one sentence in
something remotely like his own words, because
they are essential to a clear remembrance of
264 CONSOLATION

what they expressed. After speaking of the
beautiful simplicity of her character and her
large charity, he said that her whole life had
been a preparation for the reception of the
truth, and he compared her to the exquisite
and delicate flower that blooms but once in
a hundred years, bursts into its perfection in
a single night, and is gone.

When I afterwards expressed my regret at
having tno record of the sermon beyond what
my own memory, broken and confused by sor-
row, could afford, he replied: “I have no
definite recollection of what I said. I never
thought of what I was going to say till I stood
up to say.it. I poured it out from my heart.”

And indeed he poured consolation into mine :
the only sort of consolation that could enter
there.

But I will not speak of myself. Apart from
her I have no existence as regards these pages ;
and I have finished the Memoir.

I have finished it—so far at least as that can
be called finished which ends without complete-
ness. Incomplete it must be, from the nature
of the subject and the necessary limits of its
extent. Had I undertaken to give a complete
description of her singularly beautiful character
and varied powers, as shown in ways innumer-
able, day by day, under every variety of cir-
cumstances, I must have written volumes, and
the book would have been unreadable except
perhaps to the very few who might have time
as well as inclination to study the proportions
CHARACTER OF LADY CHATTERTON 265

of a mind simple in its unity of purpose, in-
tricate in its harmonies.

Her character was like the ocean on a calm
sunny day—translucent near the surface, difficult
to sound in its depths. Any person, having a
heart and ordinary intelligence, might appreciate
her to a certain extent, and few failed to do so
according to their measure ; but the very open-
ness of her disposition was a difficulty in the
way, for it led people to suppose that they could
see into her character, when they really were
looking no farther than the surface on which
they saw something not unlike themselves re-
flected. Anyone looking upon the Mediterranean
from the deck of a ship, and not knowing its
depth, might easily suppose that he could see
the bottom, if he forgot to wonder why he could
not see what the mass of sparkling water rested
on. He would not have the same difficulty if he
were looking at a duck-pond, for he could sound
it with a walking stick.

But her childlike openness was deceptive to
the judgment in another way. Her principles of
action were so much higher than those of the
world, that the world, judging her kindly indeed,
but according to its own experiences, could not
see the fitness of their application. Very good,
conscientious people often found her a puzzle to
their practical common sense, just because they
were not aware that she was more practical,
and more full of common sense than they. We
cannot see what is above us unless we look
upwards.
266 STRENGTH OF WILL

Again, her gracefulness of mind, person and
manner hid the strength of her will more or less
from the eyes of all who had not full opportu-
nities of testing its power. I never knew a
woman who had so strong a will, or who would
so easily bend it to the wishes of others when-
ever she could do so without sacrificing a right
principle; but that was the very reason why
casual or insufficient observers were likely to
misunderstand her in that respect : for the power
of her will was exercised most against herself,
and never conspicuously ; but anyone might see
her yield in trifles that would have made ob-
stinacy resist, conscious of its own weakness.

Then again, her simplicity, her childlike
joyousness, her habitual wish to please, her
desire to meet with sympathy from others, her
sensitiveness to unkind feelings, whether to-
wards herself or some one else, were qualities
that all could recognize in her; but all could
not see that her simplicity was the guide of
a wonderfully penetrating intuition, the safe-
guard of most serious thought, and that neither
her wish to please, nor her desire for sympathy,
was for her own sake, but for the higher advan-
tage of others. Who would have gathered from
experience of the world and knowledge of its
principles that unkindness to herself pained her
simply because it was evil? Yet nothing can be
more certain. Evil of every sort pained her in-
tensely, and any unkindness to her, by thought,
word, or deed, was an evil sign in the few people
who so indulged themselves. I say advisedly,
HER WRITINGS 267

and with practical illustrations in my mind, that
I should never place the least confidence in
them. I could always take the measure of
people, intellectually as well as morally, by
their appreciation, non-appreciation, or defec-
tive appreciation of her. The measurement was
always exact.

