MAJ.
.EGE
IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES
IN THE SIXTIES
AND SEVENTIES
Impressions of Literary People
and Others * * *
By LAURA HAIN FRISWELL
MAJ.
BOSTON
HERBERT B. TURNER & COMPANY
683 ATLANTIC AVENUE
1906
R
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LiE^*/ y
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tpt,
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
PREFACE
IN writing this book, I have tried to picture certain
scenes in the life of a young girl, the only daughter
of two most unworldly idealists who tried to live
the Gentle Life, or in other words, the Simple Life.
The girl was, from her earliest years, thrown amongst
an exceptional set of people, most of whom were
then, or have since become, celebrated. I have done
my best to draw pictures of these people, and to
describe their relations to the girl, their kindness to
her, and the impressions they made upon her. I have
also essayed to depict the beginnings of certain move-
ments that were to reform Society and what are
called the " Lower Classes," but which, like so many
such schemes, have fallen into disuse or abuse.
I will only add that I earnestly hope that the pre-
diction of the late Mr. H. D. Traill will come true, and
that In the Sixties and Seventies will please the public.
LAURA HAIN FRISWELL
WIMBLEDON, 1905,
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
James Hain Friswell, Essayist, Critic, and Novelist; Author of
The Gentle Life— The " Institooshun "— Mr. Frisweil's
Courage—" Little Toddlekins " and her Father I
CHAPTER II
Toddlekins and George Cruikshank — Cruikshank's Great Picture,
The Worship of Bacchus — Cruikshank and Temperance —
The Chevalier and Madame de Chatelain — Andrew Halliday
and Toddlekins — The Broughs II
CHAPTER III
Supper-rooms — Ross the Singer — " Evans's " — A Pathetic Story
— My Visit to " Evans's " — We see the Prince of Wales —
Paddy Green 31
CHAPTER IV
Under a Cloud— -The Burtons— To School at Watford— Yellow-
backed Novels — The Specimen Pupil — Mr. and Mrs. Gerald
Massey — Thomas Cooper, Chartist . .... 43
CHAPTER V
Mr. Edward Draper, a Literary Solicitor — Some Memorable Days
— I leave School — Dr. Benjamin Ward Richardson — An
Awkward Position — Mr. Edward Clarke — Dr. Pankhurst — A
Successful Case — A Large Children's Party , . . .61
VII
viii Contents
CHAPTER VI
PAGE
The Bayard Series — Anecdotes of Mr. Swinburne — Swinburne
comes to Tea — The Ralston Russian Stories — Mr. Swinburne
again • • 73
CHAPTER VII
" The Angel Epps " — A Glimpse of Mrs. Langtry— Mr. Du
Maurier enjoys a Hearty Laugh — Mrs. Du Maurier and her
Husband's Sketches— The Last Time I saw Mr. Du Maurier 84
CHAPTER VIII
A Queen Anne House — An Indian Prince — A Vision of the Past
— A Large " At Home " 92
CHAPTER IX
" The Duchess " — A Serious Accident — Professor Morley —
" A Story from Boccaccio " — Prince Jon Ghica — A Letter
from Kingsley — Alton Locke and Thomas Cooper— I meet
Charles Kingsley ......... 104
CHAPTER X
The Play— The Prince of Wales's Theatre— Marie Wilton— Mr.
Montague — J. S. Rice, and " Proposals from the Fair Sex " —
Behind the Scenes — Creswick — True to the Core — Creswick
as "Hamlet" — Irving as "Hamlet" — Henry Marston —
Phelps — Marston in Danger of his Life — Miss Marriott . .118
CHAPTER XI
Mr. J. L. Toole — His Practical Jokes — Irving in Dearer than
Life — Mr. W. S. Gilbert — "The House where the Plague
broke out" 133
CHAPTER XII
The Death of Nellie Moore — Irving, and Mendelssohn's Songs
•without Words — Misgivings about The Bells — The First
Night of The Bells . . . .143
Contents
CHAPTER XIII
PAGE
The Rev. J. M. Bellew— Reflections on the Church — Bellew and
the Furniture— Bellew as a Public Reader— A Reading of
Romeo and Juliet— Bellew leaves the Church . . . 152
CHAPTER XIV
Introduced to Charles Dickens— " Like Little Nell"— The Fare-
well Dinner to Dickens — Anthony Trollope — Lord Lytton —
A Curious Scene — Introduced to Tennyson .... 164
CHAPTER XV
James Hain Friswell's Philanthropy — The Censor Dinners —
Slumming in those Days — A Sad Story — " Have we beat ? " . 176
CHAPTER XVI
Mr. and Mrs. Justin McCarthy — William Barry — Miss Heraud —
Henrie Dray ton — The Gingerbread Maiden — Letters from
Hans Christian Andersen 192
CHAPTER XVII
An "At Home" at the McCarthys'— William Black— Mr. Rice
on " Women's Heroes " — William Black's Kindness — Richard
Whiteing 204
CHAPTER XVIII
Sir Thomas and Lady Duffus Hardy — Iza Duffus Hardy — Youth-
ful Sculptors — Blowing Bubbles — Out on the Roof — General
Lowe . . . . . 217
CHAPTER XIX
Nick-names — " Marie Antoinette " — " A Modern Antique " — A
Dance at Lady Hardy's — Curious Partners — Lord Romilly's
Son — Louis Blanc — I dance with Louis Blanc — Louis Blanc
and " Marie Antoinette " — General Lowe .... 225
Contents
CHAPTER XX
PAGE
Madox Brown — The Pre-Raphaelite Young Ladies — " A Great
Distinction " -The Pre-Raphaelite Young Ladies on William
Morris — Sir Benjamin Richardson on Truth .... 239
CHAPTER XXI
Mr. Joseph Ellis — Snowed up on the Line — An Old English
Home — " Orion " Home — Mr. Dallas — Miss Isabella Dallas
Glyn — Miss Glyn on Marriage — An Evening Party and an
Amusing Incident— A New Version of Petrarch and Laura . 249
CHAPTER XXII
At Frampton Court — The Hon. Mrs. Norton and her Sons — Two
Amusing Mistakes — Bexley Heath — The Village Autocrats —
Their Opinion of the Author of The Earthly Paradise . . 262
CHAPTER XXIII
My Father's Illness — Rice's Idea of Wit — A Rush for the Doctor
— I give Mr. Rice a Fright by Way of Revenge — Alone at
Bayard Cottage 271
CHAPTER XXIV
J. S. Rice as an Editor — The Offices of Once a Week — A Recipe
for Falling Hair — The Mortimers — A Wonderful Review —
Mr. Rice's Delight thereat — Rice on Literary Women . . 278
CHAPTER XXV
Sir Walter Besant — The Incorporated Society of Authors — I join
the Authors' Society — An Interview with Besant — He dis-
courses on his Favourite Topic — The Gentle Life, and its
Publishers — A Letter from Lady Lytton .... 288
Contents xi
CHAPTER XXVI
PAGE
A Dinner at the Authors' Society — I first see Sir H. M. Stanley
-How I wished he had not found Livingstone — My Last
Interview with Sir Walter Besant — His Advice on Novel-
writing 300
CHAPTER XXVII
We go to Live at Bexley Heath — Reminiscences of Artemus
Ward — Joseph Hatton — Arthur Sketchley — Sarah Bern-
hardt's Exhibition in Piccadilly — A Fashionable Wedding —
Gladstone and Sir William Harcourt 308
CHAPTER XXVIII
Old Letters — Lady Lytton's Correspondence with my Father —
Some Anecdotes of Benjamin Disraeli — Disraeli's Devotion
to his Wife — Lady Beaconsfield — Mr. H. D. Traill on Remi-
niscences— The End 319
In the Sixties and Seventies
CHAPTER I
JAMES HAIN FRISWELL, ESSAYIST, CRITIC, AND NOVELIST; AUTHOR
OF " THE GENTLE LIFE " — THE " INSTITOOSHUN " — MR. FRISWELL'S
COURAGE — "LITTLE TODDLEKINS" AND HER FATHER.
*HERE was once a time," says Thackeray in
JL The Newcomes, " when the sun used to shine
more brightly than it appears to do in this latter half
of the nineteenth century ; when the zest of life was
keener, when the perusal of novels was productive of
immense delight, and the monthly advent of magazine
day was hailed as an exciting holiday ; when to know
Thompson, who had written a magazine article, was
an honour and a privilege."
We do not feel like this now ; there are too many
novels, too many magazines (all alike too), and too
many Thompsons writing ; the " privilege," it seems,
would now be to know the person who does not write.
But Thackeray was speaking of the days of his youth,
and yet it seems to me this passage would equally
apply to the time when he was writing it. I do not
2 In the Sixties and Seventies
quite know the year The Newcomes first appeared, but
if it was published as he wrote it, which is most likely,
it must have been in 1853 or 1854, for the last words
were written in Paris in June, 1855.
At this time there lived in Pentonville, then a some-
what rural neighbourhood, a young couple who were
enthusiastic admirers of Thackeray. The day that the
instalments of his novels came out was " hailed as an
exciting holiday ' ' ; and though the stories often ran
twenty-three months, it was not a day too long for
these enthusiastic young people. Should we keep up
our interest in a story now for nearly two years ? and
could any one feel excited over magazine day ? — but
there is no magazine day, because there are more
magazines than days in the longest month.
This young couple, who were known to their
friends as " the model couple," had soaring ambitions,
and a great idea of their duty to their fellow creatures.
The young man, whose name was James Hain
Friswell, and who afterwards became well known in
literary circles, and to the world, as an essayist and
novelist, being anxious for the advancement and
education of the masses, taught in a ragged school two
or three times a week, helping his schoolfellow, the
Rev. Warwick Wroth. Mr Wroth was a remarkable
man, an aesthetic of the old school, and the first
clergyman of the Established Church to don vestments.
Hard work and fasting undermined his health, and he
died at an early age.
James Hain Friswell 3
Mr. Friswell not only helped in the ragged school,
but he joined an institution in Gray's Inn Road, where
he laboured to drum into the heads of working-men
mathematics and the rudiments of Latin and Greek.
The institution was started by Mr. Passmore Edwards,
whom every one now knows for his philanthropic
schemes ; he was even then laying the foundation
for those greater works, and the young author threw
himself with enthusiasm into his scheme for helping
the poor. He was an idealist ; he felt he was im-
proving mankind, and making the world, in his little
way, better than he found it. This thought was
his reward ; and as he looked at the whitewashed walls
of the " institooshun," as his pupils called it, he felt
he was not living quite uselessly.
Those were the days when there was so much stir
amongst the people ; 1 848 was over, but the Charter
and the Five Points were still debated. The masses
were seething, struggling for more education, more
freedom. In France Lacordaire preached the Gospel,
and with it the benefit of the poor. The Abbe
Lamennais had made a social tract of some of the
words of the Saviour, and called it, I believe, u The
Gospel of Freedom/' and on the walls of the
" institooshun ' hung two remarkable portraits ; one
was Eugene Sue, then well known for his socialist
novels, the other was Charles Kingsley, M.A., author
of Alton Locke.
Eugene Sue was a man of some forty-five years.
4 In the Sixties and Seventies
and unmistakably a Frenchman, although utterly
different from the old Frenchman of the haute noblesse^
and equally so from the modern production. Charles
Kingsley was as thoroughly English as Eugene Sue
was French. A high, noble forehead, large, earnest,
deep-set eyes (which the lithograph had hollowed as
if with thought and work), a firm, close-shut mouth
and powerful jaw ; here was a poet as well as a parson,
a fighter as well as a writer, a leader as well as a
priest ; earnest, glowing, true-hearted eyes shone
out from beneath the forehead, and seemed to speak
openly to whomsoever listened : " Come, let us work
together for the good of mankind."
At the time the portraits hung there the institution
did not pay. The typical working-man, who wanted
to learn Latin and mathematics, soon rose to be more
than a working-man, and the loafer always remained
a loafer, and always will. The young author, who
gave his hard-earned leisure to teach them, soon found
this out, and was obliged to acknowledge that the
typical working-man, like all good and great men,
is somewhat of a rare bird, and also that the young
men of the day would rather play croquet with the
girl of the period, or even dress in "drag," play at
an amateur theatre, burn statues in a college quadrangle,
or listen to the Christy Minstrels, than teach the
typical working-man.
The neighbourhood round Clerkenwell and Bagnigge
Wells Road was not very charming even in those days,
The Effect of Persuasion 5
though it was more rural than now. Mr. Hain
Friswell, in his philanthropic labours, used to frequent
some very low courts and alleys, and his courage and
coolness often stood him in good stead. One evening
as he was going down Saffron Hill, a very low neigh-
bourhood, a policeman called upon him to assist him
in the capture of a man who was "wanted," and who
had hidden himself in a house down a court, where
the inhabitants were in a state of revolt against the
law entering in person. The young author followed
the policeman into the court. They were hooted and
yelled at and pelted with cabbage stumps and brickbats.
Hot water was thrown over them from the houses,
but they stood their ground, and the young author
addressed the people, and so worked upon their feelings
that they not only left off insulting them, but the
man came down and gave himself up.
There are parts of London now so squalid that
it seems a wonder that they were ever any different,
and yet not so many years ago they were inhabited
by well-to-do merchants and gentry, who kept their
carriages ; this is the case in the neighbourhood of
Holborn and Lincoln's Inn Fields. In Lincoln's Inn
and some of the adjacent streets there are still fine
old houses, dating back to the time of Charles II.,
and in one of these my maternal grandfather lived
and carried on his business as an engraver. I can
just remember the lofty rooms, high carved oak
mantelshelves and deep window seats ; the staircase
6 In the Sixties and Seventies
was very fine and wide, and all the rooms were panelled,
no doubt in oak, but they had been painted various
colours. The drawing-room was on the first floor,
and a very large room, painted pale green ; leading
out of that was my mother's and aunt's studio, its
window covered up till there was only a top light ;
the fireplace was across one of the corners of the
room, and near it stood a large carved oak chair.
I fancy I can see sitting in that chair a very tiny child,
with a pale face and a quantity of pale yellow hair ;
she is named Laura, after Laura Bell, in Pendennis^
one of Thackeray's most charming heroines ; I scarcely
think the novelist would have felt complimented, but,
as I have said, the child's near relations were enthusiastic
young people, and great readers and admirers of
Thackeray and Dickens. The child is sucking her
thumb and watching with great gravity her aunt
paint some gleaming fish which are lying upon some
rushes ; presently she falls asleep ; a bell rings, and
she wakes with a start, to find herself alone in the
room — that dreadful person the lay figure staring at
her, and the plaster casts of heads, hands, and feet
dancing in the firelight ; the Fiamingo Boys, which
are hung from the ceiling, really seem to be alive,
and the one she has for a dolly, wrapped up in an
old piece of silk, lying in a chair at her side, positively
stares at her, for her aunt has painted its face till it
is most lifelike. She lifts up her voice and weeps,
then the door flies open, and her father, the young
Toddlekins and her Father 7
author and engraver, hurries in. She cannot remember
what he is like, but she knows he has the brightest,
merriest blue eyes and fair hair. " All alone ! — poor
little Toddlekins," he says, and he catches her up,
Fiamingo Boy and all, and bears her off downstairs.
It is difficult to realise at this space of time that I
and that child are the same ; but it is always so. We
look back to our childhood, or youth, and the child or
young girl seems to be some one else, some one we have
seen and known ; and so I can remember Toddlekins.
I know she sat at tea on a very prickly horse-hair
chair ; I know she moved restlessly, and that the heavy
doll, in spite of her frantic clutches at it, rolled down
upon the floor, and off came its head. She wept long
and loudly and was quite inconsolable, while her grand-
father and grandmother scolded her aunt for having
given her such a plaything as an expensive plaster cast.
It is dim remembrances, such as these, which seem
like dreams, that made me, many years afterwards,
when I read The Old Curiosity Shop, associate it with
my grandfather's house. It was a beautiful old house,
not a bit like the real Curiosity Shop, as I know now ;
but then I had not seen the little, dirty, shabby old
house which is said to be the original of Dickens's
story. My grandfather was a collector of pictures,
china, silver, and everything that was valuable, and the
old and curious things that filled the house must have
influenced me, for to this day I always think of it as
" The Old Curiosity Shop."
8 In the Sixties and Seventies
But I see another picture of little Toddlekins in her
own home, that small house in Pentonville. It is tea-
time, and the fire and lamp-light shining on crimson
walls and table-cover make a pleasant picture. There
were no five o'clock tea-cloths in those days, and the
wooden or Japanese tea-tray had not become fashion-
able, so the tray was of enamelled iron — it is chocolate
and gold, and has a very flat and elaborate edge. The
pattern consists of scrolls and leaves in gold — there
is no crude landscape to set your teeth on edge, as
I have seen on some trays of that period. A young
and pretty woman, with her hair done in curls something
like Thackeray's Amelia, sits in front of the tray, and
close to her is her husband, who has said good-bye to
his books for an hour or so, and is listening to his little
son, whom he calls "the Philosopher Dick" ; to quote
my father : " Dick has made a wonderful machine out
of three pieces of firewood, an old pill-box, a wheel
from the bottom of a wooden horse, a cotton reel,
and some twine. Dick is always making machines of
a most useless and absurd character, but he is pleased
and busy ; he proposes to fill the pill-box with water,
for some impossible project, which will end in soaking
his pinafore ; happy Dick ! there are some machinists
in the world whose projectures are quite as absurd."
And here is a description of Toddlekins : " I turn
from Dick to Toddlekins, who has been, with a face
as grave as that of the Lady Mayoress at a ministerial
feast, receiving company for the last half-hour. She is
An Author's Household 9
bright-eyed, with a fair face, and such a white and red
skin as no lady in the land, not even Phyllis at eighteen,
can boast ; like Fielding's Amelia she has the prettiest
nose in the world, but, unlike that heroine, she has
not yet broken it. She is receiving company ; the
latter consists of a very wooden Dutch doll, a wax-
faced ditto, Mr. Noah of the Ark, an elephant who
has left his trunk behind him, a papier mache donkey,
who in his youth used to wag what he has lost — his
head — and a miserable kitten which has not spirit to
run away. The company sit round Toddlekins and
her tea-tray, and she now pours out a curious mixture
of weak tea, milk, and dirt. The Dutch doll, an ugly
brute with a face as flat as that of a clock, without
a nose, and with no hair on its head, is the favourite.
Why is it so ? — I do not know. I hate it myself.
It nearly threw me downstairs once. It's not half
so handsome as the wax doll, nor on the whole so
lively as Noah, nor so curious as the elephant ; yet
she loves it, she bows down to it and worships it,
and sets it in the place of honour, gives it the best
things — it has the coffee-pot with the wooden spout
to drink tea from — and favours it in a thousand odd
ways, the stupid wooden thing ! Why does she do
so ? But, ah me ! why do I and you, reader, bow
down to our Dutch dolls ? We have some very
wooden ones in the great world, and give them more
valuable things than toy coffee-pots to play with.
" WThat does little Toddlekins do after ? A wiser
io In the Sixties and Seventies
head than mine hath observed the ways of such people,
and tells us of a certain ' four years darling of a
pigmy size/ like Toddlekins, who goes through the
old, old games of life :
"A wedding, or a festival,
A mourning, or a funeral ;
And this hath now his heart,
And unto this he frames his speech :
Then will he fit his tongue
To dialogues of business, love, or strife,
But it will not be long
Ere this be thrown aside,
And with new joy and pride
The little actor cons another part.
CHAPTER II
TODDLEKINS AND GEORGE CRUIKSHANK — CRUIKSHANK'S GREAT
PICTURE, " THE WORSHIP OF BACCHUS " — CRUIKSHANK AND TEMPER-
ANCE— THE CHEVALIER AND MADAME DE CHATELAIN — ANDREW
HALLIDAY AND TODDLEKINS — THE BROUGHS.
THE quotation in the last chapter is from Other
People s Windows^ a very well known book
of my father's, published by Messrs. Sampson Low
& Co. in 1868. I have abstracted this little piece of
the sketch, as it gives a very lifelike, and, I think,
pretty picture of the young author's home.
Again the scene shifts. It is summer-time, and
I see little Toddlekins running to meet and throw
her arms round an old gentleman, who picks her up
and carries her into the house, while she hugs him and
rubs her face against his. When they reach the
drawing-room he sets her down, and she, rifling his
pockets, pulls out a book — no less than Cinderella,
beautifully illustrated by George Cruikshank. But
Toddlekins is a very ignorant young lady — she can't
read, and so, after placing the book upon a chair and
her thumb in her mouth, she studies the pictures
with the utmost interest and gravity.
Her father, mother, and Mr. Cruikshank talk for
12 In the Sixties and Seventies
a long time, and Toddlekins is as quiet as a mouse ;
but when there is a lull in the conversation she looks
round, and the artist smiles at her. That is enough ;
she says nothing, but, pulling her thumb out of her
mouth with a plop, she takes the book and climbs
upon his knee, where she nestles against him, and he
reads, or rather tells her, that wonderful story that
no child ever grows tired of ; at least Toddlekins
does not, for she sucks her thumb and looks alter-
nately at the pictures and the narrator with her bright,
dark blue eyes, and says, " Say it again, again ' ' ;
or she corrects him if he deviates one tittle from what
he has told her on former occasions ; and George
Cruikshank smilingly complies with her imperious
demands, and interprets his beautiful illustrations and
looks as happy and as pleased as the little child he
is nursing.
Toddlekins was a privileged person, had she but
known it, for in this way she had Cinderella,
Hop-o-my-Thumb^ Jack and the Beanstalk, and many
other fairy tales told her by that prince of illustrators.
She was a glutton as far as fairy literature was con-
cerned, and she was as charmed with George
Cruikshank's illustrations as persons four times her
age were. As to him, he loved his little listener,
and would have her come and see his big picture.
So Toddlekins went one fine Sunday morning with
her father. She remembers that walk very well, and
how smart she was in her bottle-green coat — they called
George Cruikshank 13
them pelisses then — and her drawn satin bonnet with
its green rosettes. She remembers too how tightly
her father held her hand, and how she seemed to trip
up every now and then in the very paving stones,
so that she swung off her feet right round in front
of her father and clutched at his coat to save herself.
This was such a very uncomfortable way of proceeding
that her father told her to lift up her feet and to walk
on her toes and her heels, and the Philosopher had
to put it in practice to show her how ; and so they
at last came to George Cruikshank's house.
There Toddlekins was so amazed and rapt with
what she saw that she was dumb. For many years
that picture haunted her. She often dreamt about it,
till at last she did not know if she had really seen it,
or if it was only in a dream. But it was no dream,
for in the National Gallery can be seen " The Worship
of Bacchus," the picture that took George Cruikshank
so much time and thought, and that so impressed
Toddlekins that she stood in front of it and sucked
her thumb ; nor would she be beguiled from it by any
offers of cake which Mrs. Cruikshank brought her.
She can see that large picture now ; she can see
Mrs. Cruikshank with a plate of cake, trying to allure
her away from it ; and she can hear the artist's jolly
voice as he says :
" There's one of the British Public who appreciates
it, at any rate."
Many times in after years she tried to describe that
14 In the Sixties and Seventies
picture, and ask her mother or father if there was such
a one ; but children then were more in awe of their
elders, and Toddlekins knew not how to describe it.
A man crowned with grapes and sitting on a tub,
was her most distinct memory ; but it was long after
George Cruikshank had ceased to nurse her or to tell
her stories, long after she had given up dolls, that she
saw that picture again in the National Gallery, and heard
the story of her visit to George Cruikshank's studio.
Mr. Cruikshank was at this time much interested in
the Temperance movement, and a great advocate for
putting down the liquor traffic. He was very anxious
for my father to write a temperance drama, which I
do not think my father quite saw his way to doing ;
though he knew many actors, and could no doubt have
got a play placed. Phelps and Marston were at this
time at the height of their fame, but it is doubtful if
either of them would have taken a temperance drama.
Zola's Drink would have suited Cruikshank
admirably, for there cannot be a stronger sermon
preached in favour of teetotalism than UAssommoir ;
but Zola was in his cradle, or at least in the nursery,
when Cruikshank was writing against drink, and trying
to instil temperance into the minds of children by
altering the ends of the old fairy tales. As most of
us 'no doubt remember, these old stories are anything
but temperance tracts. They end with the wedding
of the hero and heroine, at whose marriage feast there
is always a great deal of drinking. " Fountains of
Cruikshank and Temperance 15
wine ran in the streets," is a favourite sentence ; but
Mr. Cruikshank considered this so " useless and unfit
for children," that, as in the case of Cinderella, he re-
wrote the whole story, and, to quote his own words,
" introduced a few temperance truths, with a fervent
hope that some good may result therefrom."
Critics seem to have taken exception to these altera-
tions, for Mr. Cruikshank addresses the public at the
end of Cinderella, and advises his critics to make them-
selves better acquainted with the various versions of
the old stories before they find fault with his.
I know now that my father did not agree with
teetotalism, and no doubt he and George Cruikshank
had many an argument on the subject ; some of these
things may have reached childish ears ; this I cannot
say, but I know Toddlekins began to think that
bottles of wine thrown into the streets, casks of beer
smashed so that the liquor ran down the gutters, was
something that should not happen ; she considered
that the King and Queen in Cinderella who gave
orders that all the wine, beer, and spirits in the place
should be collected together and piled upon the top
of a rocky mound near the palace, and made a great
bonfire of on the night of the wedding, "which was
accordingly done, and a splendid blaze it made ! '
were wrong ; and one day, after due deliberation, no
doubt, she broke through her golden rule of silence,
and taking her thumb from her mouth, she looked
up into the great illustrator's face and said solemnly :
1 6 In the Sixties and Seventies
" Naughty King — waste nice wine"
Cruikshank looked at her in comic consternation ;
her father laughed.
" You see how difficult it is," he said ; " Toddlekins
at any rate should be a disciple."
" And she's one of the unregenerate," sighed
Cruikshank, his eyes twinkling.
There is yet another picture I can recall of this
time. It is a bright, sunny Sunday afternoon, and
Toddlekins, in her green pelisse and drawn satin
bonnet, with its rosettes of narrow baby ribbon to
match, is again out with her father and the Philosopher.
This time they are bending their steps to Warwick
Terrace, Regent's Park, to call upon the Chevalier
and Madame de Chatelain.
The Chevalier de Chatelain, a Parisian by birth
and a staunch Republican, came to England a very
young man and started a French weekly paper, called
Le Petit Mercure, afterwards changing the name to
Le Mercure de Londres. He was an industrious writer
and a great pedestrian ; in 1827 it is recorded
he walked from Paris to Rome, to study the sayings
and doings of Pope Leo XII. In 1830 he was at
Bordeaux, editing Le Profagateur a la Gironde, an
employment which led to his being condemned to
six months' imprisonment, and to having to pay a
fine of 1,320 francs. He published many works in
Paris, one being a translation into French of Chaucer's
Canterbury Tales, and he was invested with the
The de Chatelains 17
Prussian Order of Civil Merit. He returned to
England in 1842 and was naturalised a few years
afterwards ; he resided in London for nearly forty
years, during which time he published fifty works.
The best known are Beautes de la Poesie Anglaise,
being translations of over one thousand pieces, from
Chaucer to Tennyson ; and Ronces et Chardons, in
which he denounces Napoleon under the title of
u Chenapan III."
In London his wife was perhaps the better known
in literary circles. She was the daughter of M. de
Pontigny, a descendant of Count Pontigny. She
was born in England, her mother being an English-
woman. While residing in France in 1826, she
published an elegy on the death of the famous painter
David. This was her first literary effort, and it
attracted so much notice that she then wrote in rapid
succession, under various pseudonyms, stories, poems,
and music, in both the French and English languages.
Leopold Wray, Rosalie Santa Crore, Baronne Cornelie
de B., etc., were some of her pen-names. She was
connected with The Qjueen, London Society, Reynolds'
Miscellany, Chambers s Journal, Le Courier de r Europe,
and in fact with most of the periodicals of that time.
She married the Chevalier in 1842, and there could
not have been a more united couple. They were
devoted to each other ; so much so that Harrison
Ainsworth persuaded them to try for the Dunmow
flitch of bacon — an honour only conferred on a model
2
1 8 In the Sixties and Seventies
couple. It was awarded them, and Ainsworth had the
pleasure of presenting it to Madame de Chatelain.
On this occasion Madame is said to have stated that
she and her husband had never had the least dis-
agreement for twelve years. They knew many literary
people, and were intimate friends of Victor Hugo and
his family.
I have given this brief history of this remarkable
couple because people's memories are so short now
that they cannot look back more than twenty years,
or scarcely that, and therefore to the majority, ex-
cepting for a few big names, the literary people of
the last century might not have existed. And yet
there were far more honest, if not cleverer, workers
then, than the revelations of " literary ghosts ' would
lead us to believe is the case in these enlightened
times.
But " little Toddlekins ' knew nothing of these
things ; she was yet to awake to the tragedy, comedy,
and pathos of life. She only saw the charming, sunny
room, the handsome old man and his pretty, merry
wife, and she made a curtsey to them as much
like the one Cinderella was making to the prince in
George Cruikshank's picture as she could. Madame
de Chatelain was enchanted.
" Ah, c'est tres jolie ! ' she cried. " The petite,
the funny, funny mite ! " and she snatched up Toddle-
kins and kissed her.
Now this was not at all what that dignified young
The Chevalier de Chatelain 19
person expected ; she was not fond of being kissed.
So when Madame sat down in a chair with her
upon her knee, she shook her shoulders and frowned,
at which Madame laughed. Toddlekins glanced re-
proachfully at her, and she would have struggled out
of her lap, only she was absorbed in admiration of
the Chevalier. She had never seen anything like him
out of a picture. She can remember the grand figure
he made in his long coat and curly brimmed hat,
holding his gloves and gold-headed cane in one hand.
He took off his hat and bowed gravely to Toddlekins,
and she then noticed his beautiful white hair, upon
which the sun shone. That picture never faded from
her memory, but it was long afterwards, when Toddle-
kins was little no longer, and went to see some pictures
with her mother, that she knew the Chevalier was
like a Rembrandt. The little girl would have liked
to suck her thumb and stare at the Chevalier for an
hour ; but there were two reasons why she could
not : first, she had gloves on ; and secondly, Madame
was talking to her. So Toddlekins turned her
attention to Madame, and, with the assistance of
the Philosopher, she managed to let Madame know
how old she was, and what her real name was ; then
she launched into a rambling account of her favourite
heroine Cinderella, which interested Madame greatly.
Now it was a subject that rather sickened the
Philosopher ; he had heard it so often. So he politely
turned his back upon them and devoted himself to
20 In the Sixties and Seventies
eating cake, which a servant had brought with the tea,
and in wandering round the room examining everything.
Toddlekins admired the Philosopher immensely, and
often opened her eyes with wonder at the things he
saw and knew — they were quite beyond her comprehen-
sion ; but then, as the Philosopher continually told her,
" she was only a girl ' ' ; and girls were not thought so
much of in those days as they are now- -not even by
philosophers.
Cinderella being exhausted, Madame de Chatelain
admired the little girl's bonnet. Toddlekins agreed
that it was " very, very pretty/' but she said con-
fidentially, and pointing to the green rosettes upon
it :
" These are not cabbages, though my grandfather
says they are."
" Cabbages ? ' said Madame, puzzled, as well she
might be, for anything more unlike cabbages than
those green rosettes it would be difficult to imagine.
Toddlekins thought she did not understand, so she
repeated very distinctly, " Cab-ba-ges ! ' and she
nodded her head at each syllable, though she could not
have spelt " cabbage ' to save her life. Madame
laughed and said :
" Ah ! the funny mite ! "
" They are not cabbages," said Toddlekins in her
shrillest voice.
Madame still laughed, and the Philosopher came
to the rescue. Now he knew the Chevalier was a
Madame de Chatelain 21
foreigner, and he was not at all sure about Madame,
for, if she wasn't French, she spoke that language
mixed up with English, and when people do these
things it is very difficult for very young philosophers
to judge. So he took it for granted that Madame was
a foreigner, and, as English people generally shout at
those who cannot understand them, he went up to
Madame and said in a loud voice :
" Cab-ba-ges ! Vegetables ! Things you have for
dinner ! Greens, you know ! '
Madame quite understood, but the scene was so
funny she could only laugh. The Philosopher went on
to explain very earnestly that his grandfather " did not
really think the rosettes like cabbages, but only said so
to tease Toddlekins." The little girl listened with
pride to the Philosopher's explanation ; no one could
mistake what Dick said, she thought. But Madame
appeared as puzzled as ever ; she still laughed. Toddle-
kins was distressed ; the Philosopher determined.
" Things you eat — greens, you know. Oh ! you
must have them in your country," he said, his eyes
gleaming with intelligence and his face red with
earnestness. c< Oh, what are cabbages in French ? '
He looked up at the ceiling for inspiration, and
Toddlekins looked up also ; Madame laughed and
laughed, and the gentlemen, attracted by the loud
talking, left off their conversation and asked what
was the matter. Madame's pretty face was flushed
and her bright eyes were dancing with mirth ; the
22 In the Sixties and Seventies
Philosopher was frowning at the ceiling, and Toddlekins
was clasping and unclasping her hands, her eyes were
very bright and her mouth was going down at the
corners ; her father knew she was nervous and about
to cry. Madame spoke rapidly in French, and ended
with what Toddlekins took for shoe.
" Not shoes \ " she cried. " Cab-ba-ges ! "
At that every one but the Philosopher laughed, and
Toddlekins was so disgusted she burst out crying.
" Oh, cest pauvre, the poor little thing, there,
there," cried Madame, grave at once ; and she hugged
Toddlekins and kissed her, and wiped her eyes, and
asked her who bought her those pretty new shoes.
And then she wanted to know if the little girl had
heard about u Little Goody Two Shoes." Toddlekins
had not ; and as Madame had edited a book called
Merry Tales for Little Folk, in which the story
of " Goody Two Shoes ' and many other veracious
histories were written, she gave it to Toddlekins and
the Philosopher.
The fairy-worshipper went out into the street with
the book hugged close to her, a proud and happy
child. It was rather thick and heavy for such a small
person, but Toddlekins would not let the Philosopher
have it ; not that he wanted it, for, as he explained
to her as soon as they were outside the house, " He
knew all he wanted to know of those sort of things."
The Philosopher was annoyed because he had not
remembered the French for cabbage ; and then he
Andrew Halliday 23
had been laughed at, and even philosophers are not
invulnerable to ridicule.
I have been told by many people that Toddlekins
was a most charming little child, that " her laugh
was so musical and infectious that it made every one
smile." Now this is very pretty and pleasant to hear,
but we all know what these charming children are
said to grow up, so one can scarcely take it as a
compliment ; and then one must remember all the
clever people, young and old, who petted and amused
her, and whose artistic natures no doubt idealised her.
She had dolls by the score ; and had she collected them,
instead of giving in to the Philosopher's persuasive
powers, and allowing him to hang them for political
offences from the balusters, whence they had a drop
of twelve or fourteen feet, and lay smashed at her
feet (when she would weep bitterly, or fly at him
like a tigress for having " made them dead "), she
could have had quite a museum of well-known names.
The Cruikshank doll, the Phelps and Marston dolls,
the Brough, the Andrew Halliday, and so on.
But I am sorry to record that she was not always
amiable ; she was not strong, and she was very nervous
and shy. George Cruikshank remained her favourite ;
only one other well-known man was she at this time
friendly with, and that was Andrew Halliday.
My mother tells a story of his first visit, and of
how Toddlekins, instead of hiding in a corner, came
and stood by his knee and looked in his face, and even
(C
cc
24 In the Sixties and Seventies
allowed him to nurse her. When he went her mother
asked :
" Did you like that gentleman ?
" Yes," replied Toddlekins.
Why ? ' asked her mother.
He had such pretty eyes/' said the unabashed
child.
William and Robert Brough, the Greenwood
brothers, the Vizetellys, and Charles Henry Bennett,
who was then illustrating Charles Kingsley's edition
of The Pilgrim's Progress, were frequent visitors.
The way these men lived and worked would be
wondered, if not sneered at, in these luxurious days ;
we have grown such mammon-worshippers, such snobs.
But, though I can scarcely recall any of their faces, I
love their names — they seem like old and dear friends :
and I like to look into The Welcome Guest, The Train,
Diogenes, and the other old magazines in which their
writings or their illustrations used to appear. My
father often spoke of them in later years, and always
with admiration and affection.
My father, with his business training and domestic
habits, was never a real Bohemian ; but he had many
Bohemian friends, and had become initiated into
the mysteries of " British Bohemia/1 which, as Mr.
Yates says, " is our equivalent for that vie de Boheme
which in the middle of the last century, despite its
poverty, its uncertainty, and in many cases its misery,
had, in its wild and picturesque freedom from con-
Bohemia 2 5
ventionality, sufficient attraction to captivate a large
section of the young men of Paris," the unfortunate
Henri Mttrger being its brilliant historian.
Bohemia scarcely exists now ; indeed, we are so
fashionable that no one cares to hear anything about
the middle classes ; almost all our novels deal with the
doings of aristocrats (or rather the people the author
considers such), and the denizens of the slums. In a
popular novel I read lately, in which almost all the
male characters are members of the Ministry, the
author remarks that Fleet Street and its environment
is almost an unknown quarter ! Evidently no one
living so far West as Grosvenor Square is supposed to
come farther East than Charing Cross. What a
narrow sphere, and how much of interest they must
miss !
Perhaps only a woman could have made such a
remark about Fleet Street ; and I should say that she
has not the true love of literature and literary people,
nor can she be an Englishwoman, or she would not have
thought it possible that any one could be ignorant of
the very heart of London — indeed of England — -where
all the important work is done. The denizens of
that smart club at Westminster could be scattered
to-morrow, and no one would be much the worse ; but
our citizens, our bankers, editors, lawyers, and all those
people who toil all day in that far-off and unknown
quarter that the butterflies of fashion scarcely know
exists, we should indeed feel the loss of bitterly.
26 In the Sixties and Seventies
What, too, makes the remark more comic is that
Grosvenor Square is evidently considered the centre
of the world of fashion ; and yet now-a-days " that
fickle jade, Fashion," is passing it by and forgetting it
almost as completely as she has Russell Square and
that once aristocratic quarter, Bloomsbury.
In the days of which I am writing the Strand and
Fleet Street, beloved of Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith,
Hazlitt, Charles Lamb, and others, were sacred places,
as I believe they are now to all true lovers of literature.
My father, I know, looked upon them as such and
taught me to do the same. In our walks he would
point out this or that tavern, frequented by Johnson
or Goldsmith ; I was taken to see the latter's tomb
in the Temple as if it were a sacred shrine, as it has
always been to me since. Then there was the house
where Charles Lamb lodged in Queen Street, Holborn ;
the one in Brooke Street where Chatterton poisoned
himself, and hundreds of other places that I have not
space to mention. But all that part of London east
of Charing Cross was an enchanted land to me, and
is so still, in spite of its being so " improved ' that it
is almost unrecognisable. I liked old Temple Bar,
and I detest the Griffin.
The Strand and Fleet Street were in the very heart
of Bohemia, Bloomsbury was on its borders ; and I
have always been sorry that, being an infant, and worse
still, a girl infant, in the days of which I am writing,
I could not know that happy band of young, gifted.
Bohemia 27
and enthusiastic workers. I have heard that they had
a thorough contempt for the ordinary usages of
society, and they carried this contempt into their dress
and manners. The word u philistine ' was much in
vogue, and the class which it represented was of course
an object of ridicule and contempt to the Bohemians.
My father, though he was never " to the manner
born," and objected to their irresponsible, careless ways,
yet mixed freely amongst them, and made some life-
long friendships.
Thackeray, in his last novel, quaintly describes
Bohemia as " a pleasant land, not fenced with drab
stucco like Belgravia, or Tyburnia : not guarded by a
large standing army of footmen : not echoing with
noble chariots, not replete with polite chintz drawing-
rooms and neat tea-tables ; a land over which hangs
an endless fog, occasioned by much tobacco : a land of
chambers, billiard-rooms, and oyster suppers : a land
of song : a land where soda-water flows freely in the
morning, a land of tin dish-covers from taverns, and
foaming porter : a land of lotos eating (with lots of
cayenne pepper), of pulls on the river, of delicious
reading of novels, magazines, and saunterings in many
studios : a land where all men call each other by their
Christian names, where most are poor, where almost
all are young, and where, if a few oldsters enter, it is
because they have preserved, more tenderly and care-
fully than others, their youthful spirits, and the
delightful capacity to be idle. I have lost my way to
28 In the Sixties and Seventies
Bohemia/' he adds with tender regret, " but it is
certain that Prague is the most picturesque city in the
world."
The Broughs and the Romers were perhaps the
greatest Bohemians we knew. My mother tells a
funny story of Robert Brough coming in about twelve
o'clock one night, and sitting and talking till three in
the morning, when she made him up a bed. The next
morning he borrowed a clean collar, and invited my
father and mother to dinner the following week ; but
before the day came round he wrote to say " they
hadn't even a tablecloth, and under the circumstances
would they put off their visit ? ' The collar was never
returned, nor a fresh invitation given.
I have heard my father say that, in spite of his
Bohemianism, " every one loved Robert Brough ' ' ;
he was brilliantly clever, but wholly careless of his
personal appearance, and quite different from his
brothers William and John Cargill Brough. William
was neat in his appearance, and methodical in manner,
but not nearly so clever as " Bob." The brothers
Brough, as they were called, were the sons of a
commercial man, and had had a good plain English
education, on which they raised a fair superstructure
of learning. Robert was a Radical, but being of a
gentle nature, and in every true sense a gentleman,
he did not emulate the literary achievements of some
of the rank Republicans, as shown in the Sunday papers
of that time ; but that he had a fierce hatred of the
Robert Brough 29
governing classes there is no doubt, for he brought
out a little book, called Songs of the Governing Classes.
It was published by Vizetelly, and the following is
a specimen of its polished workmanship, its vigour
of thought and speech :
My Lord Tomnoddy's the son of an Earl,
His hair is straight, but his whiskers curl ;
His Lordship's forehead is far from wide,
But there's plenty of room for the brains inside.
He writes his name with indifferent ease,
He's rather uncertain about the " d's "
But what does it matter if three or one,
To the Earl of FitzdotterePs eldest son?
My Lord Tomnoddy to college went,
Much time he lost, much money he spent ;
Rules, and windows, and heads he broke —
Authorities winked — young men will joke !
He never peep'd inside of a book —
In two years' time a degree he took ;
And the newspapers vaunted the honours won
By the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son.
* * * * *
My Lord Tomnoddy prefers the Guards,
(The House is a bore) so ! — it's on the cards !
My Lord's a Lieutenant at twenty-three,
A Captain at twenty-six is he —
He never drew sword, except on drill ;
The tricks of parade he has learnt but ill —
A full-blown Colonel at thirty-one
Is the Earl of Fitzdotterel's eldest son !
**•»#•>»
The statements in this poem will not bear analysis,
and are to a certain extent uncalled for ; but that
Robert Brough felt them there is no doubt ; his
poverty and ill-health, and the knowledge that he
had the power to produce better work than any he
3° In the Sixties and Seventies
had yet published, if he had had the means to take
life more easily, no doubt caused his bitterness against
rank and wealth, as it does in so many brilliant men
who are hampered by the necessity to live.
A copy of his little book, Songs of the Governing
Classes^ he presented to my mother, and signed his
name — Robert B. Brough — saying as he wrote it,
" I suppose you do not know what the B. stands for ? :
My mother said she did not.
c< Barnabas," replied Brough ; " but don't tell any-
body— I shall deny it if you do/'
CHAPTER III
SUPPER-ROOMS — ROSS THE SINGER — " EVANS'S " — A PATHETIC STORY —
MY VISIT TO " EVANS'S " -WE SEE THE PRINCE OF WALES — PADDY
GREEN.
IN those days the most popular resorts for young
men who liked to keep late hours were certain
supper-rooms and singing taverns. The most noted
were situated in the neighbourhood of the Strand.
My father was not a frequenter of any of these places,
preferring to spend his evenings at home writing,
or, as I have said in the first chapter, in teaching
working-men in an institution started by Mr. Pass-
more Edwards in the Gray's Inn Road ; but he some-
times visited " The Coal Hole," " The Cider Cellars,"
and " Evans's ' in company with Albert Smith of
" Mont Blanc ' ' fame,* who was then living in Percy
Street, or of Godfrey Turner, a clever journalist
who afterwards became leader-writer on The Daily
Telegraph.
Thackeray seems to have been fond of immortalising
* Albert Smith had ascended Mont Blanc, in those days a rare
feat ; he gave an account of this ascent in a monologue, accompanied
by songs and characters, and splendidly illustrated views by William
Beverley. The entertainment was given at the Egyptian Hall, and
was popular for many years.
32 In the Sixties and Seventies
these places, for " The Back Kitchen ' spoken of
in Pendennis is said to be " The Cider Cellars," which
was in Maiden Lane, almost opposite Rule's, the
celebrated oyster shop, and next door to the stage
door of the Adelphi Theatre. Albert Smith, in his
Adventures of Mr. Ledbury, speaks of "The Cider
Cellars ' by name, while Thackeray gives the following
description of the jolly singing suppers at "The
Back Kitchen ' ' :
" Healthy country tradesmen, and farmers in
London for their business, came and recreated them-
selves . . . squads of young apprentices and assistants,
the shutters being closed over the scene of their
labours, came hither, for fresh air doubtless ; — rakish
young medical students, gallant, dashing, what is called
c loudly ' dressed, and (must it be owned ?) somewhat
dirty, were here smoking and drinking and vocifer-
ously applauding the songs ; — young University bucks
were to be found here too, with that indescribable
genteel simper which is only learned at the knees of
Alma Mater ; and handsome young guardsmen, and
florid bucks from the St. James's Street Clubs ; — nay,
senators English and Irish — and even members of the
House of Peers."
All these different people came to hear a singer
whom Thackeray calls Mr. Hodgen, whose song, called
by the novelist "The Body Snatcher," was such an
immense success that the whole town rushed to listen
to it. " A curtain drew aside, and Mr. Hodgen
Ross the Singer 33
appeared in the character of the Snatcher, sitting on
a coffin, with a flask of gin before him, with a spade,
and a candle stuck in a skull. The singer's voice went
down so low that it rumbled into the hearer's awe-
stricken soul, and in the chorus he clamped with his
spade, and gave a demoniac Ha ! Ha ! which caused
the very glasses on the tables to quiver as with terror."
Now this singer's real name was Ross ; he had
a very fine bass voice, and the song which had such
an enormous success was called " Sam Hall" ; it was
about a man who had committed a murder, and who
was sentenced to be hanged. Mr. Ross, I have heard
my father say, made up with a ghastly face, and sitting
across a chair, acted in a most realistic manner ; there
was a horrible refrain to the song, and the whole effect
produced was most tragic. There was no standing
room in " The Cider Cellars ' while u Sam Hall ' was
being sung.
The singer lived next door to my father. He was
a good-looking, jovial man, fond of his wife and
children, but of a somewhat too convivial turn of
mind ; my father and mother, and indeed the whole
quiet street, were not un seldom awakened at two
o'clock in the morning by a hansom dashing up, and
Mr. Ross's fine voice trolling out, not " Sam Hall,"
but some popular and sentimental ditty. Looking
back I fancy I can see, walking in a pretty garden,
accompanied by two rosy-cheeked little girls, a tall,
dark-whiskered, red-faced man, whose stentorian voice
3
34 In the Sixties and Seventies
used to make Toddlekins stare as he greeted her
nurse with, " Well, how are you, my own Mary
Ann ? ' Mary Ann being the young woman's real
name, his jokes were not appreciated.
Evans's Supper-Rooms, commonly called "Evans's,"
was of all these places the most popular and the most
likely to be remembered. It was situated at the
western corner of the Covent Garden piazza, under-
ground, an hotel being above. It had been started
by a man named Evans, but he had died, and when
I remember it it was run by a little, old, round-about
man called Paddy Green, who was a very worthy
fellow, and quite a character in his way. It was a
favourite resort of Thackeray, Douglas Jerrold, Serjeant
Ballantyne, Hannay, and most of the well-known men
of that day. Paddy Green used to go round and
talk to all and sundry, his courteous manner and
good temper charming every one. Then there was a
curious old German there, named Herr von Joel, who
used to sing songs with a joddling refrain, and play
on a curious instrument which he called a " vokking
shteek." Thackeray speaks of his wonderful whistling
and of his imitations of the songs of birds. My
father had not heard him in his prime, but he was
one of the few who knew that the old man, who
wandered about the room selling cigars, had been a
celebrity in his day. One day, in passing through
Covent Garden, he saw him sitting under the piazza,
* " My own Mary Ann " — a popular song at that time.