Her writings, as I said before, do not ade-
quately represent her intellectual power, for the
simple reason that she never was able to bestow
on them the labour which they required and de-
served. But no one can read them collectively
with knowledge and intelligence, comparing
each with the others and with those of other
women—interpreting what they express, and still
more what they suggest, in accordance with the
true instinct and high tone of feeling which they
cannot fail to recognize in everything she wrote—
no one, in short, can really understand them,
appreciate them fairly, see them in the lhght of
the author’s intention (and there is no other way
of understanding or appreciating any work
whatever), without perceiving the unmistakable
marks of a vigorously original mind, streng-
thened and developed, rather than adorned, by
a vivid and beautiful imagination, dramatic,
poetical and artistic.

_ One word more on this subject. Could I
have had space to write a critical notice of her
works with sufficient extracts from them to
illustrate my meaning, I should have been able
to place before the reader something much
more like a life-portrait of her character and
268 VERSATILITY OF HER GENIUS

mind than the poor sketch I have given; but
deficient it must even then have been. It could
not describe the immense capabilities that better
health would have enabled her to cultivate and
the intellectual sufficiency of Catholic teaching
would have brought to their perfection : it could
not make evident the vigorous versatility of her
powers; it could not show in the light of my
own special and exact experience those marks
of genius which the events of every-day life con-
tinually brought into evidence. It was in home-
life that they could really be seen and recognized,
for there only were opportunities as various as
her powers of using them. Whether she took
up a painting-brush (she painted beautifully in
oils) and characterized a picture, not her own,
in a few touches, or detected a political fallacy
as soon as she heard of it, or ran her fingers
over the harp when we were alone, bringing
such tones as I have never heard from any-
one else, or saw the bearing of a business ques-
tion, while others were thinking about it, or
drew on the first scrap of paper that came to
hand an architectural sketch of singularly per-
fect form and proportion, or designed a building
without omission of any requirement, carrying
out the design without forgetting one detail, or
read a character through with the simplicity of
a child and the acuteness that other people ac-
quire by long habit and the cultivation of mis-
trust, she could not help setting the seal of her
own vigorous originality on the act.

And if the powers of the mind may some-
SPIRIT OF SELF-DENIAL 269

times, as in the present instance, be more ac-
curately measured at home than elsewhere,
much more do the moral virtues—especially
when a supernatural motive flows through all
of them—require to be seen at home, in order
to be seen in their number, their beauty, and
their proportion ; like lilies of the valley, which
are beautiful everywhere, but grow in the shade,
and are seen best where they grow. This is
pre-eminently true as regards her; and I must
here refer briefly to one habitual example of
her practical conscientiousness and spirit of self-
denial, because hardly anyone was aware of 1t—
I mean her habitual practice of personal econo-
my, in direct opposition to inclinations, tastes,
genius, and even wants. Were I to say how
little she spent on her dress, I should not ex-
pect to be believed, for she always appeared in
Society well and becomingly dressed ; but many
of the dresses that looked the best had cost the
least, or were old ones that had been shaped into
different fashions modified after her own. All
her personal expenses were far below the lowest
calculation of what she was fully entitled to make
them. Whatever she had for personal use was
chosen in that Catholic spirit of poverty without
which it is impossible to be truly generous or
practically just. Whatever she did was done in
that spirit: therefore she was generous and just
to an extent that was neither known nor imagin-
ed by friends who had known her longest. Yet
the economy that enabled her to be so entailed
a continuous act of self-denial—a constant sacri-
270 SOURCES OF CONSOLATION

fice, not merely of cultivated tastes and of powers
that she could not help feeling within her, but of
things which, to one so delicately organized, may
fairly be called necessities.

I have finished—not in the reality of complete-
ness, but in fact. And now, at the end of a task
for which, as regards my own feelings, I cannot
find a name, so inseparably have pain and conso-
lation been united, I have only to say that, if my
description of her character should seem to any-
one highly coloured, the cause lies in the nature
of the facts. I have neither overstated the truth
nor given a deeper colour to it by manner of
expression. A beautiful character, complete as
a whole and proportioned in its parts, is often
liable to seem unreal when viewed from a
distance, because everyday experience is an impe-
diment to belief in its reality. I have myself
mistaken a beautiful exotic flower for one made
of wax because it seemed to me to be too beauti-
ful to be natural, and because I happened to see
it where wax flowers were more likely to be.