Herr von Joel 35
on a wooden chair in the sun. He looked very feeble,
almost corpselike, but when my father crossed
and spoke to him he found him in a terrible state
of excitement. Sure of a sympathetic listener he
commenced :
" Ach ! those two terrible peoples, that dreadful
voman. Vat you think they do ? Ach ! it is awful.
I fall asleep ; I sleep so sound for a long, long time.
I vake — something against my leg vake me — it vas
icy cold. I ope mine eyes, and dere vas dat man
in black- -vat you call him ? — de — de — undertaker —
he vos measuring me for mine coffin ! Ach ! ach !
I vill go home no more ! I get up at vonce, I dress,
I take a chair — I vill go home no more ! Ach ! it
vas too terrible ! '
My father tried to calm him, but the poor man
was fully persuaded his relatives were tired of him
and anxious for his death.
" The Cave of Harmony ' in The Newcomes is
certainly Evans's. It was to the " Cave ' that the
bucks of that day, after going to the pit of the theatre,
as was the fashion, adjourned to sup off welsh rabbit,
and listen to three admirable glee singers and other
artists. " The Chough and Crow," " The Red Cross
Knight," and " The Bloom is on the Rye ' were
favourite songs ; and Thackeray tells us that there
came into the " Cave ' one night " a gentleman with
a lean brown face, long black moustaches, and dressed
in loose clothes, and evidently a stranger to the place."
36 In the Sixties and Seventies
This gentleman was Colonel Newcome, and he was
pointing out the changes to his son, young Clive, and
telling him that all the wits used to come there- -Mr.
Sheridan, Captain Morris, Colonel Hanger, Professor
Porson. Clive Newcome, recognising a schoolfellow,
goes over to speak to him, followed by his father ; the
young man then introduces three college friends.
"You have come here, gentleman, to see the wits,"
says the Colonel. " Are there any celebrated persons
in the room ? I have been five-and-thirty years from
home, and want to see all there is to be seen."
One of the company thinks it would be a joke to
take the Colonel in, by pointing out certain nobodies
as Rogers, Hook, Lutterell, etc. ; but the others
won't have it, and they give the proprietor, whom
Thackeray calls Hoskins, a hint that the songs had
better be selected, as there is a boy and a gentleman,
quite a greenhorn," in the room.
And so they were," says Thackeray. "A lady's
school might have come in, and, but for the smell
of cigars and brandy and water, have taken no
harm by what happened. Why should it not
always be so ? If there are any c Caves of Harmony '
now I warrant Messrs, the Landlords their interest
would be better consulted by keeping their singers
within bounds. The very greatest scamps like pretty
songs, and are melted by them ; so are honest people.
It was worth a guinea to see the simple Colonel and
his delight at the music. . . . He joined in all the
(C
u
Evans's SuppeivRooms 37
choruses with an exceedingly sweet voice. He laughed
at * The Derby Ram ' so that it did you good to hear
him ; and when Hoskins sang (as he did admirably)
4 The Old English Gentleman,' tears trickled down
the honest warrior's cheeks, while he held out his
hand to Hoskins and said, ' Thank you, sir, for that
song ; it is an honour to human nature.'
The Colonel is charmed with each feat of young
Nadab, the Improvisatore, who has pat rhymes to suit
all the people in the room. All goes on well, even
the Colonel himself singing " Wapping Old Stairs,"
till Captain Costigan, coming in very drunk, offers to
sing, and selects one of the most outrageous perfor-
mances of his repertoire. At the end of the second
verse the Colonel started up, clapping on his hat,
seizing his stick, and looking as ferocious as though he
were going to do battle with a Pindaree. " Silence ! '
he roared out — he then gives the company a piece of
his mind, and walks out followed by his son.
At the end of the sixties the popularity of " Evans's '
was still at its height, but it was different from what
it was when Clive New come saw it. Some time before
the little room had been found too small for the mighty
audiences, so it was pulled down, and a large concert
room and an annex had been built on the site. Partly
along one side of the room ran a gallery, which was
fitted up as an ante-room and a private supper-room.
The ante-room led into the supper-room, from which
it was divided by a green velvet curtain. From this
38 In the Sixties and Seventies
gallery ladies could look down through a grille into
the hall, and could see and hear without being
seen.
In the body of the hall were numbers of small
round marble-topped tables, and round these men sat,
eating a substantial supper of steak, chops, etc., or
merely enjoying a cigar or pipe and a glass of beer or
wine. At the end of the hall was a stage for the
singers. The entertainment was as much improved as
the room ; the music-hall songs had given place to
old glees and madrigals, the choruses of which were
sung by trained lads (some of them being the choir-
boys of St. Paul's), whose fresh young voices sounded
very sweet in those old songs.
My father was enchanted with the singing of these
boys, and said that my mother and I must hear them.
He therefore arranged with Paddy Green that we
should come one night to the private supper-room in
the gallery, not to take supper, " but to have a little
light refreshment and a glass of champagne." Paddy
Green professed himself greatly gratified and delighted,
and he said, u We must have a special entertainment
for your daughter — nothing outre, nothing vulgar."
Though he had never seen me, he had a list of the
various entertainments copied out, and sent it to me
with a kindly message that I was to choose all the
music, vocal and instrumental, for that night. I chose
a selection from Macbeth as instrumental music, and
several glees by various composers : I know " Sweet
Evans's Supper^Rooms 39
and Low ' was one, c< Hush thee, my Babe," another,
and I also chose the celebrated Thuringian air " Breathe
not of Parting," which was most beautifully sung. I
requested that the gentleman who played airs on a
coffee-pot should play old English airs, and not any-
thing Scotch. My father laughed, and said 1 gave my
commands like a queen. The visit was all duly arranged
a week or more in advance, and I was brim full of
excitement, especially as a friend, a girl a few years my
senior, was to accompany us.
The evening arrived, and we drove up to the supper-
rooms about ten o'clock, intending to stay till after
twelve, for I had arranged a moderately long pro-
gramme. We were shown up into the gallery, and
entered the ante-room, or first box (the rooms were
something like large boxes at a theatre) ; my mother
seated herself in the chair farthest from the stage, my
father opposite her, and my friend in the middle,
while I elected to roam about from one room to the
other. So I lifted the velvet curtain and, dropping it
behind me, , passed into the large room. There I
found a table elegantly laid for four people. There
were just four of us, and at the first glance I thought we
were going to sup there ; but we had dined at eight
and could not possibly want supper — besides, my father
had said " only light refreshment." I wandered round
the table and looked at the beautiful damask and the
rare flowers. I sat down near the grille and listened
to the boys' beautiful voices, and I thought I might
In the Sixties and Seventies
be in fairy-land. Aladdin, who, rubbing the lamp,
ordered a feast, might have had just such a table set
before him, I told myself. Then I thought of the
Prince in the story of The White Cat who is led
into a dining-room by some hands to which no body
is attached, and finds a table elegantly laid for two ;
but this was for four — who would be coming, I
wondered ? I made up my mind it must be a prince.
The artist had just played the old English airs on
the coffee-pot, amid a storm of applause, when my
father, lifting the velvet curtain, called me, and I was
introduced to Paddy Green, who was very deferential
and charming, complimenting me on my excellent
programme, and telling me I had good taste in music.
Then he and my father had a low-toned colloquy,
in which I heard Paddy Green say, with much
shrugging of the shoulders, that " he was very sorry '
— " most unfortunate, but what could he do ? " — and
my father that " it was of no consequence, we should
not have stayed late, and that now, of course, we
should go at once."
tc No, no/' said the genial little man, " they will
not be here till after the theatres, and your daughter
will like to see the celebrities- -but no notice must
be taken."
" Certainly not," said my father emphatically, and
at this point, the champagne and sandwiches arriving,
we turned our attention to eating and drinking, while
the beautiful voices of the boys sang a Hush thee, my
Evans's Supper-Rooms 41
Babe/' and Paddy Green, with " nods and becks and
wreathed smiles," silently drank our health and then
stole quietly away.
When the glee was over my father told us that
Royalty was coming to supper in the next room, and
that, as there was no other entrance, they would pass
through our room, and therefore he meant to leave
at half-past eleven. Paddy Green did not think the
party would arrive before that time. Now the song
my father particularly wanted us to hear was " Breathe
not of Parting," and it was in the middle of the pro-
gramme, so we waited for it. I shall never forget how
beautifully it was sung, and what a storm of applause
greeted it ; there was an encore, and again the boys'
beautiful voices seemed almost to whisper the words,
and the silence was so intense a pin could have been
heard to drop ; the song seemed to die away, and I came
back to earth with a sigh. I found I was in the royal
supper-room, and I made haste to go, for, though my
programme was only half through, we were going ;
I therefore stepped quickly to the velvet curtain and
drew it aside, to find myself face to face with the
Prince of Wales.
I do not know how I looked, but he looked very
well and jolly, and intensely amused as he held back the
curtain for me and gave me a pleasant smile and bow
as I bowed and thanked him ; there were two ladies
behind him and a gentleman. My mother and my
friend were seated, apparently absorbed in the stage.
42 In the Sixties and Seventies
my father was standing, and directly the curtain fell
behind them we put on our cloaks and passed out.
We were all very loyal people, but I think that
night we were none of us as pleased as we ought to
have been to see the heir to the throne.
Paddy Green said, " You must come again, Missie,
you must come again " ; but that was my first and last
visit to " Evans's/
CHAPTER IV
UNDER A CLOUD " — THE BURTONS — TO SCHOOL AT WATFORD — YELLOW-
BACKED NOVELS — THE SPECIMEN PUPIL — MR. AND MRS. GERALD
MASSEY — THOMAS COOPER, CHARTIST.
IN those happy days writing had not become a
trade, and people were not always in a hurry.
Education was not perpetually being talked about ;
children were not " crammed ' to pass examinations,
as geese are for market ; there were no school boards
-and it was possible to get a respectable servant, who
had some idea of doing her duty, and of being respect-
ful to her employers. But many of the working classes
could neither read nor write, and this was the case
with " my own Mary Ann," as Mr. Ross called my
nurse.
My mother was anxious to remedy the defect, and
when my father was out, or busy in his study, she
gave the young woman lessons, and after the lessons
read aloud some story, while Mary Ann nursed the
new baby, and the Philosopher and Toddlekins sat as
quiet as mice, but much interested in the proceedings.
It was thus that Toddlekins heard her first novel, and
became very fond of the story ; and here she showed
her good taste, for the novel was Under a Cloud, by
43
44 In the Sixties and Seventies
one of the Greenwood brothers ; it appeared in a
weekly magazine called The Welcome Guest ; and
though Toddlekins was much too young to understand
it, she would run about with a bound volume of the
magazine, a big book that she could scarcely carry, and
ask for <c Wappits, you're wanted," as she called the
story, after her favourite illustration.
But " little Toddlekins ' vanishes, like the fairy her
old friend George Cruikshank declared she was ; a
thin, pale child takes her place. The baby has grown
into a sturdy boy, he and the pale child trudge to
school together to Hart Street, Bloomsbury. My
father had moved to Southampton Street, Bloomsbury ;
he had been looking for a house in that neighbourhood
for some time, but could not get one to his liking.
No. 3 was very large, having fifteen rooms ; the
ground floor, too, was a lawyer's offices, and let to a
solicitor named Romew, which soon became " Romeo,"
and gave rise to endless jokes amongst the actors and
authors who visited us.
It was in Southampton Street that the Burtons first
came to see us. I can see Mrs. Burton now, a stylishly
dressed woman — my childish ideal of a princess-
talking, talking, talking to a beautiful, but silent
companion, while a small girl, nursing a large wax doll,
stares with solemn dark eyes at the picture they make.
I was so delicate in those days that I was almost
always at home from school, and my mother scarcely
let me out of her sight. It seemed to me that this
Lady Burton 45
beautiful woman came and talked for whole days
at a time, and it was all about " Dear Richard and
the Government." Mrs. (afterwards Lady) Burton
was of medium height, dark haired, bright com-
plexioned, and very animated in her manner. My
mother was a good listener ; she was repose per-
sonified ; only now and then she smiled or put in
a word ; but Mrs. Burton's stream of eloquence
never seemed to be exhausted. I was intensely in-
terested, at times worked up into an excited state.
Once I crept out of my corner, and, with my doll
clasped in my arms, came and stood in front of the
lady and stared in her face. Mrs. Burton never
saw me, but my mother told me to leave the room,
and I silently obeyed, and toiled up the stairs to
my grandmother's bedroom, where I myself slept ;
and sitting on my own little bed, I sat the doll up
in front of me (she was a beautiful wax creature with
long, curly hair, and wax arms and legs) and went
over most of the argument about Richard and the
Government, imitating Mrs. Burton's animated manner ;
but Richard was a fairy prince and Government an
ogre.
Captain Burton was, I believe, in Africa when his
wife came to ask my father to take up the cudgels
in his defence, and to pour all her troubles into
my mother's ears. Of all that was said, I can only
remember one remarkable sentence, and that I after-
wards found in one of Mrs. Burton's letters to my
46 In the Sixties and Seventies
father ; so, as we all do on occasions, she repeated
herself. I can hear her now saying :
" Yes, they are making a complete Aunt Sally of
the poor fellow, and he can't stand up for himself.
You and Mr. Friswell will say he deserves it for
his polygamous opinions ; but he married only one
wife, and he is a domestic man at home, and a homesick
man away. Poor dear Richard ! '
She waved her hand energetically, and her eyes
flashed ; I was very sympathetic, and felt as if I
could kill Government ; my hands clenched, my cheeks
burned, and my eyes were glowing ; it was then that
my mother saw me and told me to run away.
I was naturally very anxious to see " Richard," as
I always called Captain Burton to myself ; in fact,
I do not think I realised that he was a mere man,
and the husband of Mrs. Burton — he was some one
infinitely greater.
When I did see him I was terribly disappointed
and rather alarmed. He was not a fairy prince, but
a bold bandit ; such a great, strong man could not
want any one's help, I thought, in my ignorance. His
loud voice, and rather sneering manner, as though
he believed in nothing in heaven or earth, and above
all the long sabre cut across his face, made him look
so fierce that he might well strike terror into the
heart of a small girl. My mother says he was fond
of talking about spiritualism, and of saying he believed
in some of the wonderful stories he told on that
Sir Richard Burton 47
subject ; but he said so in such a cynical manner she
never believed him ; he was also fond of telling the
most vivid, wonderful, and often horrible stories,
which she put down as travellers* tales. Of the Indian
snake charmers, and conjurors, he had endless tales,
one being that " he had seen them call down fire from
heaven." He laughed at all religions, and to such
an extent that my mother would never allow any
discussion on the subject when he came. We were
all charmed with Lady Burton.
Two or three doctors coming to the conclusion
(and unanimously) that I could not live in London,
I was sent to school at Watford. My school-
mistresses were three maiden ladies, family connections
of ours, and sisters to George Dawson, the popular
Nonconformist minister and lecturer. The school
was a pretty, old-fashioned, rose-covered cottage,
surrounded by a large garden, and standing just out-
side the gates of Cassiobury Park. Here the Misses
Dawson taught the young idea how to shoot- -but
it was in a very prim and old-fashioned manner.
On my going back to school after the first term
a rather amusing incident occurred, which, as it throws
some light on the curious old-fashioned prejudices
of the time, I make no excuse for telling. My
mother had seen me off at Euston, putting me in
charge of the guard ; besides my beloved doll, I had
a copy of Diamonds and Spades, which my mother
had bought me at the station bookstall. Diamonds and
48 In the Sixties and Seventies
Spades is a dramatic story, written by my father ;
it had run through several editions, and was in the
cheap two-shilling yellow cover which is even now
the favourite colour for railway editions.
I was very miserable as the train started, for I hated
leaving home, and there was nothing in common
between me and the schoolgirls. I had not been used
to girls, and I knew they looked upon me as odd :-
" curious little kid — talks like a book when she likes-
but doesn't she use odd words ! ' were some of the
remarks they made.
At the beginning and end of a term the work is
disorganised in most schools, and when I arrived in
the schoolroom that afternoon, after taking off my
outdoor things, I found the girls standing about in
groups, discussing all they had seen or done in the
holidays, or putting the new pupils through a regular
catechism, which always took this form : " Have you
got a father ? ' and if the answer was Yes, " What
is he ? "—if No, " When did he die ? " Then the
questions went on till they had learnt all about the
members of the family, and their respective ages and
occupations. I had been through this ordeal the term
before, but I pitied the scared, tearful child who,
surrounded by half a dozen big girls, was undergoing
it as I came in.
My appearance, with my doll on one arm and the
book under the other, created a diversion ; they let
the new pupil go, and closed round me ; one big
YelloW'backed Novels 49
girl, snatching the book from me, waved it aloft, crying
out :
" Look, look what the little kid has brought — one
of those wicked yellow-backed novels."
<c Oh ! — let's look ! Do let's look ! " cried several
voices, while hands were out-stretched, and I began to
think my book would be torn to pieces, and accord-
ingly lifted up my voice in angry protest ; but many
of those girls were eighteen, and none under sixteen,
so they paid not the slightest attention to my wishes,
but closed up round the girl who held Diamonds and
Spades.
tf O-o-oh ! — doesn't it look interesting ? doesn't it
look wicked ? Yellow books are always improper,"
were some of the sentences I heard.
" Just look at the cover, a man murdering an-
other." -u Oh ! do let me see — how is he doing
it ? ' -kl Why, hitting him over the head — can't you
see the poker, stupid ? " — " It does look exciting — but
won't she get in a row ! '
All this time I was crying out :
" Give me my book ! — it isn't wicked ! Miss
Dawson won't take it away ! Give me my book ! '
u Where did you get it ? ' asked the girl who had
taken it from under my arm ; she was a sister of one
of the governesses, and a pupil teacher, and she
tyrannised over the small girls mercilessly.
" My mother bought it for me," I said, almost in
tears.
50 In the Sixties and Seventies
" Oh, I daresay ! that won't do — mothers won't
allow such books to be read, I know ; yellow-backs are
always wicked."
a Yellow books are not wicked!' I cried angrily,
a and my father wrote it ! '
At this point the governess, Miss H., appeared, and
was appealed to. She looked very grave, and said she
did not think that books bought from a railway book-
stall were fit reading for any one, and especially not for
little girls ; she could scarcely believe my mother
bought it for me, but if so, she was sure Miss Dawson
would wish to« keep the book for me till I went
home.
It was not often I showed temper, but I was so
angry I turned upon Miss H. like a fury, and said :
" It's not a wicked book ! my father wrote it ;
books are not bad, and you are a set of ignorant
Philistines."
For a moment there was silence, and then a big
girl asked :
"What are Philistines?"
" You are so stupid, you don't know half your own
language ! Philistines are silly, dull people, who have
no idea of literature or art ! ' I retorted.
" Who says that ? — the writing people you know,
I suppose ? ' asked a voice.
" Yes ! ' I cried, " the best, the cleverest, and most
interesting people in the world ! — every one else is dull
and stupid ! ' and then I burst into such a storm of
"Diamonds and Spades' 51
tears that every one was silent ; then, out of the silence,
the voice of a solemn, phlegmatic Russian girl said :
" My father says writers are a silly, wicked lot who
make no money/1
At this point Miss Dawson entered. She was tall,
spare, and very severe-looking, but one of the kindest
women in the world. She wanted to know what was
the matter, and she ordered my book to be given to
me, saying that she was astonished at Miss H. taking
it away when she saw who was the author.
The book was restored to me, but I was in such
a state of nervous irritation that I cried myself ill,
nor would I be pacified. I was quite laid up for some
days, and Miss Dawson was very much annoyed ;
but I doubt if she fully understood the matter, and
I could not explain, as I was quite incapable of under-
standing the point of view of those big girls. Indeed,
their behaviour bewildered me very much, for they
all wanted to read Diamonds and Spades, and begged
me to lend it to them, not because my father had
written it, but simply because of the yellow cover.
" You called it wicked," I said ; " then why do you
want to read it ? '
They giggled and nudged each other and called
me « Baby ! "
I explained that this was a new and cheap edition,
that the colour of the cover had nothing to do with
a book. They would not agree : " Yellow-backs
are always wicked/' they said. I further explained
5 2 In the Sixties and Seventies
that authors were obliged to put wicked people into
stories, but that though it was wrong to rob or kill
people, it was not wrong to read about such things.
Again they laughed, and I declared they should not
have Diamonds and Spades till they explained their
idea of a wicked book.
Miss L. H., the girl who had first taken the book
from me, was the most determined to read it, and
she gave me this explanation :
"It's nothing to do with murders — I can't explain,
but I love reading yellow-backs, and I always do
whenever I can. I should catch it like anything if
my mother knew, but she doesn't, for this is the way
I manage. I get them from a library and smuggle
them up into my room — it's lovely there on a summer
afternoon, the sun streams in the windows, and I
sit up there with my work and a yellow-back ; I
have the book in my lap, and my work — it's generally
plain sewing — in my hand, and if I hear my mother
coming upstairs — and I listen, I can tell you — I hide
the novel — sit on it, or drop my work over it, or slip
it on the floor under my dress. Twice she's nearly
caught me — it was so interesting I did not hear her
coming ; some day I shall be caught, and then won't
there be a fine to-do ! ' She laughed.
I thought L. H.'s mother must be curious, if not
quite mad, to think novels so wicked, and I improved
the occasion by lecturing L. H., in spite of her eight
years' seniority, on the enormity of deceiving her
A Quotation from Sheridan 53
mother. She laughed aloud, and said I was " as good
as a play ' ' ; but she only wished her parents were like
mine, and I was lucky to be allowed to go to the
theatre and read what books I liked.
Years afterwards, when I read Sheridan's play, The
Rivals, I was reminded of L. H. and her confessions.
Who does not remember the scene in Mrs. Malapropos
lodgings, where Lydia Languish is discovered on a
sofa with a book in her hand, and Lucy, her maid,
enters in a hurry to say Sir Anthony Absolute and
Mrs. Malaprop are coming upstairs ? —
" Lydia : Here, my dear Lucy, hide these books.
Quick, quick, fling Peregrine Pickle under the toilet —
throw Roderick Random into the closet — put The
Innocent Adultery into The Whole Duty of Man — thrust
Lord Aimworth under the sofa — cram Ovid behind
the bolster — there- -put The Man of Feeling into your
pocket — so, so — now lay Mrs. Chapone in sight, and
leave Fordyce's Sermons open on the table.
"Lucy : O burn it, ma'am ! the hairdresser has torn
away as far as Proper Pride.
" Lydia : Never mind — open at Sobriety. Fling me
Lord Chesterfield's Letters. Now for 'em."
The Misses Dawson were Baptists, and used to
attend a small, whitewashed chapel of the barest
description ; a three-decker pulpit, with an enormous
crimson velvet cushion on each reading-desk, having
tassels about nine inches round and a foot long, gave
tone and colour to the place. The preacher often
54 In the Sixties and Seventies
and vigorously thumped the cushion in the upper
pulpit, while one of the tradespeople, a chemist, acting
as clerk, stood in the lower and called out " Amen '
in a stentorian voice ; he also read out the hymns
with much unction, then, waving his arms like a
baton, led the singing, thundering out the verse
in so loud a tone that his voice was heard above all
others. Having read and sung one verse, he read
the next and then sang it, the congregation joining in,
and so reading and singing, went through to the end.
During the last verse of the hymn before the sermon
he usually came out of his box and walked down
the aisle, to speak to the door-keeper presumably ; he
sang his loudest all the time, and as he passed the
noise was deafening, and the girls nearest the pew
doors always ducked their heads and declared it was
necessary to put up umbrellas.
The Gentle Life had been out some time, and
was very popular. The Misses Dawson were, I
suppose, proud of having the author's daughter as
one of their pupils, and much to my disgust I was
often sent for when parents, who were thinking of
placing their children at the school, came to inspect
it. I can see myself, a small, pale, painfully thin child,
with hands that were so tiny and so thin that my
schoolfellows likened them to birds' claws. I hated
to be sent for, and to be introduced as " the daughter
of the author of The Gentle Life " ; I resented being
stared at by rich, handsomely dressed women, who
The Show Pupil 55
looked their astonishment. I had read Nicholas
Nickleby, and used to think of Wackford Squeers,
who looked so well and fat, and I wondered the
Misses Dawson did not send for a Miss Stone, the
daughter of a wholesale purveyor of meat, who
was a dark-haired, rosy-cheeked, pretty girl, whom
we all admired.
When I came out from these interviews I had to
run the gauntlet of the twenty odd pupils' curiosity
and chaff.
" Well, little Frissie," they would say, " what was
she like this time ? ' and I would give them an
imitation of the rich woman, with her pince-nez, and
her astonishment at my smallness ; her comment when
I was shutting the door : " Oh, poor little thing,
she looks as if her bones would come through her
skin — and what a churchyard cough she has ! ' This,
and " Oh, poor child, how delicate ! she isn't long
for this world, any one can see," were the usual
formulae.
The girls used to roar with laughter at my mimicry ;
but they chaffed me unmercifully about my thinness
and my cough, which was very hollow-sounding. My
heart was often full of disgust and anger, and one
day, having the toothache very badly, I lost my temper,
and striking my hand on the schoolroom table, cried
out:
CI won't be looked at any more as the daughter
of the author of The Gentle Life, and I don't care
5 6 In the Sixties and Seventies
if I have a churchyard cough ; I will grow up and
get married — and the first present my husband shall
buy me will be a set of new teeth ! '
There were screams of laughter at this speech, and
in the midst of it, as I was being carried round
the room in the arms of a tall, stalwart girl, whose
hair I was pulling to make her release me, the door
was thrown open and Miss Dawson came in. The
laughter was hushed instantly, and I was allowed to
slip to the floor.
" Christabel and Geraldine Massey, and Laura
Hain Friswell," said Miss Dawson (she never forgot
the Hain). Christabel, a good-looking girl, very like
her father, rose, followed by her sister, a pale, thin
child, and I came last. We did not know what
would happen, but thought we were in for a scold-
ing. But the Massey girls gave a cry of delight,
and were embracing a short, bright-eyed, alert man,
with bushy curly hair, who stood in the hall with
his back to the door, while a few paces from him,
standing up tall and ghostly, was a lady, whose
clothes seemed to have been huddled on her, and
might, if she moved, drop off. It was a summer
evening, and I believe Mrs. Massey was dressed in
pale muslin, and wore a scarf and bonnet. I know
the limp dress clung round her, and I can see the
evening sunlight from the schoolroom window shining
on her impassive face and quiet eyes, which had a
fa.r-away look in them. I stopped short on the mat
Gerald Massey 57
and gazed at her, and so prevented Miss Dawson, who
was behind me, from shutting the schoolroom door.
The poet we all knew, for he often came to see
his daughters ; but Mrs. Massey we had never seen,
and there was some curiosity about her, for we had
heard she was a clairvoyant, was often ill, and walked
in her sleep. I had no idea what a clairvoyant was,
but to walk in one's sleep seemed to me a ghost-
like and uncomfortable proceeding. Christabel and
Geraldine, though they talked of their father, seldom
mentioned their mother. Mr. Massey had once or
twice talked to me, and even taken me for a walk
with his daughters. I was proud of his notice, but I
was always nervous and uncomfortable. I think it was
his eyes that frightened me, they were very bright and
piercing. There were, too, some curious stories about
the poet, stories that made the girls look upon him
as peculiar. It was long before the days of hypnotism
and thought-reading, but mesmerism and spiritualism
were very much in vogue. I had seen a man named
Anderson, who called himself " The Wizard of the
North," perform some wonderful conjuring tricks,
and mesmerise people till they did all kinds of absurd
things ; and when one of the Massey girls remarked
that " papa made mamma do anything he wanted
by only looking at her," I thought Gerald Massey
must be a wizard, and I did not care to be in his
company, and would rather he did not look at me.
Mrs. Massey was very delicate, and it was said the
5 8 In the Sixties and Seventies
poet did all his own housekeeping, and even bought his
children's clothes. This seemed to the schoolgirls not
a man's business, and the elder girls did not scruple
to laugh and jeer, which hurt his daughters' feelings,
making the elder indignant, and the younger cry ; and
I, who hated such behaviour, and would not have
literary people laughed at on any account, stoutly
maintained that to do the housekeeping and to buy
clothes was peculiar to poets, and therefore quite
right. As I was looked upon as an authority on
literary manners, if not matters, the chaff ceased.
I was also fond of telling fairy tales to the little
children, and Geraldine Massey, though about my
own age, was very young for her years, which were
not more than ten or eleven.
The reason I was sent for, I learnt afterwards, was
that Mr. Massey had said his wife wished to see me ;
but when we came she had lapsed into a dreamy state,
and was quite oblivious, I believe, of any one's pre-
sence ; she noticed neither her children nor me, and the
poet spoke to her once or twice before she answered.
u My dear, my love," he said, " look — this is little
Miss Hain Friswell, that Geraldine is always talking
about, who tells such pretty fairy tales ; you wanted to
see her.'1
" Did I ? said Mrs. Massey, in a monotonous
voice.
Mr. Massey glanced at me quickly and smiled ;
then he gave his wife's arm a little shake.
Mrs* Massey 59
<c Why, yes, of course you did ; you wanted to thank
her for being so kind to Geraldine," he said quickly.
" Poor Geraldine. I am glad she's kind," said
Mrs. Massey.
" Go and shake hands," whispered Miss Dawson,
giving me a little push forward. I went and put out
my hand, and Mr. Massey put his wife's into it. I
held it, it was cold and clammy ; the tears began to
roll down my face.
"She's crying," said Mrs. Massey, in her curiously
far-away voice, that had a note of faint astonishment
in it, though she did not look at me. <c Why does she
5 "
cry r
" She is a very nervous child, and she has the tooth-
ache," remarked Miss Dawson hurriedly.
" It's not that — it's quite gone — but — oh, you look
so ill," I exclaimed sorrowfully, staring up into
Mrs. Massey's face. My earnestness, and the intensity
of my gaze, seemed to attract her attention for the first
time ; she almost smiled, and some kind of feeling
passed over her impassive face.
" I shall be better soon," she said, but she did not
look at me ; she stared over my head, over Miss
Dawson and the girls crowding behind her — out
towards the setting sun that streamed through the
schoolroom window her gaze went, and remained for
a moment ; then her husband touched her gently and
drew her hand through his arm.
" We must be going — say good-bye," he said
60 In the Sixties and Seventies
cheerfully, and he opened the hall door and led her
out. She never came again, and died soon after ; but
how many weeks or months I am not sure.
In the little whitewashed Baptist Chapel I heard
Thomas Cooper, the atheist and Chartist lecturer, after
he had turned Christian, and was trying to undo all
the harm he said he had done. He lectured for six
nights, telling us much of the story of his life. Some
of us girls went every evening ; I believe I went to
all the six ; I know I was at the last, when all the
people rose and gave him a regular ovation, almost
cheering him in their excitement. I, instead of follow-
ing Miss Dawson to the door, marched up the chapel,
followed by several girls, and as he came down the
pulpit steps I looked up in his face and held out my
hand. I wanted to wish him " God speed ' in his
good work, and had made up a neat little speech ;
but when it came to the point I was too much alarmed
to deliver it. Thomas Cooper smiled and took my
hand- -it seemed swallowed in his large palm — and he
looked down on me from what seemed to me a great
height ; but I doubt if he was pleased with the result
of my enthusiasm, for my example was followed by
the whole of the people, who scrambled out of the
pews and over the seats to shake him by the hand,
till at last he was glad to take refuge in the vestry.
CHAPTER V
MR. EDWARD DRAPER, A LITERARY SOLICITOR — SOME MEMORABLE DAYS
-I LEAVE SCHOOL — DR. BENJAMIN WARD RICHARDSON — AN
AWKWARD POSITION — MR. EDWARD CLARKE — DR. PANKHURST — A
SUCCESSFUL CASE — A LARGE CHILDREN'S PARTY.
ONE of my father's oldest friends was a Mr.
Edward Draper, a solicitor who lived in
Westminster. He was legal adviser to Albert Smith
and many literary men- -indeed, he was quite a literary
lawyer. He was a very eccentric man, with a great
amount of dry humour, which found its vent in prose,
or verse, and in very clever sketches. He contributed
to most of the papers and magazines of the day, was
a friend of Edmund Yates, Sala, Godfrey Turner,
Mortimer Collins, and most of the journalists of that
time. He had a very tall, handsome, cheerful wife,
and they used to keep open house. They were great
friends of my father and mother, and very kind to us
children ; in fact, Mr. Draper would do the most
outrageous things to amuse children. I remember on
one occasion when we were there he took us all down
into the kitchen, and, producing some small brass
cannon, he fired holes through the kitchen door.
Another time Mr. and Mrs. Draper and several
62 In the Sixties and Seventies
grown-up people, the Philosopher and I, sat at a
round table, putting our hands on it, while two snakes
crawled round and would either crawl over our hands,
or, rearing their heads, dart out their tongues and hiss
at us. I did not like this exhibition at all, and kept
dropping my hands into my lap as soon as the snakes
came near. Mr. Draper assured me that they would
not hurt me, but I could not be induced to keep my
hands on the table- -the snakes made me shudder. But
there was a game we all enjoyed, and that was when
Mr. Draper, pretending to be the ring master of a
circus, would set the doors and folding doors of his
dining-room open, build up a barricade of two or
three chairs, and standing in one room cracking a
whip, would make his large retriever race round and
round, faster and faster, leaping over the chairs. The
dog's barks, the cracking of the whip — and he knew
how to crack it in the scientific manner — and our yells
and shouts, made such a babel that I wonder now we
did not rouse the indignation of all Pimlico.
I was at school three years, and my father and
mother came down to see me every term. In the
summer my father would make up a party, order a
certain number of picnic hampers from Fortnum &
Mason, and hire an omnibus with three or four
horses. Mr. and Mrs. Draper and their friends, Mr.
and Mrs. Godfrey Turner and some of their friends,
Mr. and Mrs. W (whose daughter was at school
with me), Andrew Halliday, Ashby Sterry, and several
Picnics at Watford 63
other literary people, would join, and drive down
to Watford ; then we would have a picnic in the
Park, or in a wood near the Park, or a cold
collation at the Essex Arms. Those were red-
letter days, for every one was so full of fun and
jollity. Though I and my friend Bessie W did
not have the fun of the drive, we returned to school
in the evening loaded with good things, besides the
hampers our mothers always brought us. What feasts
we schoolgirls had ! at which I sang the songs and
repeated the speeches, as far as I could, that I had
heard at home or at the picnic. I had very strong
lungs in spite of my cough, and I imitated Mr. Draper
singing "An 'Orrible Tale," and a parody of Godfrey
Turner's on u Hoop-de-doo-dum-doo," Mr. Warwick
Reynolds's " Hot Coddlings," and another gentleman
who sang " Maid of Athens," and who, I declared,
always said " by those lips whose jetty fringe." The
Misses Dawson were generally out when Bessie W
and I gave a supper party, and our parties were so
popular that the big igirls deigned to come — indeed,
they insisted on being invited.
Schools in those days were not what they are now,
and the Misses Dawson, as I have said, were old-
fashioned. We had no desks, but sat upon wooden
forms without backs and wrote with our paper or
exercise-books lying flat upon the table. The only
seats we had with backs were very tall chairs with very
small seats — about half the size of the top of an office
64 In the Sixties and Seventies
stool — and very high straight backs. This luxurious
type of chair was styled by the schoolgirls " Aunt
Esther's Lounge." Who " Aunt Esther ' was I do
not know- -if she ever existed is very doubtful ; but
we all avoided her " lounges " and preferred the forms,
hard and tiring though they were. I, being a weak
girl, was easily tired, and in the three years I was at
Watford I contracted curvature of the spine, which
the doctors attributed to my sitting upon hard seats
without backs.
Directly it was found I was growing crooked I
was taken away, and after much consultation and a
variety of opinions I became one of Dr. Benjamin
Ward Richardson's patients, and was treated by him
for seven years, I shall never forget those walks with
my mother from our house in Great Russell Street,
through the squares, to see the doctor and instrument
maker. I hated the dull streets and squares and the
long hot walk ; but I had to take a certain amount
of exercise, and the jolting of omnibuses and cabs was
bad for me. Dr. Richardson lived in Hinde Street,
Manchester Square, and the large, gloomy room in
which my mother and I used to wait, with the two
tall, melancholy indiarubber plants in the window, is
indelibly photographed on my mind. I can never
imagine why doctors' waiting-rooms are so gloomy.
It is bad enough to go to a doctor, but to wait in
those awful rooms is torture. How well I can
remember the dusty Turkey carpet, the heavy, dark
A Depressing Room 65
furniture, the curtains of so invisible a green that
they were almost black ! There was a tall bookcase
of medical works — to read the titles would have made
one's hair stand on end ; fortunately the bookcase
was locked, or the patients might have committed
suicide, or died of fright, before the doctor was ready
for them. There was a bust of Darwin in one corner,
Huxley in another, and Harvey stood between the
windows. They were all of them ghastly and very
dusty ; I thought them hideous and longed to smash
them. Upon the mantelpiece were three massive
bronzes ; the clock had a gruesome figure of Time,
which pointed one bony finger to the dial, and leered
at you with a deathlike stare, or so I imagined as I
prowled round the room, taking note of everything.
The atmosphere was always hot and airless, for the
windows never seemed to be open, and I never saw
any one but ourselves in the room ; but that was
probably because we were the last people the doctor
saw. The most lively paper on the table was Punch,
and that we often found dreary in the extreme. The
only sound one heard in the silent house was a faint
noise that now and then penetrated the double doors
of the next room, which was the doctor's consulting-
room, and to which I knew we should be summoned
sooner or later. How I dreaded it, and how I tried
to occupy my thoughts ! because I could not help being
on the qui vive for every sound. My imagination
was vivid, and I sometimes thought I heard a moan
5
66 In the Sixties and Seventies
or a cry, and then I fancied some of the toads, cats,
and rabbits were being vivisected, or that some human
being was in the throes of death. But these fears
vanished when I saw Dr. Richardson — he always looked
so good-tempered, cheerful, and kind ; and yet I
knew that when I went into that consulting-room I
should see the rabbits in hutches outside the window,
and that there was a kind of aquarium, in which
several toads and other creatures were kept. I
remember one day seeing a rabbit lying apparently
dead upon the table, but the doctor assured me that
he had only been trying an anaesthetic upon it, and
that it would soon come to life again ; he also said
that that particular rabbit was very fond of anaesthetics.
On my first visit he ordered me cod-liver oil, and
the strongest preparation of iron, and he very obligingly
poured my mother out a wine-glass of the oil, asking
her to taste it, and highly recommending it. As she
refused it, he said, u Then I'll drink it myself," and
he held up the glass to the light, showing us what
a fine colour it was, and putting me in mind of an
advertisement I saw in the omnibuses, of a man holding
up a glass of wine and exclaiming u What ! Beeswing ! '
We duly admired the colour, and Dr. Richardson
drank it off, and licked his lips as if he had had a
treat. On another occasion I complained that the iron
turned everything I wore that was silver, even to my
thimble which I sometimes carried in my pocket,
black.
Sir Benjamin Ward Richardson 67
" That's nothing, my dear girl," returned the
doctor. " I gave one young lady so much cod-liver
oil and iron that it turned her hair black ; and the
oil oozed through her skin to such an extent that
her relations, and even her lover, could not come
near her."
On hearing this appalling state of things I was
silent. " Be thankful," he continued, u that you are
too young to have a lover, and that I've not treated
you so badly, for your hair's as fair as ever."
I was thankful, and told him so, at which he laughed
heartily, and looked at me in a quizzical manner.
I know he wondered if I believed his story, which
of course I did not ; but I thought if he could poke
fun at me, I would puzzle him. We were always
very good friends ; he praised me for my persever-
ance and attention to his orders, and said I deserved
to get well. My father had thought that riding would
do me good ; but any violent exercise was stopped.
I was not allowed to write, and had to learn all my
lessons lying on my back on a board. I was taken
for a short walk every day, and except at meals
was always lying down. To vary the monotony of
lying on my board, I sometimes, in the late after-
noon, or evening, lay upon the drawing-room sofa.
I used to read a great deal, and often dozed off
to sleep. One evening I woke up, with the servant
opening the drawing-room door. The light from
the gas in the hall streamed into the dark room ;
(C
68 In the Sixties and Seventies
she set a chair in the light, and said, " Will you
take a seat here, sir? I will fetch a lamp and tell
Mr. Friswell you are here."
She left the room, and I found myself in an awkward
position. The room was very dark, and, besides that,
the high end of the sofa completely concealed me
from the visitor's view. Nor could I see him. I did
not know what to do, but thought it best to lie still
and try not to breathe. This I tried, but it was
a failure, for I found I had to draw a deep breath,
which sounded like a prolonged sigh. I then rose
softly. The visitor had risen also, but could not
see me in the shadow, though I had a full view of
him where he stood in the stream of light. He was
a man about thirty ; short, pale, and with a strongly
marked face, which I at once felt confidence in and
liked. He was peering about with rather a perplexed
look upon his face. I emerged into the light, and
he stared at me for a moment in the greatest astonish-
ment. I moved forward and held out my hand ;
he took it, still looking perplexed.
I am very sorry I startled you," I said ; " I tried
not to breathe, but I could not manage it."
" It would be difficult," he replied, and added :
" I am delighted to find that 1 have strayed into
the castle of the Sleeping Beauty. It is a piece of
good luck that I did not expect."
Like all very young people, I hated to be laughed at,
so I made no reply. He then said :
Sir Edward Clarke 69
" I see I am making a mistake, and that you must
be the Fair One with the Golden Locks."
" My name/' I said gravely, " is Laura Friswell."
" And I am Edward Clarke, at your service," he
replied, with a very polite bow.
This was my first introduction to Mr. Edward
Clarke (now Sir Edward Clarke), who afterwards
became a frequent visitor. We all grew fond of
the clever young barrister, and my father, who was
always enthusiastic, used to declare that he should
live to see Mr. Clarke upon the woolsack. I used
to be very much amused at his pungent, sarcastic
talk, and his flattering attention to the ladies.
At this time I remember an incident that greatly
impressed me. It was a sunny evening in early
summer, and my mother was sitting at needlework,
near one of the three windows in the drawing-room,
while my father was talking to a Dr. Pankhurst (a
barrister), a great advocate for the "Women's Rights '
movement, and a lecturer on the subject. He was
a very small man and very enthusiastic. He talked
well, but had unfortunately a very high, squeaky voice.
He wanted my father and mother to go to a lecture
on Women's Rights, given by Miss Lydia Becker,
but my mother shook her head and declined to be
interested — she was so " under the rule of a man,"
Dr. Pankhurst averred ; while my father laughed and
pooh-poohed the idea of women's rights or wrongs,
and advised Dr. Pankhurst to marry Miss Becker.
70 In the Sixties and Seventies
" I will ! ' he cried, becoming very heated ; starting
out of his chair and rising up on his toes in his
excitement, he dashed the clenched knuckles of his
right hand into the palm of his left, and shouted,
cc Friswell, I'll convince you, or I'll annihilate you ! '
My mother broke into a peal of laughter, for my
father looked as if he could have picked up the little
man and dropped him out of window. Fortunately
a diversion was created at this moment ; the door
was thrown open by the servant, and Mr. Clarke
entered, exclaiming jubilantly :
" Congratulate me ! I've got my woman off ! '
My mother seemed taken aback, and shook hands
with him in silence, but I jumped out of my seat and
cried :
" What ? — that murderess ! Then you'd no right
to do such a thing ! '
Every one was thunderstruck at my vehemence, and
Mr. Clarke was speechless.
" You know you said you thought she did it," I
explained more quietly.
"Oh yes, she undoubtedly did it," returned Mr.
Clarke cheerfully.
"Then I call it very wicked of you to help her to
escape ! ' said 1 indignantly. Every one laughed, and
Mr. Clarke answered :
" I was bound to do the best I could for my client.
You must blame the jury who acquitted her. And
then you know I believe in Women's Rights ; her
The Advocate of Sinners 71
husband was a brute, and she poisoned him. That
was quite as it should be — now, wasn't it, Pankhurst ? '
But the little man was silent, and after some more
talk about the case the conversation drifted into happier
subjects.
But I heard none of it, I was lost in thought : it
was such a new idea to me that lawyers should defend
people they knew to be criminals, and to the extent
of saving them from death, that it set me pondering,
and it was some time before I could see the matter
in the right light. I was not allowed to read the
newspapers, so it was only from the conversation of
my elders that I heard of the case. I know my opinion
of Mr. Clarke was considerably altered by what I
considered his want of morality in getting a criminal
off, and rejoicing that he had done so. For a long
time I never saw him without wondering what dread-
ful character he had been defending, and I used to
be astonished that he could laugh and sing sentimental
songs when he knew so much wickedness went on.
His neat appearance and the gardenia in his button-
hole were also a surprise to me ; I believe I thought
sackcloth and ashes would have been more appropriate
for the advocate of sinners. I wondered how his
wife liked his having such clients, and I had a great
mind to ask her opinion on the subject of defending
criminals ; but I noticed she was always very much
wrapped up in her children and her house, and I
therefore came to the conclusion that she took no
72 In the Sixties and Seventies
interest in such matters, and would look upon me as
peculiar ; and if there was anything I dreaded it was
to be thought unlike other girls.
It was somewhere about this time that my father
gave a large juvenile party, to which many very well
known people came and danced and sang, even dressing
up to amuse us. I remember Mr. Warwick Reynolds
dressed up as a woman (my grandmother lending him
a dress and an old bonnet and shawl) to sing " Hot
Coddlings," while Mr. Ashby Sterry, a very handsome
young man (like the portraits of Sir Philip Sidney),
danced a polka with me, stooping down to my height ;
how he managed to dance with his legs so bent I
cannot imagine, but I know he did it very successfully.
We youngsters were delighted, and it was one of the
features of the evening. My father was particularly
fond of cold punch, and had made some for the elders
of the party, while home-made lemonade was provided
for the children. By some mistake we tasted the
punch, and after that we would have " the other
lemonade/' as we called it ; the waiters artfully and
fortunately diluted it, but when the grown people went
down to supper the punch was conspicuous by its
absence. Only a few months ago, at a party given by
the Women Journalists to welcome their President,
Lady Sarah Wilson, I met Mr. Sterry ; we had not
seen each other for many years, but he recalled that
children's party, and reminded me of the incident of
the cold punch.
CHAPTER VI
"THE BAYARD SERIES" —ANECDOTES OF MR. SWINBURNE — SWINBURNE
COMES TO TEA — THE RALSTON RUSSIAN STORIES — MR. SWINBURNE
AGAIN.
NOT being able to go to school, I had a governess,
a very good-looking young lady, who was
fond of literature, and delighted to see some of the
celebrated men and women who came to our house in
Great Russell Street. Miss W often acted as secre-
tary to my father, who was at this time editing " The
Bayard Series," a set of pleasure books of literature.
The story of the Chevalier Bayard, being the first
volume of the series, gave it its name ; many well-
known men and women wrote essays, or introductions,
to the various volumes, and my father had asked
Swinburne to write an essay on Coleridge, as an in-
troduction to Chris label, and the lyrical and imaginative
poems of Coleridge. Swinburne was then at the
height of his fame, and my governess and I were most-
anxious to see him.
We had heard many stories about him from gushing
young ladies and enthusiastic old ones. One young
lady, I remember, declared that in her opinion poets
should be exempt from all criticism, that they should
73
74 In the Sixties and Seventies
not be judged by ordinary standards, nor have any-
thing to do with mundane affairs. " Fancy," she
said, " such a genius as Swinburne opening his own
street door !--why, the Angel Gabriel ought to descend
and do it for him." My father laughed, while I
stared and wondered ; it was some time before it
dawned upon me that it was a silly, exaggerated way
of talking.
I do not know if Mr. Swinburne would like to
be called a man of genius ; it would certainly appear
that he objected to being considered " a literary man,"
for he once publicly said that he was not a literary
man, and he would, rather than otherwise, cast scorn
upon living by his pen. But I have noticed that
those who are so indignant at being considered to
live by their pens do not refuse the honorarium
offered by the publisher, but on the contrary are
particularly good men of business. But this they
no doubt do purely for the good of us unfortunate
creatures who write for a living as well as for Fame.
The eulogies lavished upon the poet were great,
and his genius had no more sincere admirer than my
father, who writes of him as " a poet of rare order-
forcible and free, full of fire, dash, feeling, and expres-
sion. A poet who at one leap sat himself at the side
of the crowned singers ; who divides Olympus with
Tennyson and disputes Empire with Browning."
This may seem somewhat extravagant language ;
but all who admire Mr. Swinburne's genius will
"An Intellectual Giant" 75
admit that it is true and well deserved. As I have
said, my father was an enthusiast, and, according to
Mr. Westland Marston and others, he was no mean
poet himself; he was, too, always generous in his
admiration of others. In an essay on Mr. Swinburne
I find that he condemned and deplored the poet's
want of Christianity ; but I have never heard him
speak more highly of the quality of brain of any
one than he did of Swinburne's.