Among the many consolations that have en-
abled me to bear a loss co-extensive with the
whole range of earthly interests, is the know-
ledge, derived from her own words often re-
peated, that a book written by myself helped
her into the Church:* but it is a far greater
consolation to know that she alone, of all earthly
beings, made it possible for me to have done so.
And I do know—if I know anything at all—that
she brought me into the Church as effectually as

* Sherborne, or the House at the Four Ways.
INFLUENCE OF HER LIFE 271

if she had been conscious of what she was doing.
I know that the relations of cause and effect
were as distinct as if she had been a Catholic at
the time.

Circumstances considered, it could not have
happened otherwise ; for the providential order
of events that brought me into the Church be-
fore her, had only strengthened the causes of
her Catholic influence over me. How could
I witness the constant struggle between her
Catholic instincts and her fear of being led by
a human motive—how could I see her day by
day following, at the greatest possible sacrifice,
the dictates of conscience, unsatisfying to her
soul, yet apparently permanent, and not feel the
silent influence of her life on my own growing
convictions ? When I say that a lady—one of
the best and dearest friends that I have, or ever
can have, whose mind and character she formed
—gives testimony to the fact of having been
trained by her as if by a novice mistress, so that,
on becoming a Catholic, everything except the
necessary course of doctrinal instruction was
familiar, I have said enough to show what the
nature of her influence was. Were I not able
to attribute my conversion to her, I should con-
sider myself to be even more unworthy of that
unspeakable blessing than I am.
APPENDIX,

Letter from the Right Rev. the Bishop of Birmingham, after-
watds His Grace the Archbishop of Cabasa, to Mr Dering,
on receiving a copy of “ The Memoirs,”

“ Birmingham, May 14, 1878.

“My pEAR Mr Derinc,—I received the “* Memoirs ” yester-
day, and thank you for them. I read them through yesterday
evening. The Diary is very interesting on three accounts ; (1) the
anecdotes of a past generation of notable persons; (2) her own
environments from infancy to maturity, and the diversity of
influences, all refined, that acted upon her formation ; (3) and
chief in interest, her own internal growth.

“There was enough in her way of bringing up, early petting
and notice from distinguished persons to have spoiled almost
any child. Her coming through it all with so much force and
principle is wonderful. For this I see two causes in operation.
First and chief is the intrinsic qualities of a fine nature, simple,
pure, quick in perception, sensitive, intuitive. Secondly, there
must have been solid qualities in her parents, and a good deal
of the old traditional family discipline, with the fine old manners,
not tightened upon the lively girl, but breathed as from a natural
atmosphere. She had the discipline of hearts that were gentle
and mild, genuine with all courteous humanity.

“One can read her interior progress between the lines, which is
very marked in the latter portion of the Diary. A high sensibility
of soul, thrilling at the touch of good, acutely sensitive to evil,
holding more principle than she is conscious of, teased with
fears, tormented with the pictures of views lower than her own,
mainly because she could not sufficiently distinguish what was
present in her imagination from what was actually in her soul;
yet withal a penetration into the clear shallowness of men de-
fective in intuition, and living on false logic, such as Mill’s and

all the unbelieving race. On that class of man she had written
18
274 APPENDIX

very acute and incisive remarks, tipped off from her pen with that
ease and simplicity which shows her clear-sightedness.

“ Her self-discipline, amid all this sensibility, all that society
with all its flattering accompaniments, and all that miscellaneous
literature, reveals an internal strength and purity of heart which is
the noble feature of her character. Nature will not explain it.
God was with her; managing her life, advancing her without
touching her freedom, as He knows how, and bringing her
through many obstacles into the broad day of His Truth, and
into the sunshine of His Love.

“I hope you are all well, and I pray God to bless you
and my other dear friends within the Moat.

“T remain,
“ My dear Mr Dering,
“ Always affectionately yours,
“oh W. B. ULLATHORNE.”

In a subsequent letter, dated May 17 of the same year, the
Bishop writes :

“T have looked over the Diary again, and am really much
struck with the originality and simple profundity of some of the
remarks. The observation on the young Queen, that her weak-
ness is her strength, and that few men like a strong authority
over them with right, is of this kind. It may be extended to
the influence of humble men. The ‘Reply to a Sceptic’
(p. 127) is a profound treatise. But the finest remark in the
book is this (p. 38): ‘It is distressing to see how attractive
evil is in the world. ‘To represent evil principles in a good
light, and delineate evil passions with that nervous vigour
which the aggressive nature of evil makes comparatively easy, ts
sure to ensure a favourable inclination beforehand.’ Rochefou-
cauld could have said nothing better: Pascal nothing more
condensed or profound.

“JT pray God to bless you and Mr and Mrs Ferrers, and always
remain,

“ My dear friend,
“ Yours affectionately,
‘+E W. B. ULLATHORNE.”
INDEX.

“© A Good Match,” 55

“ Allanston,” 52; 111

Anathema, meaning of, 174

Anglican Church, 209

Apparition of the Blessed Virgin,
261, 262

Architecture, Lady Chatterton ver-
sed in, 268

Aristotle, selections from translated,

170
pee Street, 6,7; 8; 12; 14
Augustine, St, on the Church, 196;
on divine love, 235
“ Aunt Dorothy's Tale,” 593 119

Babbage, 87; 168

Baddesley Clinton, 153; 166; Mass
in the domestic chapel, 233;
never had an apostate owner,

233

Baillie, Joanna, 75, 76

Barham, Lord, 7 (note t); 15, 17

Barham Court, 15, 16, 18

Beaumont, Count Gustave de, 102

Berry, Misses, 35

Bishop of Birmingham, see Ulla-
thorne

Blackwood, Nelly, 22, 23; 25 ; Cap-
tain, 64; Mrs, 86

Bloxworth, 113

Bodle, Miss, 139

Bossuet, on the sects, 193

Bourke, Richard, 88

Brewster, Sir David, 70

Brougham, Lord, his novel, ‘“‘ Albert
Lunel,” 31, 32

“ Brown Lady,” the, 94

Browning, 33

Buller, Lady Agnes, 115

Bulwer, see Lytton

Burke, Edmund, impressed by
Bishop Gibson, 193-195

Bury, Lady Charlotte, 96

Butler’s ‘‘ Lives of the Saints,’’ 220

Butler, Mrs, 87

Chatterton, Georgiana Lady, her
birth-place, 6; parentage, 7

 

t

(note +); moral sense, 6, 7
(note *); childhood’s remini-
scences, 13, I4, 15, 18; 21,
22; marriage with Sir William
Chatterton, 22; Florence, 22-
24; Naples, 24; Venice, 25;
translations from‘ Richter’s
works, 25 (cp. 153, 154); her
father’s death, 26, 27; her
mother’s death, 27, 28, 29;
begins to write, 30; meets the
poet Rogers, 30-32; meets
Landor, 32-34; deafness, 34;
meets Macaulay, Carlyle and
Dickens, 37; first novel,
“Aunt Dorothy's Tale,” 37,
38; meets Lord Lytton, Sir
Francis Doyle, Fonblanque
and Lockhart, 38; La-Ferté-

sous-Jouarre, 40-42; love of
retirement, 45, 46; recollec-
tions of her mother, 47-52;

“‘Allanston,” 52; ennuz, 533
‘**A Good Match,” 55; harp-
playing, 56; ‘‘ Aunt Dorothy’s
Tale,” 59; an old servant, 66;
Hallam, Wordsworth, 71, 72;
success of ‘‘Rambles in the
South of Ireland,” 71, 72;
meets Montalembert, 73, 743
“Home Sketches and Foreign
Recollections,” 83;  dinner-
party of notable persons, 86-
88 ; experiences of apparitions
and perceptions of the danger
or death of dear ones, 89-96;
“The Pyrenees and Spain,”