As the photograph of the head of a person gives
little idea of height, and as I had always heard the
poet spoken of as an " intellectual giant," I drew my
own picture of this wonderful genius, and the poet
was not only a giant in intellect.
My father made this announcement at dinner one
day : u Mr. Swinburne is coming to see me to-
morrow.'
My governess exclaimed : " Oh, do let us see
him ! "
" Do ! ' I echoed fervently.
" No, no," said my father, " it is business ; we are
going to talk of Coleridge. He must be shown into
the study."
" What time is he coming ? ' asked my mother.
" Between four and five."
Then he can easily have tea with us, and you
can both retire to the study afterwards."
u Yes," said Miss W . <c Now don't be obdurate,
Mr. Friswell."
7 6 In the Sixties and Seventies
" But I do not think Mr. Swinburne likes ladies'
society ; they make him nervous, he says."
Miss W laughed. "Oh, if he is a mysogynist,
that's just the reason we ought to see him, isn't it,
Mrs. Friswell ? "
My mother agreed. " Leave it to me," she said,
" I'll manage it."
My father laughed. " I believe he'll run away,"
he said.
" Oh no," replied my mother ; " he's a gentleman ;
he won't do that."
c< Very well, if you are so determined," said my
father, in a resigned manner ; and then it was that
he turned to me and remarked, " It is a mistake to
know public people, Lollie."
I did not agree, for I wanted to see and know my
favourite authors and actors, and I said so.
u Why destroy your illusions ? ' asked my father.
u That author, whose characters say such charmingly
brilliant things, whose men are athletes, or scholars full
of epigram, is himself a nervous little man with sloping
shoulders. There's no brilliant conversation in him ;
he looks melancholy and bored in company. Read
and enjoy his books, but don't wish to see him ; you
would not like it, nor would he."
" But," said I, " you won't let me read Mr.
Swinburne's books ; you took the book away, just as
you did when I was reading Curiosities of Crime."
" That," said my father, u was the Newgate Calendar."
A Well Known Poet 77
He paused, and added thoughtfully, " I do not know
that I would not rather you read it than Swinburne's
poems ; but when I spoke of authors, I meant authors
in general, and not any one in particular."
I was still thinking of the poet.
" What does he mean by
"Come down and redeem us from virtue,
Our Lady of Pain ? "
" What indeed ? ' said my father.
" That was the last line I read," I said, " and I
do want to know who our Lady of Pain is."
Nobody seemed inclined to enlighten me, and I
knew by the way the conversation was changed it
was no use to ask again. But I was determined to
see this wonderful man ; all I had heard about his
nervousness made me pity him, for I knew what it
was to be terribly nervous. My father, mother, and
sometimes my governess used to scold me about it,
telling me, " If I would sit in a corner dumb, I should
be taken for a fool."
The day Swinburne was to come I had neuralgia
very, very badly, and was confined to my bed ; but I
insisted on getting up, and a maid dressed me, for in
those days I could do little for myself. I went down
to the drawing-room, where there was a glorious fire,
and seated myself on a low stool by the side of the
hearth. The pain in my face and head was terrible,
but I was determined not to give in ; I even made
7 8 In the Sixties and Seventies
a feeble little joke, and said "I thought / was 'our
Lady of Pain,' ' at which my governess looked shocked,
and advised me not to say so to my father or mother.
" Then tell me who she is," said I ; but either she
could not, or would not, and she busied herself with
the cups and saucers. My mother entered, and
presently we heard a cab draw up and a sounding
knock at the door, then steps up the stairs, and the
door was thrown open and the maid said, cc Mr.
i
Swinburne."
A little man walked straight into the room ; his
head, which was crowned by a quantity of auburn hair,
was held high, his eyes stared straight in front of
him, and he was evidently quite unconscious that he
was not alone in the room. My mother walked
forward and held out her hand. He started, and
dropped his hat ; my governess went forward and
picked it up ; he almost snatched it from her.
" Won't you sit down ? ' said my mother, indicating
a chair which Miss W drew up to the tea-table.
" I — I think there must be some mistake," murmured
Mr. Swinburne.
" Not at all," said my mother ; " we were expecting
you ; Mr. Friswell will be here in a moment. Do
let me give you some tea."
Mr. Swinburne sat down on the edge of a chair.
He bent slightly forward, his arms resting on his knees,
his hat balanced between his fingers, and he kept
swinging it backwards and forwards, just as I had seen
Algernon Charles Swinburne 79
Mr. Toole do in a farce ; he dropped it and picked it
up several times. I think he was about twenty-nine
or thirty years old at this time — not more than five
feet six in height, and he had that peculiar pallor
which goes with auburn hair ; and this paleness was
heightened by study, enthusiasm, and the fierce,
rebellious spirit which seemed to animate that fragile
body, and which glows and burns in his writings.
My mother and Miss W did all they could
to put him at ease, and I sat and repented that I
had ever wished to see him, for I pitied him intensely,
he seemed so very nervous. He dropped his hat so
many times that Miss W , when he rose to hand
me some bread-and-butter, took the hat and hid it in
a recess.
My father now appeared, and by his conversational
powers and tact soon set Mr. Swinburne quite at his
ease. He ceased to fidget, and talked of Coleridge
and other poets in a most interesting manner — to
hear him and my father was an intellectual treat. Mr.
Swinburne became all fire and enthusiasm, and looked
and seemed quite a different man ; we were all charmed
with him. He stayed from two to three hours, and
it was not at all too long, and he left saying he
would soon come again.
On another occasion I saw Mr. Swinburne at St.
George's Hall, where most of the literary people
of the time were gathered, by invitation, to hear Mr.
Ralston tell some Russian stories. The poet was in
8o In the Sixties and Seventies
the front row, surrounded by a bevy of the youth and
beauty of the time. These young women were all a
good many years my seniors. They were admirers of
the Pre-Raphaelite school, and were devoted to Rossetti,
Burne-Jones, and William Morris. They dressed in
limp and dowdy greens, and wore lace that looked as
if it would be all the better for a good wash, turned
up their eyes and gushed when they talked, and did
their hair in what I heard a lady of the time call
" the bird's-nest fashion." This was, in a state of
great confusion all over the head and right down to
the eyebrows, and then, as if to prevent its flying away,
three rows of velvet, dotted with jet or steel, bound
it down. Those were the days when to be eccentric
in dress was thought a mark of genius, and these
young ladies, being admirers of the Rossetti and Burne-
Jones types of beauty, were pale and willowy in the
extreme. I was not stout, nor very tall, and decidedly
pale in those days, but I used to feel gigantic by the
side of them ; and I think, with my youthfully outspoken
manner, my short skirts, and quantity of flowing hair,
they looked on me as a young savage, or, worse still,
a Philistine. They attracted and interested me very
much, but they were never very cordial to me ; and
though I knew them well — that is, we often met-
yet if I joined them they always left off turning up
their eyes and clasping their hands, and said nothing
interesting at all.
On this particular evening I was anxious to join
Some /Esthetic Young Ladies 81
them, for they seemed to be having what we should
now call u a good time." They were attracting a great
deal of attention, which I had been taught was bad
style. The poet was laughing very much, and so
were his satellites, but I had an idea they were laughing
at, instead of with, Mr. Swinburne ; and if there was
anything I resented more than another, it was for any
one to laugh at a man of letters. I had scarcely read
a line of Mr. Swinburne's poems, but to me he was
a great genius, and therefore to be treated with
deference. Next to geniuses I hated women to appear
ridiculous and to be laughed at, and I wished those
girls were not so limp in appearance and floppy in
manner. I was sure they would not be if they could
hear what people said, and I knew the effect I had
on them. I knew that if I went there they would
sit up and behave in a more dignified manner. So I
rose to join them, when a well-known man said to
my father, in what he meant for a whisper :
" Don't let your daughter go over there, Friswell."
My father immediately told me to stay where I
was, so I re-seated myself ; but, remembering the
poet's dislike to ladies' society, I made one more effort
to rescue him, and whispered :
" Do ask Mr. Swinburne to come over here to us,
papa ; he won't feel nervous then, and people won't
whisper and stare so."
But my father went on talking with his friends, so
my good intentions were frustrated.
6
82 In the Sixties and Seventies
My attention was soon riveted upon the platform,
for Mr. Ralston had come in, and there was a storm
of applause. The Russian stories were a great success.
I especially liked one about a witch whose room was
ornamented with the skulls of her victims. The
entertainment was repeated several times ; but I fancy
this first night was the night, certainly as far as the
audience went, for most, if not all, the celebrated
men and women in literature, art, and the drama
were there.
The next time I saw the poet was so many
years afterwards that I do not like to count them.
It was on Wimbledon Common, where he walks twice
daily. It was a lovely summer morning, between
ten and eleven o'clock. I was sitting on a seat with
a friend, when she said :
" Look, do you know who this is ? '
I looked up, and saw a thin little man, with almost
white hair, his arms hanging at his sides, a soft felt
hat rather on the back of his head, walking with head
held up and back, and eyes gazing straight in front,
seemingly unconscious of what they saw. Since last
we met he had very much altered, but I knew him
at once, and I recalled him again as I first saw him.
The Common and the sunlight faded from my sight,
and I saw the interior of a London drawing-room on
a dull afternoon. Four people were sitting round a
large fire, while a girl sat with her head leaning against
the jamb of the marble mantelpiece, gazing at them.
A Vision of the Past 83
What a picture they made — the poet with his bright
hair, pale intellectual face, and glowing eyes ; my father
with his distinguished manner, iron-grey hair, bright
complexion, and merry blue eyes ; my pretty young
governess, and my gentle, placid mother, whose dreamy
manner had given place to one of keen interest as she
listened to Swinburne talking of Coleridge. I could
recall his gestures, his eloquence, almost hear again
the tones of his voice, and feel his enthusiasm. 1
know that our deep attention spurred him on, that
my father's apt comments still further encouraged
him ; that he loved his art and was carried away by
it there was no doubt. He said he woulcf be sure
to come again, "and soon," — but, alas ! there are red-
letter days in one's life that never return. As I sat
on the Common that morning I realised strongly and
sadly, as I have so often, how inexorable Time is,
and I told myself that all the people whose shadows
I was recalling were dead — as dead as my father, who
had been in his grave for twenty years.
CHAPTER VII
' THE ANGEL EPPS — A GLIMPSE OF MRS. LANGTRY — NICKNAMES — MR.
DU MAURIER ENJOYS A HEARTY LAUGH — MRS. DU MAURIER AND
HER HUSBAND'S SKETCHES — THE LAST TIME i SAW MR. DU
MAURIER.
AT the time of which I am writing there lodged
over Pears' Soap shop in Great Russell Street,
Bloomsbury, Mr. and Mrs. George Du Maurier ; and
at the same time, or it may be a little later, Henry
Irving, now Sir Henry Irving, had apartments near
the top of the street ; and Alma Tadema, now Sir
Alma Tadema, came courting his charming wife, who
was then Miss Laura Epps, or, as some of the Pre-
Raphaelite people called her, " the Angel Epps/' My
governess and I often saw Sir Alma Tadema's brougham
with the artist in it, as it drove up the street. Miss
Epps was of course well known. I remember meeting
her at the Academy, in a gooseberry-coloured cashmere
gown of the very limp and aesthetic order, a white
tulle hat with a wisp of white tulle, which came from
the back of the hat, wound round her neck, and a
lace cape, that the old lady I was with said " would
be all the better for a little soap and water." This
was not in my opinion an angelic-looking costume,
84
A Tea^Party
and I wondered why they called her 'the Angel Epps,"
and came to the conclusion that it must be because
of her hair, which glistened like a halo and was of the
colour which has since been called " Titian red."
That same afternoon I had the pleasure of catching
a glimpse of Mrs. Langtry, then at the height of
her fame. How the people pushed and crushed,
getting up on seats to look at her ! I, urged thereto
by the lady I was with, got up on a seat, and over
the heads of the people caught a glimpse of a lady
with brown hair, a pale face, and large grey eyes.
I remember very well the first time I saw Mr.
and Mrs. George. Du Maurier. It was at one of
my mother's tea-parties, where so many literary and
other friends dropped in. Mr. Du Maurier was
suffering very much from his eyes, and wore a green
shade over them ; he seemed very quiet and depressed,
which was not to be wondered at, but fortunately
I was destined to make him laugh heartily, and he
declared u a hearty laugh did him more good than
any amount of medicine."
It happened in this way. A Dr. F , a very
charming man, was a constant visitor at our house.
He and his wife lived close by, and " scarcely a day
passed but one or both used to drop in to see us.
I can see him now in my mind's eye, as I saw him
then entering the room ; a tall, lank man, with an
M.B. waistcoat, a professional look, and spectacles
of the sort called " nose-nippers." He was received
86 In the Sixties and Seventies
with acclamation by my father, and he went round
shaking every one effusively by the hand (to his
especial favourites he always put both his hands round
their one) ; he smiled in a delighted way, and said
something complimentary to every one, nearly always
prefacing his speech with <c God bless me ! ' while his
eyeglasses dangled about in the most lively manner,
and, catching the sunlight, reflected a dozen little,
broken, dancing lights upon the ceiling.
Captain and Mrs. Burton, Mr. Du Maurier, every
one, smiled at and welcomed him, and having gone the
round of the room he finally subsided on the sofa
near Mrs. Burton. I can hear the buzz of conversa-
tion, and even catch the sound of Mrs. Burton's
silvery laughter ; how handsome and charming she
was, and how I admired her, and wished my hair was
dark like hers and my mother's ! Then I turned my
eyes to Mr. Du Maurier ; I can see him sitting with
his back to the light, silent and sad, or so I thought ;
I always pitied sick or afflicted people. It was then
that I rose to hand him some bread-and-butter, when
up jumped Dr. F , and taking the plate from me,
said :
" God bless me ! Petrarch cannot allow his Laura
to hand the bread-and-butter."
I was completely nonplussed. I had never, to my
knowledge, heard of Petrarch, and thought the Doctor
must have said, or at any rate meant, Patriarch.
Now Dr. F , though about forty-five or fifty? and
"My Patriarch'' 87
therefore quite old to a young person, was always in
such a radiant humour that he did not seem old. He
was clean shaven, and his hair was rather long, lank,
and very black. He was not strong, or he would
have been a very active man ; as it was, his activity
took the direction of words, and in a very amusing
way. He used to speak with a curious little catch in
his voice, as if his eagerness made him out of breath,
which I really think was the case. Now this gentle-
man was not at all my idea of a Patriarch ; I could
not picture him either as Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob, who
should have white hair, flowing beards, and a serene
and stately manner. As I sat at my mother's side I
was very much puzzled, and, watching my opportunity,
when every one was busy talking I whispered :
"What does Dr. F mean by calling himself
my Patriarch ? '
My mother turned red and then began to laugh ;
she was of course asked what the joke was, and had
to explain. Every one was vastly amused, especially
Mr. Du Maurier, who threw back his head and
laughed heartily, declaring it was good enough for
Punch, and thereby causing me to avoid that periodical
for a very long time ; for if there was anything young
people of that time hated, it was to be u put into the
papers," and I had several lively recollections of
appearing in print. I looked askance at Mr.
Du Maurier, and retired to my favourite recess, where
J)r. F ultimately found me? and told me about
88 In the Sixties and Seventies
Petrarch, and advised me to read his sonnets ; but for
ever after he was called "my Patriarch/' or a Petrarch,"
and to him I was always " Petrarch's Laura."
There was not much leisure for a busy author or
artist in those days, but there was more than there
seems now, for people did not make such a business
of amusement ; they found time to call informally
upon their friends, which is really in my opinion the
pleasantest way of visiting, for the large entertainments
that are now so fashionable are very boring. People
have no time to become more than acquaintances, so
there is no friendship as there was in the old days ;
one sees nothing of one's host and hostess, and hears
no talk except upon trivialities ; in fact, the art of
conversation is fast dying out, for how can one talk
amongst an ever-increasing crowd, who stay a little
while and move on to another entertainment ?
I fancy Mr. Du Maurier was not a very active man.
I believe bodily exercise was irksome to him ; like
all creative people, he was quiet and contemplative.
I used to think his health was not good, but I believe
that his eyes were the chief worry, and they I am sure
troubled him very much at times. My father very
often went in to see him, to smoke a pipe with him,
and even after the Du Mauriers had left the neighbour-
hood he was as frequent a visitor as his very much
occupied time would permit. My father was a very
sociable man, and would always find time to visit a friend,
a,nd even to write an autograph letter or a verse for an
"This is Property " 89
album ; he fancied people wished to compliment him
when they asked for his autograph, and would go out
of his way to gratify them ; he was rather amused at
the fuss people made over such small matters, and not
a little disgusted at what he considered the commercial
o
spirit of the age, though it was nothing in those days
to what it is now. I remember his coming home
one evening and telling my mother the following story
with a mixture of amusement and disgust.
" I heard that Du Maurier was ill, so I called there ;
I found he had a cold, but was much better. He
was up and in the drawing-room ; there were several
people ' there. I had a long conversation with Mrs.
Du Maurier about her husband's work ; said how
much I admired it, and so on. We were standing
near a cabinet. Suddenly she pulled open a long,
deep drawer. c Look ! ' she said, c these are all
his sketches, every single one he has ever done ; would
you like to look over them ?' I said I should be
delighted, so we looked at several. Many were mere
scraps, others very rough, and done on any odds and
ends of paper. I asked her if she would give me
one of these. * I cannot,' she replied ; c I never give
one away, or let him. If anything happens that he
can't draw, or if he were to die, I shall sell them ' ;
and she added as she shut and locked the drawer,
taking out the key, c this improperly, you know.'
No doubt this very business-like lady would have
felt offended if my father had refused her an autograph?
90 In the Sixties and Seventies
or a verse for her album, for it is a peculiarity of
" business-like people ' that they resent that quality
in others. But my father, as I have said, was very
good-natured over such requests, and would write
something in a few moments, and without that air of
doing-an-inferior-being-an-overwhelming-favour that so
many literary people affect.
Many years after I went to call on Mr. and Mrs.
Du Maurier at their house in Hampstead. As I went
into the drawing-room I was in fear and trepidation-
would Mr. Du Maurier recall that ignorant mistake
of mine ? would he remember " Petrarch's Laura " ?
My Petrarch was dead ; he never lived to grow old,
but died, like my own father, " before the dreary
age comes," which is perhaps best and happiest for
those gentle and exuberant people whom one cannot
imagine living to grow old and sad.
I was sitting thinking rather sadjy of those past
days, when the servant came back, and then told
me Mrs. Du Maurier was out, but would I come
into Mr. Du Maurier's room, as he would be very
glad to see me. I went, and found the artist sitting
alone and seemingly rather dull. He told me he
was almost blind ; and he spoke of my father's
early death, of his hard work, his philanthropy and
his Christianity. He talked of his own work, and
seemed afraid he should not be able to keep on
drawing much longer for Punch.
" You think I can see you," he said ; " but though
Mr. Du Maurier 91
I know you are quite near me, you are in a grey
mist, and I cannot distinguish your features/'
I was very much shocked to hear this, as his eyes
looked fairly well ; I had seen them often looking
worse, and I said so, for he was evidently much
depressed about them. He talked of the old days in
Great Russell Street, and said <c that then was his
happiest time, and those were the palmy days of
Punch."
I sat and listened, and did all I could to cheer
him, but I did not remind him of " my Patriarch."
I doubt if it would have made him laugh so heartily
as it did in the days when he was young ; not that
he was old in years, it was his affliction that made
him feel so. He had not at this time written
Trilby. I never saw him after that book came out.
CHAPTER VIII
A QUEEN ANNE HOUSE — AN INDIAN PRINCE — A VISION OF THE PAST-
A LARGE "AT HOME."
^HERE still stands in Dean Street, Soho, an old
JL house of the time of Queen Anne. It is
sandwiched between the Royalty Theatre and a club,
and in the sixties and seventies was tenanted by a
diamond merchant. It was a house of questionable
fame, for early in the last century it was inhabited by
a celebrated doctor, to whom body-snatchers brought
their booty. The body of the Italian boy, Carlo
Ferrari, was brought to that house, and it was the
discovery by the doctor that this boy had been burked
— i.e. done to death by suffocation, or by having a
pitch plaster pressed over his mouth — that led to the
conviction of Bishop and Williams, his murderers.
The house was very large, with panelled rooms,
ornamental ceilings, oak floors, and high carved
mantelpieces. It had a well staircase, so wide and
with such shallow oak steps that it was said a coach
and horses could be driven up it. The balusters
and rails were mahogany, and so were the doors of
the rooms, but the latter had been painted. It had
yast stone passages and kitchens, and some old rooms
9?
An Old House 93
across a yard at the back, which the jeweller used
for workshops, but which the doctor had used as
dissecting rooms. Halfway down the lower stairs
was a deep hole in the thickness of the wall, where
it was said the doctor had kept many a body. The
hole was concealed by a sliding panel at that time,
now it is bricked up, but there is still a door in the
panelling where it was.
Mr. W , the jeweller, was a great friend of
my father ; he had a charming wife and two children,
a boy and a girl. The boy was about the age of my
elder brother (the Philosopher) and in my very
youthful days he charmed me by always looking so
neat and clean, which the Philosopher did not. One
boy was strong and healthy, the other very delicate;
but this I did not realise. Little Miss W was
some years younger than myself, and had been to
Watford to school with me, and was my devoted
friend.
The W s entertained frequently, and gave large
children's parties, the chief feature of which was a
gigantic Christmas tree. They also gave grown-up
parties, and I well remember my first grown-up dance
took place in that old house. My mother would
never let me be dressed in white, nor in muslin, like
other girls; I was too pale, she said, for white, and
she was too much afraid of fire to let me wear muslin.
So for this dance behold me in a dress of pearl-grey
satin, not quite down to my ankles, for I was not
94 In the Sixties and Seventies
sixteen ; the skirt trimmed with three rows of royal
blue velvet, and a broad band of the same finishing
the square-necked bodice. I wore black silk open-
work stockings, high-heeled shoes with buckles, and
long black lace mittens. My quaint dress caused
quite a number of remarks, for I heard people ask,
"Who is that girl who looks as if she had stepped
out of an old picture ? " She ? — oh ! she's the
daughter of the author of The Gentle Life " — the old
answer that I knew so well.
We had all been invited to this dance, but my
father was ill, and my mother at home with him ;
my grandmother was with us, but was playing cards
in another room, and I spent most of my time, when
not dancing, in the conservatory listening to the
songs and the applause which could be distinctly heard
from the theatre next door. I fancy they were playing
one of Burnand's burlesques. The conservatory was
a favourite place for us girls and boys, for we could
hear most of the songs very distinctly, and even the
dancing of some of the performers. It was a most
curious and weird sensation, something like a phono-
graph, only without the head-in-a-jug-like sound. At
the further end of the conservatory nothing was heard
of the music and dancing in the drawing-room, and
1 delighted to sit there and to pretend I was at the
play.
At this party there were two Indians, one in the
most gorgeous of dresses, literally covered with gold
An Indian Prince 95
embroidery and jewels. The centre jewel in his turban
was a very large diamond, which sparkled like a
miniature sun. The Indians seemed rather out of
their element. They wandered about, and I often
caught the smartly dressed one, whom the Philosopher
and Nash W called "Old Koh-i-noor," looking
at me. He stood in a recess and looked very orna-
mental and imposing, and I thought added to the
decorations of the room ; but I did not like it when
he followed me into the conservatory and rolled his
eyes and showed his white teeth in a smile that was
intended to be charming, but which I thought alarming.
I escaped into the dancing-room and sat down upon
a rout seat against the wall. There the hostess came
up to me and said :
" Prince wants to be introduced to you."
"I can't dance with a black man," I replied, with
decision.
" Black !- -he is not black, only a beautiful brown.
Now don't be silly, Laura ; I don't think he wants
to dance--! don't think he can."
" I don't see how any one can dance with him,
he'd be too scratchy," I said ; " besides, can old picture'
and an Indian idol can't dance."
Several people, hearing this, tittered. Mrs. W
looked vexed and murmured :
Now do be a good girl ; some people would be
flattered at being noticed by an Indian prince."
" He is like an Indian god," said I, taking a peep
9 6 In the Sixties and Seventies
at him, and then I drew back, for the Prince, who had
been coming nearer and nearer, suddenly stood before
me and bowed profoundly, while his attendant and
interpreter looked on — I thought there was a twinkle
in his eye.