99; Rue de Rivoli, dinner-
party, 103; ‘‘Allanston,” r11;
her husband’s death, 115;

“Compensation,” 115; loneli-
ness, 116-118; ‘* The Reigning
Beauty,” 119, 123; on Faith
and Scepticism, 126-128 ; mar-
riage with Mr Dering, 133;
unconscious influence towards
his becoming a Catholic, 133-
136; epitome of her subsequent
276

ten years’ trial, 136-138; her
influence in society, 139-141;
“‘Memorials of Admiral Lord
Gambier,” 142; ‘‘ The Heiress
and her Lovers,” ‘‘ Léonore,
Marie de Ganges, and other
Poems,” ‘‘Grey’s Court,” 144-
147; ‘‘Oswald of Deira,” 147-
152; ‘Country Coteries”’ ;
letter from Bishop Ullathorne,
touching the Immaculate Con-
ception, 153 7; a wraith, 165;
removal to Baddesley Clinton,
166; ‘Lady May” com-
mended by Dr Newman, 166,
167; ‘‘ The Lost Bride,” ‘‘ Won
at Last,” 169, 170; Aristotle,
170; ‘‘Il conforto dell’ anima
divota,” 171; touching lines of
prayer for Faith, 171; love for
the Poor Clares, 171; letters
from Bishop Ullathorne on
Communion under one and
both kinds, 174 ff, on Faith,
the Church, Prayer, 187 7; on
Celibacy and the Education of
the Clergy, 2007, final trial
submission to the Church, 214,
215; ‘‘ Misgivings,” ‘‘ Convic-
tions,” 216-218; letter to Dr
Newman, and reply, 218-220;
presentiment of death, 232;
asks the Bishop’s blessing,
232 (cp. 261); the Bishop’s
letter on Feeling and Will,
2337, his last letter to her,
243 7; her death, 256; beauty
of countenance after death,
fragrance, 257; the Requiem
Mass, 262; the Bishop’s ser-
mon, 263, 264; her character,
gracefulness, writings, accom-
plishments, 264 77

Cambridge, Duke of, 14

Carlyle, 25, 37

Caradoc, Colonel, 56

Castle Mahon, 22

Ceremonial, Bishop Ullathorne on,
224

Chantrey, Sir Francis, 36; 70, 71

Charitas, Charus amor, 235

Charleville, Lady, 96; 104, 105;
her daughter, 105

Charlotte, Queen, ro

Chatham, Lord, 7; 19

Chatterton, Sir William, 22;
health and death, 113, 115

ill-

 

INDEX

Church, Bishop Ullathorne on the,
192-198 ; (quotes St Augustine,
196); 208; the Anglican, 209;
the Zimes on the purity of the
Catholic, 211; 230, 231; 252

Cleveland, Duchess of, 125

Coleridge, ode on a Beautiful
Duchess, 18

Communion under one and both
kinds, 174 sqq

“Compensation,” 115, 119

Conroy, Sir John, 56

“ Convictions,” 216-218 ; 224

Cork, Lady, 30, 31 ; her eccentrici-
ties, 78-81 ; 96

Czartoriska, Princess, 100, 103

Council of Trent, 210

Damer, Lady Caroline, 24

Damer, Mrs Dawson, 24; 36

Davy, Lady, 98

Day, Dr, 12, 13

Décaze, Duchesse, 102, 103

Demidoff, Prince, 23

Dering, Mr, 133; attributes his be-
coming a Catholic to Lady
Chatterton’s influence, 133,
134; she, in turn, attributes
her conversion to him, 218,
219, 270, 271; cp. Bishop
Ullathorne’s testimony, 260

Devonshire House, 39

Diary, Lady Chatterton’s, Bishop
Ullathorne on the, appendix

Dickens, 37

Dinner-parties of notable persons,
86-88 ; 103

Doyle, Sir Francis, 38

Puen Lady, 22, 23; 36; Lord,
4.

Ellerton, Mr, 145
Elphinstone, Mount-Stewart, 70
Encombe, 7 ; 145

Faith, 126-128; 156; Bishop Ulla-
thorne’s letter on, 187 ff, dis-
positions for, 191, 192; the way
to it, Prayer, 195

Featherstonhaugh, Sir Harry, 27

Fitzherbert, Mrs, 24

Fonblanque, 38, 39

Ferrers, Marmion Edward, 153 ;
257; 262

Ferrers, Mrs (see also ‘‘ Pysie”’),
1535 214

Finchden, 141
INDEX

Fitzroy, Lady Laura, 87

Gainsborough, Lord, 16; his wife
and daughter, 103; 233

Gambier, Mr; Admiral Lord; de
Lavigny, 7 (note t); Miss, 11;
Cornish, 16; 173 142

George III, Bon-mot, 9; visits to
Kingston, 9, 10; good-nature,
10, II

George IV, 21; 24

Ghost Stories, Sherborne Castle,
89-92 ; Raynham—the ‘‘ Brown
Lady,” 94-96 ; Shadows, 95

Gibbon, his commendation of
Butler’s ‘‘ Lives of the Saints,”

220
Gibson, Bishop, impresses Edmund
Burke, 193-195
Gifford, Countess, 22, 23
Glenelg, Lord, 31, 36; 96, 97
Gore, Mrs, 39
Grafton, Duke of, 14
Gratry, Pére, his retractation, 212
“Grey's Court,” 145
Grisi, 39 ; 68, 69
Grizot, M., 100, his sister, 101

Hadji Baba, 98

Hahn-Hahn, Ida, Countess, 84-86

Halford, Sir Henry, 12; 21

Hallam, 70; 72; 87

Hannah More, 18, 19

Harness, 333 75) 76

Harp, beauty of, as played by Lady
Chatterton, 268

Harrington House, 168

Harrington, Lady, 169

Hastings, Lady Flora, 29; 72

Hawtrey, Dr, 37

Hayward, 84, 85

“ Heiress and her Lovers,” 144

Heneage, 218, see Dering

Henin, Mademoiselle d’, 103

Hertford, Lord, 23

Hewitt, Father, O.S.B., his death,
16,

Heme Sketches and Foreign Re-
collections,” 22, 40; 83

Houghton, Lord, see Monckton
Milnes

Howden, Lord, 56; 973; 103

“Il Conforto dell’ Anima Divota,”
171; 218; 255

Immaculate Conception, Bp Ulla-
thorne on the doctrine,” 154 7

 

277

Infallibility of the Pope, 211, 212

Invocation of Saints, 161-163

Iremonger, Rev. Lascelles ; Har-
riett, 7 (notet); Io, 1153 133 143
15, 16; 17; 25, 26; their deaths,
26-29 3 47-52; 63; 91, 92

Jameson, Mrs, 39
Johnson, Dr, 16

Kelly, Rev. Joseph, 215 ; 217; 218;
262

Kent, Duchess of, 28, 29 ; 72

Kenyon, Mr, 32, 34

Kingston House, 7; visits of George
THI, 93 144

“Lady May,” 166, 167

Lamartine, M. de, 100, 102

Landor, 32-34

Lansdowne House, 31, 32

Lansdowne, Lord, 35 ; 36; 38; 723
83; 86; 141

“Lead kindly Light,” 219

“Leonora, and other Poems,” 144-

14
Lelie ilties, Mr, 27; 63
Letzen, Baroness, 29; 723; 83
Lindsay, Lady Charlotte, 87
Lockhart, 38, 39; 72; his daughter,

943 965 983 119
Luttrell, 36, 37
Lytton, Lord, 38; 68, 69; his

mother, 69; 72; 87; 96; 103

Macaulay, 37; 86, 87; 111

Marie Antoinette, 7

‘« Marie de Ganges,” 145-147

Marlay, Madame, 99, 103-105 ; her
“second sight,” 105-111

Martial’s ‘‘ Missions,” 204

Martineau, Miss, 87; 96

Marsham, Lord, 13

Maurice, Frederic Denison, 130-132

Mayo, Lord, see Bourke

McCarten, Father, 255, 256

Merit, Bp Ullathorne on, 156-159

Meulan, Countess de, ror

Middleton, Sir Charles and Lady,
7 and note*; 10; 15; 163 19,
20; 29

Milman, Dean, 31, 32; 373 743 84

Milner, Bp, 205

Milnes, see Monckton Milnes

Milton, Lord, 24 (note *)