They were dancing the lancers, and I believe " old
Koh-i-noor ' would have liked to join, but I shook
my head vigorously when he put out his hand and
said "dance"; he waved his attendant imperiously
away. We sat side by side, and I at least felt very
uncomfortable ; for though his attendant had re-
tired to • some distance, he seemed to me to regard
us both with a satirical smile, as though there were
some joke, though I could see none. All the Prince
said was an indescribable word, which some one told
me afterwards meant " very fair," and alluded to my
complexion and hair, but it was quite lost on me ;
yet I felt his attentions decidedly embarrassing. But,
though I did not realise it at the time, I have no doubt
now that I brought them upon myself. When I first
saw him standing in a recess watching the dancers, he
had looked so still and wooden that I thought of the
Indian figures I had seen on little round wooden
stands, and I called him " an Indian ido ' ; then my
fondness for fairy tales and my vivid imagination
carried me on. I looked at him again and again — for
was he not the Sultan to whom Sheherazade related
the stories in The Arabian Nights Entertainments ? or
he might be tc The King of the Black Isles," or the
Old Kolvi.Noor
97
caliph Haroun Alraschid, and in that case he must have
been personally acquainted with Sinbad the Sailor. It
was no uncommon thing for my partners to find me
rather preoccupied, and to ask me what I was thinking
of, and sometimes my replies created considerable
astonishment and amusement. I remember in this
instance a Mr. Jellicoe, whom I knew very well, was
my partner, and he was highly amused and suggested
other characters, and each time I have no doubt I
looked critically at the two Indians. But I shall never
forget my dismay, not to say horror, at finding <c old
Koh-i-Noor ' at my side. If he had been any one of
the characters I had imagined him, I could not have
been more alarmed.
It was not his title, for very young people are not
abashed at titled people — besides, I was accustomed to
see Prince Ghica (Prince of Samos) at our house
frequently, as his son was a ward of my father's, and
was at that party with us ; nor was it the Indian's
dark colour, for he was not so dark-skinned as Prince
Ghica ; it was, I think, his gorgeous dress and my own
imagination in thinking he had stepped out of The
Arabian Nights. I could not answer the few words
of broken English he managed to utter, and it was not
till, the dance being over, two persons passed us and
the gentleman said to his partner, " Oh, look at
those two — there's a picture of Beauty and the Beast ! "
that I looked up startled and horrified into the
Prince's face. He did not understand what was said,
7
In the Sixties and Seventies
he only smiled seraphically upon me, and clasping my
hand, pressed it to his golden and bejewelled breast ;
and I, like the heroine of a novel, tore it out of his
clasp, and jumping out of my seat, the door being
close by, slipped out of the room.
Once outside, I quickly threaded my way through
the flirting groups and sped up the shallow stairs
as though I were pursued ; halfway I stopped and
thumped upon a door, calling " Dick ! Dick ! ' but
as there was no answer I flew on, to the top of the
house and into Miss W s bedroom, and crept up
to the bed. The blinds were up and the moonlight
streamed into the room, and there lay my little friend,
fast asleep, all her thick, fair hair covering the pillow,
as I had so often seen it when I had awakened in the
night at school. I sat down by the bed and lay my
head on the pillow, and almost wished we were both
back at Watford, far away from Indian princes and
all such gorgeous personages.
I suppose I fell asleep, but not for long. A chiming
clock startled me ; I sat up ; I could hear the faint
strains of the Blue Danube Waltz floating up to me,
and I was conscious of being very hungry. I rose,
and, passing the dressing-table, caught sight of myself
in the glass, and was quite afraid of my own reflection.
I did look like an old picture, like one of the women
of Queen Anne's day. My hair, done high over a
cushion, fell in curls over my shoulders, and the
moonlight catching it had almost the effect of powder.
A Vision of the Past * 99
I looked round the panelled room, and again at the
old-fashioned girl ; then I turned my back abruptly
on her, for I had a curious feeling that I had
stood there before and had seen that girl before,
that the years had slipped back, and it was the days
of Queen Anne I was living in, that on joining
the dancers I should find them all in powder and
patches, dancing a minuet. So strong was the
feeling that as I went downstairs I was still under
the impression that I was some one who had lived
in the eighteenth century, and should not have been
surprised to find my partner waiting for me in silk
stockings, satin clothes, and a wig.
To bring myself back to the present I stopped
on the landing, and, leaning my arms on the hand-rail,
looked over into the hall ; the first glance of the
dancers in their modern dress would recall me, I
thought. But instead of seeing the dancers of Queen
Anne's time, or the present, I fancied I saw two men
carrying a body in its grave-clothes, while a tall old
man in a dressing-gown stood holding a flaring tallow
candle, which guttered in the draught. I felt the
cold air and shivered. I also fancied I heard the panel
slide back, but I could not see the hole in the wall
from where I stood ; but I saw the rough men return
up the stone steps, wiping their faces, and the doctor
move to show them out, his slippers flapping on
the stone pavement of the hall, as he held the light
high above his head.
((
<(
ioo In the Sixties and Seventies
This vision was so vivid I could have declared it
was real, but some such scene had been no doubt
described to me by the Philosopher, who was nothing
if not realistic. A chiming clock which played a tune
began to perform ; it stood on a bracket behind me.
I could not endure it. I recovered myself with a
shake and fled downstairs to the basement, where I ran
against Mr. W , who caught hold of me and said :
" Hullo ! what's the matter ? — what mischief have
you been up to ? '
" Only sitting by an Indian idol," 1 said.
Did he want to eat her, then ? ' he laughed.
Where are Dick and Dimitry ? ' I asked, with
dignity.
" Oh, those boys ! they'll catch it — they are all out
there, making themselves like sweeps, I'll be bound."
I of course wished to go into the workshops too,
but Mr. W would not hear of it, and took me into
the supper-room, where he left me in charge of three
waiters, whom I very much amused by declining raised
pie and fowls, and ordering " cold beef and a glass
of port." Mr. W had whispered before he left
me, " Now, have a good supper, and don't be
alarmed ; the Indian idol won't come down here, he
won't eat anything — idols never do, you know- -and
I shall be back in a minute when I've sent him home
to bed."
The next time I saw an Indian Grandee was some
years afterwards at Miss Kortright's, in Kensington
A Great Crush 101
Palace Gardens. I went with my father and mother
to a large At Home, and met, amongst other celebrities,
Robert Browning and his son, Robert Barrett Browning.
I thought Browning so very like the photographs of
Longfellow that the portrait of one man would have
done for the other ; I should have been in doubt
as to whether it was not Longfellow I had seen,
but that I do not think Longfellow was in London,
and, moreover, my mother tells me it was Browning.
There was a very great crush ; we were a long
time getting upstairs, and could scarcely move in
the rooms. Mr. Wills, the author of the play
Charles /., which Irving made so popular, was
kind enough to look after me and find me a seat ;
he had procured a chair from somewhere, and brought
it to me in the middle of the room, for it was
impossible to struggle out of the crowd ; and if Mr.
Wills had not kindly leant on the back of the chair,
I think I should have been pushed over, chair and
all, and trampled upon. We were surrounded by
celebrities of all kinds ; Mathilde Blind was there
and spoke to us, but there was little opportunity
to exchange more than a word — it was a case of
" Move on, move on."
The Indian was not so gorgeously dressed as my
Indian idol, but he could speak English ; and as he
stood on the hearthrug in one of the drawing-rooms,
everybody very kindly crowding round and staring
at him, he said in very fair English :
102 In the Sixties and Seventies
CC
Mees Kortright ought to sharge seexpence-
seexpence a — what you call it^? — a — a head," and he
tapped his turban (which was jewelled, but nothing
like that of "old Koh-i-Noor's "), "and she would
make a lot of vot you call monies."
I did not have the pleasure of speaking to this
gentleman ; I doubt if he saw me then ; he did after-
wards, but it was only to scowl at me for watching
him, for I was highly amused at his greediness.
I really do not remember now who he was, though
I no doubt heard at the time. I know there was an
Italian Countess there, whose dress was very decollete^
and whose voice, when she sang, was very screechy, but
the Grandee admired her, and took her down to the
refreshment-room. The refreshments were in the
dining-room, which had originally had folding doors ;
the tables were in the back room, except a small
round one in a window in the front room. My
mother and I were sitting on the sofa in the front
room, and my father and Mr. Wills were foraging for
us, when down came the Indian Grandee and the Italian
Countess ; he settled her at the table, and he must
have bribed a waiter heavily, for there soon appeared
mayonnaise of salmon, raised pie, truffles, trifle, fruit,
cakes, tarts — everything there was, in fact, and at
least four bottles of champagne, besides other wine.
I never saw two people eat, drink, and talk so much
or so fast in all my life. I watched with " all my
eyes,*' as the saying is, and in spite of the Grandee's
The Grandee and the Countess 103
scowls. It was an edifying spectacle, and so several
people besides myself seemed to think. My father,
who always looked after us — that is, however much
attention he paid to other ladies, he always saw that
my mother and I were being attended to — could only
get us very little to eat, and that with great difficulty.
I do not think he and Mr. Wills had anything,
and I am sure there were many who had no supper ;
but the Grandee and the Countess went calmly on,
and we left them calling for more. The sly way the
Indian hid the champagne under the Countess's dress
and the manner in which she aided and abetted him
was very amusing. Then the furtive glance he would
give round the room, and, catching my eye, scowl
fiercely and yet look ashamed and uneasy, delighted
me ; but the Countess was much more shameless — she
did not care at all, but ate and jabbered, and evidently
enjoyed herself. I tried to entice Mr. Wills and my
father to face them boldly and make them share their
spoils, but they would not ; and the Indian certainly
had a temper, for when the waiter struck he commenced
to abuse him roundly, and then it was we went and
left them still asking for more.
CHAPTER IX
" THE DUCHESS " — A SERIOUS ACCIDENT — PROFESSOR MORLEY-
"A STORY FROM BOCCACCIO " —PRINCE JON GHICA — A LETTER FROM
KINGSLEY — "ALTON LOCKE '' AND THOMAS COOPER — I MEET CHARLES
KINGSLEY.
MY father was fond of driving in the Park, or
out into the country, so we kept a park
phaeton and a mare called " the Duchess." The
mare was one of a pair of ponies that had belonged
to the Duchess of Wellington (daughter-in-law of
the Great Duke) ; she was tall for a pony, but of a
very pretty bright chestnut colour ; her companion
had died, which was the reason the Duchess sold
her. The mare was used to going the usual tread-
mill round in the Park ; she did not care to be
driven through the streets, especially if they were
" mean streets"; she was not alarmed at bands or
crowds, but they must be well-dressed crowds ; alto-
gether she was a pony of aristocratic proclivities.
As she had not enough exercise she became very
skittish, and driving her was decidedly exciting, so
much so that my mother seldom ventured, and I
therefore became my father's companion. In the
streets " the Duchess ' rushed or pranced along,
104
"That Dreadful Duchess " 105
seemingly anxious to run over all and sundry who
came in her way ; in the Park she evinced a strong
desire to lead the way, and it took all my father's
time to hold her in and keep her in line. She
occasionally stood on her hind legs if there was a
block in the street and she was kept waiting long ;
she obstinately refused to stand at anybody's door,
but especially at a publisher's.
I shall never forget my heartsick terror as she
began to trot away from Chapman & Hall's door,
my father being inside the shop. Had not some one
come to the rescue I am sure there would have
been a fearful accident ; for though, even in those
early days, I knew how to drive, I had neither the
strength to hold "the Duchess," nor the skill to
guide her through the London traffic. That my
father would some day be killed, or at any rate
injured, I felt as certain as my mother did ; but
I could not, like her, stay at home ; I must be on
the spot — my anxiety was too great when I knew
he was out with " that dreadful Duchess," as I
called the mare in my own mind, for one dared
not say anything against her aloud. There was
nothing the matter with the pony except want of
exercise ; when we were in the country and she
was driven out daily she was quiet enough, but
in London it was very different, for my father
was too busy to go out every day, or, when he
did, to drive far ; and though the livery stable
106 In the Sixties and Seventies
keeper was paid to exercise her, I do not think he
did so.
My mother was so nervous that she continually
tried to induce my father to sell " the Duchess/' and
she often sent me to spend the day with my aunt
to prevent my father taking me out with him. One
day when I was at my aunt's, my father called for me ;
he was going to drive to Edmonton, " and would like
to take me with him." As we were going over a
railway bridge near King's Cross a puff of steam and
a whistle from a train startled the mare and she ran
away. I shall never forget the people's shrieks as we
tore over the bridge. My hat and muff lay in the
mud in the road, and I felt very much concerned
about them. Fortunately for us, " the Duchess's ' ' mad
career was checked by a cart which, full of sacks
of potatoes, was standing at the door of a ware-
house. The mare swerved aside to avoid the cart,
and the tailboard came in front of me like a table,
but it did not strike my father ; I fell forward,
hitting my face on the knobbly sacks. As the
phaeton struck the cart there was a sound of shivering
glass, as one of the lamps was smashed. That, and
the cries of the people : " Oh, the young lady '11 be
killed! The young lady'll be killed!" and the
thud ! thud ! of " the Duchess's ' hoofs as she stood
and kicked, while my father thrashed her, made a
sufficiently exciting scene. After the first few moments
of horror and indecision, two men rushed and tried
A Serious Accident 107
to drag me out — they succeeded, but it felt as if I
were being torn asunder.
They carried me into a shed belonging to the
railway, where I sat for some time in a semi-conscious
state, watching a man sort tickets. It seemed to
me that I had been there hours, for at times I closed
my eyes, and every time I opened them there was
the man still sorting tickets. At last I startled him
by asking :
" Is my father dead yet ? '
" Lord, no ! as lively as possible," he replied ; "and
you'll be all right soon — you ain't 'urt."
As he spoke he rose, and I watched him with great
interest open a locker which ran along one side of
the shed. It appeared to be a covering for gas-pipes,
and a receptacle for all manner of miscellaneous things
— tools, rags, cotton-waste, a coat and a waistcoat he
turned out. What was he searching for ? I wondered.
I knew it was something for me — was he going to
give me some medicine, or something to eat ? If it
was the latter, I hoped it would be something very
nice ; but how could it be out of such a place ? Much
to my disappointment he at last produced a small
hand-glass, which he handed to me. I took it and
stared in his face.
" Look in it," he said. c< See there, you ain't got
a mark on yer face."
" Oh, it isn't my face ! ' I replied bitterly and scorn-
fully. " It's my back and my legs — I can't walk,"
io8 In the Sixties and Seventies
" They ain't broke," he said ; " no, they can't be."
" I never shall be able to walk again," I said, with
conviction.
He looked scared, as if he thought the accident
had turned my brain ; but before he could answer my
father came to the door, with the carriage rug over
his arm and the whip in his hand. His face was
very white and he looked very anxious, but he smiled
at me, and I was unfeignedly glad to see him ; so I
rose and walked towards him, but I felt as if my legs
did not belong to me. However, I assured him I was
not much hurt, so he put me into a cab with the
carriage rug and sent me back to my aunt's, while
he drove " the Duchess ' down to Edmonton, where
he left her — and we never saw her again, as my father
sold her. As to me, I was laid up for a week and
had to have the doctor, and I think I was fortunate
to have got off so cheaply.
During the time my father drove me about I
frequently went to see Professor Morley and his
wife and children. They lived in Park Hill Road,
Haverstock Hill ; the first time I visited them was
on a lovely summer afternoon ; we stayed to tea,
and I was much taken with the Professor and Mrs.
Morley and their big children. It was very warm,
and I was tired ; and as I could not run about with
his boys and girls, the Professor took me into his
study and gave me his waste-paper basket to look
over, " to find crests and monograms," which he
Professor Morley 109
heard I was collecting. I remember so well sitting
on the floor near the Professor and rummaging
through all the contents of the basket, while his pen
went scratch-scratch-scratch, at a great rate. My
mother and Mrs. Morley were walking on the lawn
in the garden ; their voices, and the occasional laughter
and shouting of the children floated into the room.
My father had gone to fetch " the Duchess/' whom
he had put up on Haverstock Hill.
Every now and then the Professor would look
at me with a smile, and say : " Well, little girl, have
you found any ? ' Or, 4< What a quiet little girl
you are ! ' The second time he said " What a quiet
little girl you are," he went on to add, " I wish
my girls were as quiet.'1
I answered : " Children ought to make a noise ;
you would not like your girls to be like a person
who is weak.'
" No," said the Professor, looking grave and some-
what astonished.
" I can make a noise ; I have good lungs, every
one says so ; but I am always very tired," I explained.
" Poor little woman ! ' ' said the Professor, smiling.
u I don't like to be pitied, and I mean to get
well," said I.
" That's right — that's what I call pluck," returned
Mr. Morley, with a laugh and an encouraging nod,
and then, finding I wanted to get up, and could
not without assistance, he helped me, and I sat down
no In the Sixties and Seventies
in an armchair near his desk, while his pen went
on and on, and all kinds of pleasant thoughts and
odd verses of poetry came into my head, as they
were wont to do. I found myself repeating a verse
of a poem by Robert Brough ; it was called " A
Story from Boccaccio" ; I suppose the garden and the
sunshine put it into my head, for I kept saying to
myself :
Were I to try the beauties of the sky, and trees, and ocean
To depict, our travelled critics would be quickly down on me ;
All I want is to convey a golden, dreamy kind of notion
Of a garden, in the sunset, by the Adriatic Sea.
Professor Morley's garden was very far from the
Adriatic Sea ; but that beautiful summer evening,
and the " golden, dreamy kind of notion ' of that
garden in the sunset, has ever remained with me.
My first visit was by no means my last. The
Professor was always very kind to me — he never
forgot my fondness for crests and monograms, and
took to saving them for me, and sending them to my
father to send to me at school. Thus I have all the
arms and crests of the University of Cambridge,
besides those of private individuals, sent me by
Professor Morley.
I have spoken of Prince Jon Ghica, who was
a well-known man in Diplomatic circles, and occupied
a prominent: position in Roumania. He was educated
in Paris, and was a fellow pupil of Alexander Golesco
at the College of St. Sava. In Bucharest he figured
Prince Jon Ghica 1 1 1
in the front ranks of the National Opposition, and
took part in the conspiracy of Ilbralia. He was at
Jassy for two years, and held the Chairs of Mathe-
matics and Political Economy at the University. He
founded Le Progres^ a scientific review, and was author
of several pamphlets published in Paris. On his return
to Bucharest he became one of the most influential
leaders of the National Party. After the abdication
of Prince Bibesco, Prince Ghica was sent to Con-
stantinople as Charge d* Affaires ; and through the
instrumentality of Lord Stratford de RedclifFe, the
British Ambassador at Constantinople, he was made
Governor of the Principality of Samos. He was
several times a Minister, and in 1866 was Minister
of War in the Cartargi Cabinet. He was a deter-
mined opponent of Russia, a great admirer of all
things English, a constant reader of my father's
books and articles, and came over to England to
see my father, and to ask him if he might place his
son, Demetrius, in his care.
I can well remember the little, dark-haired, dark-
skinned man ; I could not speak French, nor he
much English, so I was reduced to looking on when
he came and talked so animatedly, and with so much
gesture, to my father. " Dimitry," as we called
his son, became like a third brother — or perhaps I
should say like a first, as he was older than the
Philosopher. He was a very pleasant, boyish boy,
of the clumsy, untidy sort ; he pulled my hair, and
ii2 In the Sixties and Seventies
tore my skirts by catching at them, and abused me
roundly for playing the piano " so beastly badly,"
as he expressed it. He played very well himself,
and when I became more proficient he was the first
to praise me. Dimitry went to Wellington College,
and my father and mother, treating him like a son,
felt it their bounden duty to attend concerts and
other entertainments there. It was at Wellington
College that my father was presented to the King
and Queen, then Prince and Princess of Wales ; and
it was there my father first met Canon Kingsley, who
asked him to come and see him.
My father was at that time intending to add
Euphues, one of the works of John Lilly to "The
Bayard Series," and asked Kingsley to write a
preface. The Canon replied in the following character-
istic letter :
LYNN, Tuesday.
" Your letter followed me to Sandringham, or I
should have answered at once. I am delighted, but
not surprised, to find you and Professor Morley
appreciate Euphues.
" I preached a bit of him at Sandringham on Sunday
-a good doctrine for Royalty — c 'Tis virtue, gentle-
men, that maketh the poor rich, the base-born noble,
the deformed beautiful, the subject a sovereign ! '
one of the finest things in the English language.
I fear Scott has done the book lasting harm ; probably
he never read it right. I do not feel inclined to
Kingsley's Letter 113
write a preface to it, however kind and flattering
your advice that I should do so. I do not think
my name would help the book ; I am sure yours
would. What I should do would be to recommend
and to review it, and to spread it in all ways among
young men and young women over whom I have
influence.
" Meanwhile, I am glad to find you are a man ;
men who care for ' the gentle life,' without being
superstitious or hysterical, are growing more and
more rare. If you are again at Wellington College,
and would accept hospitality at a quiet parsonage,
where no footmen are kept, nor good dinners given,
but people eat plain mutton and enjoy music and
good talk, I shall be delighted to see you. Your
photograph has not reached me, having been kept
by Mrs. Kingsley, who, admiring The Gentle Life
as much as I, longs to meet and know you.
" Thank you sincerely for the kind words in your
letter. Kind words are like good wine, to a hard-
worked brain and somewhat sad heart.
" Yours ever most sincerely,
"CHARLES KINGSLEY."
My father went to Eversley and stayed a few days ;
he was charmed with the people and the place. He
had always had an intense admiration for Kingsley,
from those early days when he used to look up to
Charles Kingsley 's portrait hanging on the walls of
8
ii4 In the Sixties and Seventies
Mr. Passmore Edwards's Institution for Working-men.
Kingsley was a man after my father's own heart ; one
who always had the welfare of the poor at heart, and
who had said, " I assert that the business for which God
sends a Christian priest into a Christian nation, is to
f reach and practise liberty, equality, and brotherhood,
in the fullest, deepest, widest, simplest meaning of
those three great words." Kingsley had also declared
that the accumulation of wealth out of the needs of
the poor was contrary to God's wish ; that He would
cry out " Woe unto you who, to make few rich,
make many poor ! Woe unto you that oust the masses
from the soil their fathers possessed of old ! '
With these sentiments my father would exactly
agree, for, like Kingsley, he had imbibed the opinions
of that remarkable man Henry Mayhew, author of
London Labour and the London Poor. Mayhew was
a Bohemian pur sang, a litterateur, a newspaper writer,
one of the originators of Punch, a chemist, a discoverer
of the way of calcining carbon till it became pure
diamond — only without the lustre which gives the
diamond value — an inventor even of patent buttons,
a dreamer, and a reformer. His articles, London Labour
and the London Poor, came out in The Morning
Chronicle ; they were a series of papers gathered from
working-men themselves. The subject was of immense
interest, and awakened many, besides Charles Kingsley
and my father, who both started upon the business
of reclaiming the poor. There were those who would
Alton Locke and Thomas Cooper 115
work, those who would not work, and those who
could not work ; and heart and soul Kingsley and
my father plunged into the matter. Kingsley had
mixed much with the workers, and the result was
one of the most powerful novels ever written : Alton
Locke, Tailor and Poet.
This story, which I read when I was almost a child,
is full of Christian sympathy with, and love for, the
strugglers and toilers. It had a great effect upon me,
and I thought myself especially fortunate in having
seen and heard Thomas Cooper, the author of The
Purgatory of Suicides^ a most remarkable poem, the
product of two years' imprisonment for defending the
rights of the poor, and for being the mouthpiece
of much of the want and discontent of the workers
in the North. Alton Locke's character is said to be
based upon that of Thomas Cooper, and I can well
remember what a glow of satisfaction I felt when I
recalled how I had walked up the Baptist Chapel at
Watford and shaken hands with him.
Branded as a Chartist and Atheist, Thomas Cooper,
like the great-hearted man he was, fought nobly with
his religious and political doubts, and for some years
after he had turned to Christianity was continually
preaching and lecturing in aid of the truth. This
was the man Kingsley took as the hero of his
book — though in personal appearance they did not
resemble each other, for Thomas Cooper was a tall,
handsome man, while Alton Locke is puny, and in
ii6 In the Sixties and Seventies
the end of the story dies of consumption, while Cooper
lived to a ripe old age. One of the best characters
in the book is Sandy Mackaye, newspaper editor,
lecturer, and Chartist spouter. Sandy has a touch
of Carlyle about him, and uses pretty strong language,
but not a whit too strong ; it must have awakened
many a large-hearted man, and the world is the
better for hearing these truths. I know it made
the heart of a delicate girl hot with indignation and
anger that such things should be. How I pitied
Alton Locke ! How I should have liked to torture the
sweaters ! I longed to be a man, that I might do
something to redress some of these wrongs ; and
then I remembered that Alton Locke had been written
long ago, that the Chartist movement was over, and
that I had been born at least two decades too late.
The Chartist parson, soldier priest, was a chaplain
to the Queen, tutor to the Prince of Wales, and a
canon of Chester Cathedral. I heard him preach
in a West End church — I believe it was St. James's,
Piccadilly ; could anything be more removed from
one's ideas of the author of Alton Locke ?
I do not remember the sermon, but I know it
was well delivered, in a clear, even, flowing voice ;
and I should have been astonished, had not my father
mentioned it to me, that Kingsley stammered — not
in preaching, but in ordinary conversation. After
the service we waited in the church, and Mr. Kingsley
came and spoke to us. I remember we stood in the
" Marie Antoinette" 117
aisle, and that the sun shone full upon Kingsley's
tall, lithe form and broad shoulders, which stooped
a little. I was struck with his deep-set, brilliant
eyes, aquiline nose, and tightly shut lips ; I thought
he looked thin and worn and not happy. The sun
being in his eyes, I suppose he did not at first see
me, for when my father introduced me he looked
as if he had seen a ghost, and stood and held my
hand as he exclaimed :
" She's — she's like — Marie Antoinette."
I do not know what I expected the author of Alton
Locke to say, but I was so completely taken by
surprise, so keenly disappointed, that tears started to
my eyes, and Kingsley saw them, though I turned
quickly away to hide them.
" I am afraid I have offended your daughter," he
said.
" Oh no," replied my father, and he went on talking,
Kingsley listening, but looking every now and then
at me with that same half-awed, half-admiring ex-
pression. How I wished I could be invisible, and
then perhaps he would have talked like some of the
heroes in his books, instead of looking at me, because
he saw in me the ghost of that unfortunate Queen !
CHAPTER X
THE PLAY — THE PRINCE OF WALES'S THEATRE — MARIE WILTON — MR.
MONTAGUE — S. J. RICE, AND " PROPOSALS FROM THE FAIR SEX " —
BEHIND THE SCENES — CRESWICK — " TRUE TO THE CORE " —
CRESWICK AS " HAMLET " — IRVING AS HAMLET — HENRY MARSTON —
PHELPS — MARSTON IN DANGER OF HIS LIFE — MISS MARRIOTT.
WE were all very fond of the play, and in the
days of which I am writing we used to go
to the theatre three or four times a week ; that and
dancing were my favourite amusements — but, alas !
dancing, except square dances, was tabooed, for Dr.
Richardson, every time he saw me, said impressively :
" Mind, no violent exercise, young lady/'
But there are usually compensations ; and for the
lonely hours I spent in my room on my board, there
were the nights at the play, where if we had a box
I had always the best and most comfortable seat.
I can remember going to uproarious first nights
when the house has not only been full to overflowing,
but enthusiastic, for people showed more appreciation
then ; their enthusiasm too was of the right sort,
for no such silly scenes as occurred in the streets
on the night of the relief of Mafeking would have
been tolerated.
The Prince of Wales's Theatre 1 1 9
" Now if you can be quick and put a rose in your
hair, Lollie, we will go to the play," my father would
often say, and you may be sure I was quick. Off we
went, often walking there and back. Living so near
we seldom drove home, for the walk through the quiet
streets we all enjoyed.
In those days, in a little street off Tottenham
Court Road stood the Prince of Wales's Theatre, one
of the most fashionable resorts of the time ; it was
the prettiest, most charming little house imaginable,
for it was under Marie Wilton 's (now Lady Bancroft)
management, and was all upholstered in palest blue,
and there were white antimacassars over the backs of
the chairs in the stalls, boxes, and dress circle. White
antimacassars may not sound artistic to modern ears,
but they were the fashion then, and very clean, lacy,
and pretty they looked in that theatre. From one of
the boxes of this house, accompanied by different
members of my family, I more than once saw all
Robertson's plays — Caste, Society, Ours^ School. How
very pretty they were, and how well acted ! Caste was
the first I saw and was my favourite. Honey's acting
of " Old Eccles,' " the drunken father, was inimitable ;
it was a fine study of character, that in these de-
generate days is seldom, if ever, seen ; for it would
seem that spectacular representations and musical
comedies are the only things that the weak and tired
brains of the present generation can stand, so there
is little or no chance for fine acting. We were all
Vr
120 In the Sixties and Seventies
charmed with Marie Wilton, especially in the character
of " Polly Eccles," and I, like most young girls, longed
to go on the stage. But " Charles D' Alroy ' was the
character that all my friends, young and old, were in
love with. " Charles D'Alroy," or, as " Polly Eccles "
called him in the play, " Charles D-Al-Roy," was then
acted by a Mr. Montague, a young, good-looking man,
who died early. My favourites were " Sam Gerridge '
(Hare) and " Captain Hawtry ' (Bancroft) ; I was
charmed with them both, and could not make up ny
mind between them. I had many an argument with
my girl friends, in which I tried to prove their
superior attractions ; but it was all of no use, Montague
was the favourite — indeed, it was said in literary
circles that all the ladies were in love with him, and
Mr. Rice^ strenuously assured me that Montague
had two or three proposals a day from the fair sex.
I argued that no woman ever did, or would do, such
a thing ; Mr. Rice smiled cynically, and I exclaimed,
with more heat than politeness, "You can say so till
Doomsday if you like, but I shall not believe it."
" Ask him," said Mr. Rice, " you are sure to
meet him some day. Just ask him."
Not long after I did meet him at a railway station,
and I thought of asking him ; but though my father
had a long talk with him he did not introduce him
to me, so I never had the chance to put the question ;
* Editor of Once a Week, and afterwards collaborator with Walter
J3esant?
On the Stage 121
but as they talked I looked well at the actor, and
made up my mind that, good-looking as the young
man no doubt was, a woman could not and would
not do such a thing as propose or even write to him.
But before I came to this conclusion I had looked
so long at " Charles D-Al-Roy," as we all called him,
that I am sure he took me for another victim, for
he gave me a polite bow and a pleasant but pitying
smile as he said " Good-bye ' to my father.
The first time I went behind the scenes was at the
Prince of Wales's Theatre. I went with my father
one brilliant June afternoon ; he wished to see the
stage manager. We had been buying strawberries,
and we went on to the stage and sat on three
cane chairs and ate them. While my father and
the manager talked I looked round me. The curtain
was up, but the house looked inexpressibly dreary
in the half- twilight, with the seats covered in brown
holland. A theatre in the daytime is always dark,
but it was not too dark to see the dust on gas
brackets, ornaments, etc. ; it wanted the gas, the band,
and above all the brilliantly dressed audience, to make
it a cheerful place. It was dreary in the extreme
without those adjuncts, and so I thought. Then I
turned my attention to the stage ; they were playing
School at that time, and there is a most realistic
and delightful wood scene in the play ; parts of this
scene were lying all round me. The grass that looked
so green and real, on a nearer inspection looked like
122 In the Sixties and Seventies
old green baize and a greenish-yellow string ; the trees
and flowers were mere daubs of paint laid on in the
roughest manner ; the fallen tree trunk, that was so
realistic from the front of the house, was a sham.
After some time my father and the manager rose,
and the latter offered to show me some more stage
properties ; so we wandered round, and he told some
of the scene shifters to move the scenes for my benefit,
to open trap-doors, and so on. When we at last
emerged into the street, my father said :
" Well, now you have had all your illusions destroyed.
You will never believe in those charming scenes again,
for you know how they are managed."
" I shall make up my mind to forget it/' said I
promptly.
" That's wise," replied my father ; " always try to
keep some illusions. I hope you will to the end
of your life, for those who do are the happiest
people."
Mr. William Creswick, the actor, lived in Bloomsbury
Square, and he and his sons were constant visitors
at our house. Mr. Creswick was then, I should
think, about fifty years of age, but he looked very
much younger. He had a fine figure, and a good-
looking face, and was still playing the premier jeune
homme. It was in the days when Creswick and
Sheppard were joint managers of the Surrey Theatre.
It was there that the prize play True to the Core,
was acted. We had a box for the first night ; it
"True to the Core" 123
was a very large box, running a long way back, and
Mr. Creswick often put it at our disposal. The
whole family used to go, my governess included.
Those were gala nights, for between the acts, when
the band played a set of quadrilles, we often danced
them at the back of the box, Mr. James Creswick
and his brother, if they were in the house, coming in
to assist.
True to the Core had a very good cast. Mr.
Creswick was the hero, "Martin Truegold" ; Henry
Marston, " Dangerfield," a Romish priest ; and Miss
Pauncefort, " Marah," a gipsy girl, and the heroine
of the play. I do not remember the plot at this
length of time, but I can recall the admirable acting
of Miss Pauncefort, Mr. Creswick, and Marston. I
saw the piece again at the Princess's, where all the
principal characters were played by the same artists,
with Nellie Moore, a charming actress, as " Mabel
Truegold." The scenery was exceedingly good ; it
included Plymouth Hoe, the deck of La Fa, the
ramparts of Old Plymouth, and, what I remember
best of all, the black rock of Eddystone. The ship
is wrecked, and the scene picturing the rocks and the
sea was wonderfully done and quite thrilling. But
actors often overlook small details, and I can recall
all the shipwrecked people looking very spick-and-
span — the ladies with their hair most elaborately done
had not a hair out of place ; the gentlemen had their
coats off, it is true, but they were seen clinging to
124 In the Sixties and Seventies
the rocks in clean starched shirts ! My mother
remarked this, and laughingly asked Mr. Creswick
how it happened that the immersion had not taken
the starch out. The next time we saw True to the
Core, the shipwrecked people looked less well-dressed
and more woe-begone.
My mother, and indeed all of us, often used to
point out little details that had been overlooked. I
remember one in The Be/Is, which my mother told
Mr. Irving on the first night, when he returned to
our house to supper. People who have seen the play
may remember that the first scene is a small inn, in
the depths of the country, and that there is supposed
to have been a deep fall of snow — in fact, it is still
snowing. The innkeeper, " Matthias ' (Irving),
walked in, on that first night, in ordinary black boots,
with no snow upon them. My mother spoke of it,
and afterwards " Matthias ' wore high black boots,
and stood on the mat while the snow was brushed off
them. Remarks were made in the papers as to Mr.
Irving's attention to the minutest details, and this was
cited as an instance. It also enhanced the effect of
his entrance.
The first " Hamlet ' I saw was Creswick's. The
actor had found out that I had never seen the play,
and promised me a box the next time he played that
character. Many months elapsed, but Mr. Creswick
did not forget his promise, as may be seen from the
following letter ;
William Creswick 125
"8, BLOOMSBURY SQUARE,
"November 25^.
" DEAR LAURA,
" Mr. Phelps, being prevented by indisposition,
does not appear as ' Richelieu ' to-night, and so I have
to don my sable and play c Hamlet.' 1 do myself the
pleasure of forwarding an order for a P.B., and shall
be glad if it would be convenient to yourself and three
friends to occupy it.
" Yours very sincerely,
" WM. CRESWICK."
I was delighted, and felt highly honoured, and
quite grown up, at his having sent the box to me
personally. I shall never forget that night. I was
not familiar with the play, though I was a devoted
student of Shakespeare, even in my early childhood,
for at ten years old I took two huge volumes
containing all his plays to school with me. I used
to sit upon a small table, placed underneath some book-
shelves in the schoolroom at Watford, and, cross-legged
like a Turk, head bowed, get it under the bookshelves,
pore over The Tempest, As Tou Like //, <;.id Much Ado
About Nothing. Hamlet I never attempted, possibly
because I had had to learn the soliloquy, an im-
possible task for a child to render properly. But
living amongst literary people I could not be quite
ignorant of the play; yet I was so enthralled,
surprised, and horrified at the end of it that I exclaimed
aloud :
126 In the Sixties and Seventies
" Why, they are all killed ! — I did not know that.
Oh, I am sorry ! '
I clasped my hands in an agony, and my voice
rang out in the silent house.
" Hush ! sit down ! ' some one said in a whisper,
and I sank into my seat with a sigh as the curtain
came down. I was amazed to find I had been
standing up, but Mr. James Creswick told me
I had been standing a long time, and that he had
been on the watch to see that I did not fall out of
the box.
It was many years after that 1 saw Irving's " Ham-
let/' I did not like it so well as Creswick's. In
the first place, Creswick, like Fechter, made the
Prince of Denmark fair, and the usual idea of Danes
is that they are a fair people (though I have been
told that it is not the case) ; then Mr. Creswick,
having a very good figure, looked princely, and he
always walked the stage so beautifully that, as I once
read in The Saturday Review, " he could give a lesson
in dignity to princes." * After seeing his " Hamlet,"
Irving's seemed to me nothing but a caricature ; 1
thought he looked like a bandit in a melodrama,
and that he was undignified all through the play ;
but it reached its climax when, in the Player scene,
he leapt upon the throne and, kneeling, waved
a peacock's feather fan round his head in a wild
manner.
* The play was King John
Henry Marston 127
Phelps I saw as " Othello ' and Henry Marston as
" lago." Mr. Marston acted this character with such
Satanic villainy and gusto that the pit and gallery
used to hoot and hiss him off the stage, to his great
delight. I had known Mr. Marston from my earliest
infancy, as a kind and gentle friend, who petted me
and talked to me in the pleasantest of voices. My
bewilderment was great when I saw him as " lago '
his slyness, his hollow voice, and deceitful behaviour,
the way in which he folded his arms and glared at
the other characters, made me quite ready to join
in the groans and the hisses — in fact, I could not
believe that this dreadful character was my friend
Mr. Marston. But the climax to my astonishment
was his huge delight at the feeling of the audience
against him.
" There ! did you hear them, Fri swell ? : he
would say to my father. u Don't I make them
hate me ? '
On the stage his voice was not unlike Mr. Irving's,
but more hollow ; it was exactly what it should be
for the Ghost of Hamlet's father, which I have seen
him play, but it was not so well adapted to other
characters. I am sure " Othello ' would never have
trusted an " lago ' with such a voice and manner ; but
the unction with which Mr. Marston played the part
was no doubt the cause of the pit and gallery groaning
and hissing, which they did nearly the whole time
he was on the stage. In a room his voice was not
128 In the Sixties and Seventies
peculiar, so it must have been the effect of raising
it, and the acoustic qualities of the building, that
caused the change.
I used to hear a great deal about Mr. Phelps from
Mr. and Mrs. Wharton Simpson ; they were great
admirers of his, and told me how devoted his
wife was to him ; it was said she always helped him
dress, and used to stand at the wings night after
night all the years he was playing at Sadler's Wells.
Though I was very young indeed at the time, I can
recall him distinctly — the curious nasal tone of his
voice, also a bad habit he had of clutching at his
shoulder, every few minutes.
As a child I must have been to Sadler's Wells,
although I cannot recall anything about it in its palmy
days ; but my father and mother frequently went
during Mr. Phelps's management, and I believe saw
all Shakespeare's plays there. I know they knew
several of the principal actors. Mr. Marston told
my mother that he fought a duel every night in
danger of his life when he was acting the " Duke of
Buckingham ' in John Saville of Haysted, a play which
had a long run. The actor George Bennett, who
played " Felton ' (who assassinates the Duke) was
so much in earnest that Marston dared not take
his eyes off him for an instant, or he would have
been run through, for Bennett was transformed— //£
was Felton.
It was there that my father and mother saw
Miss Marriott 129
Browning's beautiful poetical play, A Blot on the
Scutcheon. It was very finely acted, the actor who
played the lover having the most beautiful and sym-
pathetic voice. My mother says that Mr. Phelps
and Miss Cooper acted so charmingly that it made
an evening never to be forgotten.
All this happened when I was an infant, " crying
for the light," as Tennyson puts it, or it may have
been in the days of that privileged young person
Toddlekins, when she was safely tucked up in bed,
and fast asleep, dreaming of the games with her father,
or of her friend George Cruikshank, and those
wonderful tales Cinderella and Hop-o'-my-Thumb. I
fancy it was then that the young couple used to
go out, leaving their children in charge of the faithful
Mary Ann ; and one may be sure that " the world
went very well then," even though the young author
was unknown to fame, and had not been asked to
write an address for the Clerkenwell Benevolent Fund,
to be spoken by Miss Marriott, on the boards of
Sadler's Wells. That happened years afterwards, and
I well remember the night.
It was in November, '67. Miss Marriott was acting
in The Jealous Wife^ and was to deliver the address
at the end of the piece. A private box was sent to
my father ; my mother and he were dining with
Mr. and Mrs. George Routledge that night, but he
thought some one ought to go, and therefore sent
Miss W (my governess), the Philosopher, and me.
9
130 In the Sixties and Seventies
We arrived a little late, but before the commence-
ment of the piece. The theatre was literally packed
from floor to ceiling ; all the boxes were full except
one, level with the stage ; the people were clapping
for the curtain to rise, and the attendants seemed not
to know what to do with us, as they had sold the
box reserved for us. Not an inch of room was to
be found in the dress circle, or they would have put
some chairs for us — u would we mind the stage box ?'
Miss W and the Philosopher said we would not,
so we were escorted down some dirty wooden stairs,
till we stood amongst the scenes, and could see between
the wings on to the stage. There a gentleman in
gorgeous robes met us and again apologised ; we
found afterwards he was " the Duke of Mantua '
in the piece. A sheet of iron hung just outside the
box door — we had almost to stoop under it as we
went in ; the Philosopher whispered to me, " That's
the thunder/'
The box was too near the stage, and very small ;
but we enjoyed ourselves immensely by looking on
and off the stage, for no sooner had the curtain gone
down than we opened the box door and listened to
the dialogue without ; and we were immensely amused
and yet somewhat scandalised at Miss Marriott's acting
of the heart-broken wife — all tears and sweetness in
front of the house — and her strong language and anger
behind the scenes, where she scolded an unfortunate
attendant unmercifully for not being quicker in
At Sadler's Wells 131
bringing her lace pocket-handkerchief. In the midst
of the railing, and when she was stamping her foot
and red in the face with anger, the call came for her to
appear ; she dabbed the tiny piece of lace to her eyes
and was all softness and tears instantly, the redness
of her face enhancing the effect, for she looked as
if she had been crying for a month.
The next time she came off she scolded the prompter
and argued about some word he ought to have given,
he saying " I did ! ' she " You didn't ! ' at least a
dozen times. This man also had to manipulate the
thunder, which " occurred at the wrong time," accord-
ing to Miss Marriott ; but I really do not think
there was much wrong, for she was a very good actress
indeed, and the audience was enthusiastic, the applause
being quite as loud as the thunder, and that is saying
a great deal, for it was terrific — absolutely deafening.
We all laughed immoderately when we came away,
but we tried our best to keep a grave face in front
of the stage, for fear Miss Marriott* s eagle eye should
see us ; for The Jealous Wife is a pathetic piece — or so
I believe, for I do not remember anything about it, as
we were too much engrossed in the scenes at the back.
I only remember two incidents that occurred in front.
The first was rather comic and made us all laugh.
There were no stalls, the pit came up to the orchestra,
and one end of our box was close to the front row
of the pit. The pit in those days, besides indulging
in " dapples, ^oranges, ginger beer, and a bill of the
132 In the Sixties and Seventies
play/' which were sold in the house, brought its own
refreshments in baskets and bags, stone jars and glass
bottles. They used to put the bottles, and even the
jars, to their mouths — at any rate that was what
happened at Sadler's Wells that night, though the more
refined brought a gkss without a foot, or, like Mrs.
Brown at the Play, " a /^egg-cup." I sat, as I usually
did, in the best place farthest from the stage, and
once when the curtain fell a man got up and held
out a glass of port to me, saying :
u Take this, missie ; my wife says it'll bring some
colour into your poor pale face."
I laughed and shook my head.
" Do now, it's good wine," he said ; " we mean no
offence."
" I'm sure you don't," I replied.
c< And you won't have it ? — Then here's to your
better health, and God bless your bonnie bright eyes ! '
The man drank off the wine, and then the woman
had some, nodding and smiling at me, and I smiled
back and thanked them.
The next incident was the arrival of my father and
mother and Mr. and Mrs. George Routledge in full
evening dress. They were shown into the box by
" the Duke of Mantua " ; and how we all laughed, " the
Duke ' ' included — there was scarcely standing room.
Miss Marriott delivered the address beautifully.
There was great enthusiasm, and cries of " Author !
Author ! But my father did not appear.
CHAPTER XI
MR. J. L. TOOLE— HIS PRACTICAL JOKES — IRVING IN " DEARER THAN
LIFE" — MR. W. S. GILBERT — "THE HOUSE WHERE THE PLAGUE
BROKE OUT."
MR. J. L. TOOLE we were very fond of
going to see. I was especially pleased at
seeing him in My Turn Next, and Id on parle Franfais.
In both these farces he represented an irritable, worried
and alarmed little man wonderfully. He was very
funny, too, when he acted with Paul Bedford in The
Area Bell. These were all short farces before a
longer piece, for in those days people dined earlier
and spent more time at the play. Then how
charmingly he played " Uncle Dick ' in Uncle Dick's
Darling, and an old tradesman in Dearer than Life \
I should not care to see any of these plays now,
without Mr. Toole.
He and my father were very good friends. I have
several letters written by him to my father, from
various theatres where he was playing. One lies before
me now, written from the Standard Theatre, in which
he jokes my father about leaving his property behind
him.
133
J34 In the Sixties and Seventies
c< You are evidently rehearsing Paul Pry, leaving
your umbrella behind ; before you have this, you have
doubtless shed tears of joy at its restoration. Thanks
for your invite for Boy, but he is away at Brighton
with his mamma — if time permits before his return to
school, he shall annoy you."
" Boy ' was the actor's son, whose death when he
had barely reached manhood was so sad. It was
caused by an accident at cricket, while at school. I
remember sitting next him and his mother, on the
first night of The Two Roses ; he was then a very
good-looking child, with long, curling yellow hair.
Toole was well known for his practical jokes both
on and off the stage. In Dearer than Life, as I have
said, he acted the part of an old tradesman who has
been ruined by the loss of some money which his son
is supposed to have stolen. The tradesman then takes
a post as porter in a warehouse. Lionel Brough
acted the part of a drunken reprobate, brother to
the porter, and* called " Uncle Ben/' whose bad habits
have brought him to the workhouse. His represen-
tation of the wretched, drunken old man was a most
wonderfully lifelike piece of acting,
One fine day Toole and Brough determined to
have their portraits taken, as the porter and Uncle
Ben ; so, dressed in their costumes — Toole in ragged,
patched clothes, boots very much the worse for wear,
and an old piece of sacking over his shoulders, with
Mr. J. L. Toole 135
GLASS WITH CARE on it, and Brough in a work-
house suit, his face made up to look sodden with
they set out for the photographers. Passing
through Grosvenor Square, on their way to Regent
Street, Toole proposed that they should call at one of
the large houses there. This they did, knocking a re-
sounding double knock. A smart footman threw open
the door, and gazed in supercilious amazement at them.
" Is your master at home ? ' ' asked Toole quickly.
" No, he's not ! ' said the man, about to bang
the door.
" Tell him that his brothers, the porter and the
pauper, called ; and we'll come back later in the
afternoon."
The footman was too much astonished to do more
than stare as the two old men turned away, and went
slowly down the steps into the street.
Every one who has seen Toole must remember
how fond he was of "gag"; rather too fond, for
interpolating little sentences of his own often made
the laugh come in the wrong place. For instance :
on the first night of Dearer than Life my mother
and I were in a box, while my father and several
journalists sat in the stalls. Mr. Toole, in the
character of the porter, said, during a pathetic soliloquy,
and with a solemn shake of his head :
"Ah, I am very fortunate to get into Friswell
Brothers ; it's a good firm, and they are a good sort
-especially that Mr. Hain, he's a trump."