Minuet de la Cour, 7; 11 3 77

‘* Misgivings,” 216, 217
278

Missions, comparison of Catholics
and Protestants, 204

Monasteries plundered to create a
new nobility, 210

Monckton Milnes, 35; 73, 74; 843
87 ; 96; 100; 113, 114

Montalembert, Count de, 73, 74;
102; his wife, 102, 103

Monteagle, Lord, 37; 71

Moore, 353 73

Morier, J., 98

Morpeth, Lord, 75

Morrall, Father, O.S.B., 262

Murchison, Sir Roderick, 112

Newman, Cardinal, 25; 148; 160;
commendation of ‘‘ Lady May,”
166; 167; further letters, 169,
170; 188, 189; letter of sym-
pathy to Mr Dering after Lady
Chatterton’s death, 257, 258

Noel, Lady Louisa, 103

Normanby, Lady, 75

Northampton, Lord, 12

Norton, Mrs, 23

O'Connell, 75

Opie, Mrs, 74

Orpen, Miss, 115, see ‘‘ Pysie.”
““Oswald of Deira,” 147-152

Paine, Tom, 12

Painting, Lady Chatterton’s profi-
ciency, 268

Papacy, Bp Ullathorne on the, 211,
212

Parnther, Mr Parnther’s dinner-
party, 78, 79

Peers, the monasteries plundered to
create a new nobility, 210

Périgord, Prince de Chalais, 103

Pitt, 7; 19, 20

Pitt, Mr and Mrs Morton, 6; Bon-
mot of George III on Mr, 9;
12; daughter, 13, 14, 15, 16,
17, 18; 21 ; 62, 63 ; 83 3124; 144,

145

Plato, references to, by Bp Ulla-
thorne, 151 ; 196

Poor Clares at Baddesley Convent,
1713 255, 256

Pozzo di Borgo, Count, 43

Priests, 229, 230

“« Pyrenees and Spain,” 99

“ Pysie,” 99; 115 5 1235 1453 153

 

INDEX

Rabotin, Préfet and Madame’s Re-
ception, IoI, 102

Raby, 125

*< Rambles in the South of Ireland,”
68, 71, 72

Raynham Ghost, 94-96

‘Reigning Beauty,” 119, 123

Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 16

Richter, 25; 153, 154

Rivers, Lord and Lady, 97; 124

Rogers, Samuel, 30-32 ; 34 ; 36 5 373
393 72.3 739.745 77s 783 84 5 87,
88; 96; 98; last words and
death 113, 114

Rogers, Miss, the Poet’s sister, 74

Rolls Park, 113, 114, 115

Romney, Lord, 13

Rosary, Bp Ullathorne on, 220 ff;
cp. 256, 261

Rosse, Lord, 112, 113

Seamore Place, 27; 30; 32 f; 63;
1155 1223 139, 1415 143

“*Second Sight,” 92 94; 165

Sedgwick, Miss, 74; 76, 77

Sedgwick, Professor, 112

Shadows, Ghost, 95

Sherborne Castle,
89-92

“« Sherborne,” effect on Lady Chat-
terton’s conversion, 218, 219;
270

Sheridan, Tom, 64

Sidney Smith, 37; 66; 72; 74, 753
86, 87 ; 96

Smedmore, 144

Somerset, Duchess of, 23, 24

Somerville, Mrs, 57 ; 64-66

Southey’s ‘‘ The Talisman is
Faith,” 189

Staél, Madame de, 8; 45

Strathfieldsaye, 124

Ghost Story,

Taylor, Mr, author of ‘‘ Philip van
Artevelde,” 37

Thackeray, 141

The Times on the Catholic Church,
211

Taranto, Archbishop of, 24

Trent, Council of, 210

Trial,a ten years’, 136-138; final, 214

Ullathorne, Dr, Bishop of Birming-
ham, 138; 153; letter touching
the Immaculate Conception,
156; Faith and Reason, 156-159;
Invocation of Saints, 161-163 ;
letters on Communion under
INDEX

one and both kinds, 174 ff;
letters on Faith and the Church,
187 #7, Celibacy and the Educa-
tion of the Clergy, 200 ff;
missions, 204; failure of the
English Establishment, 209 ;
Universities, 209, 210; quotes
The Times on the purity of the
Church, 211; Papal Infalli-
bility, councils, 211, 212; letter
on hearing of Lady Chatter-
ton’s submission, 214, 215; on
the Rosary, 220 ff; on Cere-
monial, 224 #7, on Feeling and
Will, 233 77; ‘ast letter to Lady
Chatterton, 243 /, letter of
sympathy to Mr Dering after
Lady Chatterton’s death, 259-
261; account of an apparition
of our Lady, 261, 262; Sermon
at Lady Chatterton’s Requiem,
263, 264; Universities, 209, 210

Victoria, Princess, instance of the
Queen’s quickness of ear and
memory, 28, 29; 60, 61 ; 72

 

279

Vigny, Count Alfred de, 101, 102,
103
Virtue, Mgr, 233

Walker, Father, letter of sympathy
to Mr Dering after Lady Chat-
terton’s death, 259; 262

Walpole, Dorothy, 94, cp. 96

Warburton, Eliot, 88

Weale, Miss, 25

Webster, 73 ; 75

Wellington, Duke of, 39 ; 124

Wherwell Priory, 26

Whewell, Professor, 25; 97

Wilberforce, Mr, 16, 17

Wilkie, 72 ; 119

Winchester, Prebendal House,
mysterious occurrence, 92, 93

Woolstan Hall, 138

Wootton Hall, 153

Wordsworth, 71, 72; 77

Wraith, 92-94 5 165

Writings, Lady Chatterton’s, 3, 4;
267, 268

 

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WORKS
by
GEORGIANA, LADY CHATTERTON

VOLS

Aunt Dorothy’s Tale. (Bentley, 1837) . i

Rambles in the South of Ireland. (Saunders and Otley,
1839) .

A Good Match, and éiliex Tales. (Bentley, 1Bite)

Home Sketches and Foreign Recollections. (Saunders
and Otley, 1841) ‘ : : ’

The Pyrenees and Spain. (Saunders and Otley, 1843) .

Allanston, or the Infidel. (Newby, 1843) ;

Reflections on the History of the Kings of jude,
(Newby, 1848) ;

‘“* Compensation.” Arronpmiatrs,, (Parker 1856)

Life and its Realities. (Hurst and Blackett, 1857)

The Reigning Beauty. (Hurst and Blackett, 1858)

Extracts from Jean Paul Richter. (Parker, 1851)

Memorials Personal and Historical of Admiral Lord
Gambier. (Hurst and Blackett)

Selections from Works of Plato. (Bentley, 1862)

The Heiress and her Lovers. (Bentley, 1863) .

Léonore, and other Poems. (Macmillan, 1864).

Quagmire A-head. (Privately printed, 1864.) Pamphlet

Grey’s Court. (Smith and Elder, 1865). ‘

Oswald of Deira. A Drama. (Longman, 1867) ‘

A Plea for Happiness and Hope. (Privately printed)

Pamphlet

Country Coteries. (Hurst’and Blackett, 1868) .

Lady May. A Pastoral. (Richardson, 1869)

The Golden Bird. In a Magazine, two numbers

The Lost Bride. (Hurst and Blackett, 1872)

Won at Last. (Hurst and Blackett, 1874)

Extracts from Aristotle’s Works. (Privately printed, 187 s)

Misgivings and Convictions. 1875. Two Pamphlets

The Consolation of a Devout Soul. From the Italian of
Frassinetti. (Burns)

2

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