136 In the Sixties and Seventies
This caused my father and his friends to laugh,
and a laugh in a theatre is infectious ; thus Toole
upset the pathos of the scene- -like Dickens, who,
in his most pathetic scenes, usually introduces some
clownish trick (I can call it nothing else) and so spoils
the whole effect. Older people may not object to
this kind of fun, but the young, who take life earnestly,
do not like their illusions destroyed ; the play, or
the story, is real to them for the time being, and to
write or say something to cause a laugh is most
inartistic, to say the least of it. Who does not
regret that passage in Dombey and Son, where Captain
Cuttle, in his agitation in breaking the news of his
nephew's return to Florence, rubs his bald head with
a piece of toast, and then puts it into his hat, thinking
it is his pocket-handkerchief? It is too ridiculous,
and a blot on the whole scene.
I heard of another of Mr. Toole' s jokes, which
occurred at Brighton. The actor had hit upon a
good idea of advertising himself, and had had a
quantity of small round discs printed and gummed
at the back ; these he stuck on the windows of railway
carriages, cabs, omnibuses, and so on. He went
down to Brighton to act, and put up at the
Bedford Hotel ; and the next day, on tables, chairs,
looking-glasses, curtains, anywhere and everywhere,
little coloured paper discs appeared, with Go and see
Toole printed on them.
I first saw Irving at the Queen's Theatre, in Long
Mr. W, S. Gilbert 13?
Acre. He was playing with Toole in Dearer than
Life. Toole took the principal character, while Irving
played uBob Gasset," a very common young man, who
kept smoothing his very much oiled hair with his
hand, and rapping his teeth with his cane. Nellie
Moore, a charming actress, with beautiful fair hair, like
silkworms' silk, was the heroine. It seems curious now
to think of Sir Henry Irving playing such a part as
" Bob Gasset," but I can remember how cleverly it was
done.
We went to see the piece for a second time, for
I had a friend staying with me who did not often
go to a play. I remember when Bob Gasset was
shot, and fell backwards through a door in a loft, my
friend covered her face with her hands and said,
" Oh ! it's dreadful ! I can't bear it ! I can't bear it ! "
— and it certainly looked a very nasty fall.
It was that night, as we were coming out, that
my father introduced me to W. S. Gilbert. We were
standing on the pavement near the stage door, and
as he and my father talked I looked well at the
author of the Bab Ballads. He was not, I decided,
like the pictures of his " Discontented Sugar Broker,"
but more like a cavalry man than a writer of ballads ;
and here I took to quoting to myself one of his
poems :
A bachelor of circa two-and-thirty,
Tall, gentlemanly, but extremely plain ;
And when you're intimate, you'll call him " Bertie " ;
138 In the Sixties and Seventies
I decided he was about two-and-thirty, but decidedly
not plain ; and then I went on quoting another Bab
Ballad :
Roll on, thou ball, roll on,
Through pathless realms of space
Roll on.
What though I'm in a sorry case?
What though I cannot meet my bills ?
What though I suffer toothache's ills ?
What though I swallow countless pills ?
Never you mind !
Roll on!
Mr. Gilbert looking very prosperous ; I decided he
had no ills nor bills. I quoted the other verse,
for these verses were amongst my favourites, and
always amused me immensely, and I was no doubt on
the broad grin, when Mr. Gilbert, who had gone up
the steps to the stage door, turned on the top step
and looked at me. Immediately I had an idea that he
was not pleased at meeting us, and wondered why,
and was sorry, for I had had a great desire to see and
like the author of the Bab Ballads.
We had been waiting for " Bob Gasset," and now he
came, but looking so different I could scarcely believe
he was the same man. Mr. Irving was then under
thirty, had a pale, serious, intellectual face, and long,
rather wavy, black hair, and was as different from his
make-up as Bob Gasset as can well be imagined. We
all got into a cab and drove home, Irving coming in to
supper. My father talked about the play, and said
how much he liked it ; but the actor talked very little ;
Irving's Absence of Mind 139
he gave me the idea of being melancholy, I thought
he was tired. I did not know then that silence and
seeming lassitude were habitual to him ; but so it was,
for, though I saw him often for four or five years, I
do not think I ever saw him cheerful, let alone
hilarious. His face, figure, voice, proclaimed the
tragedian — and yet how well he can play comedy
every one knows who has seen him as " Jingle."
That night he quite annoyed me, for when we came
into the dining-room he suddenly put up his eye-
glasses, and, after a careful scrutiny of my face, said,
more to himself than to my father and mother :
" Very pretty — extraordinary likeness to Marie
Antoinette."
I became crimson ; but Irving was not in the least
perturbed. I might have been a picture, from the cool
way in which he looked at me, and I have never been
able to determine whether he knew he spoke aloud.
The next time I saw him off the stage was one
Sunday morning in Drury Lane. The Philosopher
was at King's College at that time, and on Sunday
used to attend the service at the college chapel. The
rest of the family went to St. George's, Bloomsbury,
where we had a pew, or to Bloomsbury Chapel, where
the Rev. J. M. Bellew officiated ; we all admired Mr.
Bellew's delivery, but I was very willing to go now
and then to King's College Chapel with my brother,
who, when he was in a particularly amiable frame of
mind, did not object to taking me.
i4° In the Sixties and Seventies
Our way was down Drury Lane and Long Acre,
into the Strand. Drury Lane, though a busy and
lively place on any day in the week, was on a Sunday
morning a quiet, almost deserted street. Between ten
and eleven o'clock the hard-working inhabitants are
sound asleep, or only just becoming conscious that
they are still inhabitants of this wicked world, and that
they have a terrible headache from the orgie that they
attended the night before. Except for a few dogs
and cats, or a half-sleepy man or woman standing at
a window or door, the Philosopher and I generally
had the street to ourselves, and when we came to
the middle of the lane the Philosopher invariably
said :
" Now just you keep your eyes open : Fve some-
thing to show you."
He always gave me plenty of time to open my eyes,
which was unnecessary, as they were naturally observant ;
but I did as I was told, and waited with what patience
I could. As we neared the end of Drury Lane he
stopped, and pointing up a small court said :
" There ! that's the house where the Plague broke
out — you know, the Great Plague in 1664."
Now this was very interesting when one heard it
once or twice, but when it came to every time we
went that way it grew not only monotonous, but
irritating. I put up with it like a good sister should
for a long time, but even the patience of a long-
suffering sister gets exhausted, though brothers never
A Necessary Lesson 141
think it should — for in their eyes sisters are of no
account, they seldom think of them at all. After
about twenty times my patience was worn out — besides,
I felt it was time to put a stop to the repetition,
that it was not good to allow the Philosopher to be
so forgetful. If he behaved like this other people
would think it very odd, for he was not an old
man losing his memory. I thought it over and hit
upon a plan, and, though I dreaded the Philosopher's
anger, I carried it out. On this particular Sunday,
with my heart beating wildly, I entered Drury Lane,
and when we were halfway down it I said to the
Philosopher :
" Don't go off into a dream, because there is some-
thing I want to show you."
" Go off into a dream ! What do you mean ? — I
never go off into dreams. But what is it you want
to show me? — something silly, I know."
" You'll see," I said. " Don't be so impatient."
How I hoped I should not make a mistake in the
court ! But no, I soon espied the bulging old houses,
and coming to a dead stop I pointed down the opening
and said :
" There ! that's the house where the Plague broke
out — you know, the "
But the Philosopher let me get no farther ; he
broke out scornfully and wrathfully :
" Just as if I didn't know that, you stupid ! Why,
I've shown it you many times."
142 In the Sixties and Seventies
" Yes/' I retorted, " so many times that I thought
now I would show it you."
" You had him there/' said a quiet but unmistak-
able voice, and looking up I saw Irving, who, smiling,
raised his hat as he passed on.
The Philosopher, after one surprised look, gave a
disgusted laugh, and we walked on in silence ; till
I said, by way of saying something :
" Poor Mr. Irving must have hurt himself the
other night when he fell through that trap. Did
you see how his temple was plastered up ? '
" Pooh ! ' said the Philosopher, " do you suppose
he thinks anything of that ? No man would — a mere
scratch* Men are not like girls, let me tell you."
I here remarked that Mr. Irving might have broken
his neck, and that I did not like to see him do that
fall. This remark gave the Philosopher an oppor-
. tunity, of which he quickly availed himself, to describe
to me how every arrangement is made by placing
mattresses, etc., to break an actor's fall, and that
it was only very occasionally that any one was hurt.
I listened with due meekness, and we arrived at the
church the best of friends. But the lesson was not
lost, for I never heard any more of the house where
the Plague broke out.
* Mr. Irving had had a very nasty fall indeed, we heard afterwards.
By some oversight the mattresses had been forgotten.
CHAPTER XII
THE DEATH OF NELLIE MOORE — IRVING, AND MENDELSSOHN'S " SONGS
WITHOUT WORDS " -MISGIVINGS ABOUT " THE BELLS " —THE FIRST
NIGHT OF "THE BELLS."
I HAVE spoken of my friend Bessie W , who
lived in the old house in Dean Street, Soho ;
though we were no longer schoolfellows, we were
still friends, and I used often to go and see her.
Dean Street is not far from Great Russell Street, and
though I seldom, if ever, went out without my
governess accompanying me, I was allowed to go
there by myself, and it so happened that I met
Mr. Irving three times in Soho Square. I used to
go to tea with Bessie between four and five o'clock,
and Mr. Irving used to call at a house in the Square
where Miss Nellie Moore lodged, the charming actress
who played the part of one of the Roses, in The
Two Roses, and whose hair was so fair and silky.
The first time Mr. Irving and I met we only
nodded and smiled, but the next time we stopped
and spoke, and I told Mr. Irving that I was going
to tea with a friend, and he told me that he had
been to inquire after Miss Moore, who was very
ill indeed, and who was all alone in London, her
144 In the Sixties and Seventies
mother being with Nellie Moore's younger sister
in America.
" What is the matter with her ? ' I asked.
" Scarlet fever/' said Mr. Irving. I felt startled
and worried, but made no remark. " I am afraid
she won't get well," he said.
He looked exceedingly melancholy and anxious,
and I felt very sympathetic, but also very uncomfort-
able ; I wanted to say something kind and appropriate,
but did not know how. I was dreadfully sorry
for Nellie Moore, for I had quite fallen in love
with her in The Two Roses. I said at last how
sorry I was, and then I told him how ill a boy
cousin of mine had been, and how his mother nursed
him for weeks, and no one was allowed to go near
my aunt or him. Irving listened patiently, and then
he said, " So he got well after all ? '
" Oh yes, and the doctor says he's all the better
for having had the fever."
Irving smiled rather sadly.
<c Let us hope Miss Moore will recover — you
will remember her in your prayers ' ' ; then he paused.
"It is dreadful to think she is all alone," he said,
more to himself than to me.
" When will her mother come ? ' I asked, and
he said she was on her way home, but he feared
she would be too late.
It was about two days after this that we again met,
but it was in the morning — I was taking a note to
A Bunch of Violets H5
Mr. W from my father. I can remember the
exact spot where Mr. Irving and I met. I saw him
as he was coming across from the house in the
square, and I waited for him, standing on the edge
of the curb at the corner of the little street that
leads out of Oxford Street into Soho Square. He
came slowly across the road, his hands full of beautiful
Parma violets. I looked from him to the house — the
blinds were down. My heart gave great throbs.
" My prayers have not been heard ' was my first
thought ; then I remembered the sunny morning, and I
told myself it was because of the sun the blinds were
down : pretty Nellie Moore could not be dead.
" Well ? ' I said, hardly able to speak.
Mr. Irving lifted his head and looked at me, then
he held out the violets.
" You take them," he said, " she will never want
any more."
I took the flowers and stood quite silent. I suppose
I turned very white, for he took one of my hands
and held it, stroking it with his other hand; at last
I spoke.
" Mrs. Moore ? " I asked.
" She comes to-night."
" And she doesn't know — oh, how dreadful ! And
she was so young and pretty ! '
" Don't be so sorry, little friend : it's not always a
misfortune to die young," said Irving, with a sad
smile, and then we parted.
10
146 In the Sixties and Seventies
I went on my way, passing the house with averted
head and struggling with my tears. I gave all the
violets to Mrs. W , but I never told her where
they came from. I could not have taken them home—
I could not have endured the sight of them ; and I
tried to forget poor Nellie Moore, but it was weeks
before I could do so, and to this day I never go
into Soho Square without thinking of her and her
early death.
Living so near, Irving was often in our house,
coming in and out as he liked. One day I had
been practising, and was coming out of the room
with unnecessary energy, when I nearly ran against
the actor in the doorway. I stepped back into the
room.
" So it was you playing Mendelssohn so nicely,"
he said as I shook hands. " Just come back and
play me No. i."
" I can not" I began, but Irving had me by the
sleeve, and I found myself at the piano, the piece
before me.
" I am very fond of No. i," said Irving, sinking
into a chair close to the piano, but rather behind
me.
We were taught to do as we were told and not
make a fuss, so in spite of nervous fears I began
to play. I was sure it would be an ignominious
failure, but I reached the double bar quite creditably ;
then I glanced at my companion. He was sitting
Songs without Words H7
as I have often seen him on the stage, sunk down
in the chair, his chin upon his breast, his feet
stretched out in front of him, his arms lying along
the arms of the chair, the hands limply hanging.
I thought him asleep, and congratulated myself. I
went on with No. i, and became so interested I forgot
Irving. When I reached the end I commenced it
again, and played it all through, not forgetting to
repeat the passages as marked. Then I sat a moment
turning over my book. When I tried to rise I
could not ; my frock was fixed to the seat ; I found
Irving's hand was upon it. " Go on," said a solemn
voice ; " very well played — shows sympathy and
feeling." Next I played No. 30, and was very glad
when my father entered and took Irving to the
study.
Long before The Bells was put upon the stage
we heard about it, and were all most anxious for
its success. On the first night (1871) my father
went with Irving. He came to ask him a day or
so before ; and as I was coming downstairs from
the second floor I saw the actor emerging from the
study. Neither he nor my father saw me, but I heard
the latter say :
" Of course I will come — always intended to. It's
sure to be a success ; don't worrit yourself."
Very kind of you to say so. No, don't come
down."
Irving shut the door quickly, and turned to go
148 In the Sixties and Seventies
down the three steps to the next landing. As he
turned again I saw his face ; it was very melancholy ;
then I put my head over the balusters and said :
" Well ! so you are to act in The Bells ; are you
not glad ? '
" It may not be a success/' he said, with a sigh.
" Oh yes it will," I replied. c< You know you are a
rattling good actor ; my father says so. Now you
will be a great success^ and I shall be the first to
congratulate you."
He looked up and almost laughed.
" Thank you ! I shall take your words as a good
omen," he replied, shaking hands between the balusters.
Then he ran downstairs, still smiling. As to me, I
went to the top of the long flight, and, in spite of
housemaid and open door, I called out:
" It will be a great success ; I know it will. Tou
see if I am not right"'
Irving waved his hand to me.
My father, opening his door, asked : " Is that Mr.
Irving you are shouting at ? '
" Yes, they have put on The Bells, and he doesn't
seem at all glad. I can't think why, when it's just
what he wanted."
" Ah," said my father, " I can understand ; people
are often nervous when they attain their desire. I
like him all the better," he added to himself.
" Oh well," I replied, " I told him he was a rattling
good actor, and that you said so."
The First Night of "The Bells " 149
" No doubt that cheered him," laughed my father.
On the all-important night Mrs. Irving came and
accompanied my mother and father to the theatre.
I and a girl cousin who was staying with us sat
up till their return, which was very late. But I could
not have gone to bed — I was so anxious to know
how the play went off, and to see and congratulate
Mr. Irving. I hoped he would be in great spirits,
but, as I have said before, I never saw Mr. Irving
hilarious, and do not think he could be. Directly
I saw his face I felt a dreadful sense of disappointment,
he was so pale and gloomy-looking ; we shook hands
in silence, and I introduced my cousin. I was afraid
to speak. Was this play, that we had all thought so
much of, that we had been looking forward to for
weeks — was it a failure after all ?
" We are very late — how tired you look ! You
should not have waited up for us," said Irving.
Before I could answer my father came in ; he had
been down to the cellar and had two bottles of
champagne in his hands. His face was beaming, and
he was brimming with enthusiasm and elation at
Irving's fine acting and the success of the play.
" Begin your congratulations, Lollie," he said, " it
was a grand success — quite a hit."
" I am so glad. I knew it would be," I replied as I
shook the actor's hand again. Irving admitted that I
was a true prophetess, and then, my mother and Mrs.
Irving coming in, we sat down to supper.
150 In the Sixties and Seventies
My father did most of the talking ; he praised the
piece and the scenery ; Mr. Irving asked his opinion
of this, that, and the other ; every little detail was
gone into, and my mother spoke about the snow on
"Matthias's" boots, which I have mentioned in a former
chapter. They all three talked animatedly, and I and
my cousin were very much interested, though Mrs.
Irving seemed to think we might be bored ; I fancy she
was herself, for she was very quiet.
My father made a short speech, and we drank
further success and a long run to The Bells ; my
father, in his enthusiastic way, said we must drink the
toast standing, which we did, and I rather think it
was drunk with honours, but this I do not remember ;
but I can very clearly recall Mr. and Mrs. Irving's
faces. She laughed, and rather deprecated " the fuss,"
as she called it ; it struck me that she thought it
all nonsense, and that my father's enthusiasm was
ridiculous ; but Irving's face was a study, he looked
so very affectionately at his host, as if he admired and
loved him — and I have seen that same expression on
the faces of several men when they have been in my
father's company.
After supper Mrs. Irving said it was late, and they
must go, but her husband looked at her and said,
"Oh, not yet, my dear," and my father declared it
was a special occasion, and they must have a cigar.
With charming insistence he induced Mrs. Irving
to take a comfortable chair. Then Irving, sitting in an
An Interrupted Enjoyment 151
armchair, and, leaning back, looking very pleased and
happy, began to talk about an actor's life. It would
have been very interesting to hear his ideas, his hopes,
and ambitions ; but as it was between one and two
in the morning my cousin and I quietly rose and
went to bed.
CHAPTER XIII
THE REV. J. M. BELLEW — REFLECTIONS ON THE CHURCH — BELLEW AND
THE FURNITURE — BELLEW AS A PUBLIC READER— A READING OF
" ROMEO AND JULIET " — BELLEW LEAVES THE CHURCH.
I MENTIONED in a former chapter our attending
Bedford Chapel, where the Rev. J. M. Bellew
was then preaching. The chapel has no parish attached
to it, and we had sittings in St. George's, Bloomsbury ;
but we were all very fond of going to hear Mr.
Bellew, his sermons were good and his delivery very
fine indeed.
From almost my earliest years I had been used to
hearing him, for he was at one time at St. Mark's,
Hamilton Terrace, where Canon Duckworth, another
of my father's friends, has been for many years. I
used to stay with an uncle in Maida Vale, and was
taken by a cousin, who was a member of Mr. Bellew's
church, to hear the famous preacher, and a great
impression he made upon me.
It was some years after, when he was at the height
of his popularity, that he became incumbent of Bedford
Chapel, and there the rank and fashion of the London
season used to come to hear him, and were often
turned away from the doors for lack of room. Those
Reflections on the Church 153
who can recall the service will remember that it was
not ritualistic. There were no flowers, there was no
incense, but the service was conducted with reverence
and in order. The singing was very good, though
one would have liked a surpliced choir, but to dress the
choir in surplices was not so general then as now.
What was most excellent was the good reading and
preaching, which was as lacking in those days in our
churches as it is in these. I think the indifferent way
many of our clergy read and speak is a scandal to
the Church of England. I know that in some of the
churches they are now intoning the service — it is
thought in order to hide their indifferent elocution ;
but though intoning is but a makeshift, and is generally
very indifferently, not to say badly, done, we have
still the sermon, and that cannot be intoned — though
some do their best by adopting a sing-song style,
while others whisper and then shout. Each of these
styles is very difficult to follow ; and when it is, as
one so often hears, accompanied by a Scotch, Irish, or
provincial dialect, and grotesque actions, it is too
much to expect a congregation to endure — and
who can wonder that the church empties ? Sermons
too should be better, and come more closely home to
mankind's business and family troubles, instead of
being mere rhapsodies, or strings of quotations,
without a beginning, middle, or end that one can
apply; but there is a slight improvement in this
respect, for some preachers do meet the questions of
154 In the Sixties and Seventies
the day more now than they used. What they want
is to learn elocution, so as to speak and read clearly
and with eloquence, instead of gabbling, mumbling,
shouting, whispering, or reading in an apathetic manner,
which is the fashion of the majority.
The loss of the power of the pulpit is shown in
the spread of ritualism and of infidelity. If our
clergy had preached as Baxter wrote of his own
preaching :
I preach as ne'er to preach again,
A dying man to dying men,
there would not be so many of either the clergy or
the laity who have gone in for chasubles, birettas,
crucifers, processions, genuflexions, elevations of the
bread and wine, and the slurring of God's Word by
intoning it.
Could any one imagine Wesley, Melville, Bunyan,
or Spurgeon, or any other born orator, resorting to
different coloured dresses — dark colours on the fast days
and rose colour on feast days ? Can any one imagine
St. Peter or St. Paul sitting still and allowing " son
Timothy ' to figure with his back to an audience,
before the altar, kneeling, rising, bowing, and kissing
portions of his dress, while his acolytes collect money
in scarlet bags? There is not one student — I mean
honest, historical student — of the Gospels and Epistles
who could suppose such a thing possible. People
may well ask, What are our Bishops about, to allow
it? Why does not the Church of England treat its
The Rev. J. M. Bellew 155
clergy better ? Why are there so many livings below
£200 a year ? Surely a servant of the Church is
worthy of his hire, and should at least be secured
from penury, or adding to his income by novel-writing,
public reading, etc., which many are absolutely obliged
to turn to — and that brings me back to the subject
of this sketch.
I do not mean to insinuate that Mr. Bellew was
obliged to become a public speaker, though he always
said he was. Being eloquent, he was naturally
ambitious, and most of the clergy are badly paid. I
do not know anything of Mr. Bellew's private life,
nor whether the Church treated him well or ill.
St. Mark's, one would think, must be a good living ;
but Bedford Chapel had no parish — it seemed to be
only a favourite church for popular preachers ; there
was no position attached to it. Later, Christopherson,
and many others whose names I have forgotten,
preached there ; but though many preached better
sermons, no one performed the service so impressively
as Mr. Bellew. He neither shouted nor intoned, but
he made every word tell. He read the lessons most
beautifully, as they should be read, but as one very,
very seldom hears them. His delivery of the Com-
mandments was so forcible, his manner so grandly
impressive, that those who heard him once could never
forget it. He was a very handsome man, and
looked most imposing in his surplice, which was
always neat and untumbled and put on with the
156 In the Sixties and Seventies
greatest exactness, as it should be ; his abundant white
hair added picturesqueness to his appearance, especially
as he had dark eyes and well-defined eyebrows.
I had never seen a French abbey but I thought
he must be like one in his defiant, gallant way ; he
also made me think of " Yorick." A fine engraving
of " Yorick ' and the grisette used to hang in my
bedroom ; and though I had not then read Sterne,
I thought " Yorick " not unlike Mr. Bellew ; the
reason may have been that " Yorick's ' white wig
was not unlike Mr. Bellew's hair, and I had heard
my father say that Mr. Bellew wore knee breeches
and silk stockings under his surplice. But in later
years when I read The Sentimental Journey I still
thought there was some likeness between the great
Sterne and his countryman, if only in their disregard
of conventionalities and their love of an easy life.
Their Irish birth no doubt caused them to be un-
conventional ; they certainly had the courage of their
opinions, and were not like the common run of
humanity, and in consequence they were both well
criticised.
Much has been written against Sterne and spoken
against Bellew, but there is no doubt that we have
had, and have still, many worse men in the Church
than either, and few more clever in their different ways.
Sterne was a genius, and Bellew one of the most
eloquent men that ever lived. After all, the most
heinous fault of the latter seems to have been that
The Rev. J. M* Bellew 157
" he was seen in a theatre at twelve o'clock on Saturday
night, and administering the sacrament on the follow-
ing Sunday morning." I do not know how often this
occurred, but if it happened once, people would have
talked as if it were of weekly occurrence. It was not
seemly in a clergyman, but it was not a crime, and
he was at his post and doing his duty next day. In
these days it would not have been made so much of ;
for after all the theatre is the child of the Church,
and should be as great a power for good if properly
conducted. It seems a great pity that the Pulpit,
the Stage, and the Press do not act in more accord.
Bellew's other fault, people said, was vanity. But
does there live a man who is not vain ? Mr. Bellew
had more excuse than most, for he was handsome,
and he was very eloquent ; besides, a number of
women ran after him, and that always turns a man's
head. But he was not so vain of his own sermons
that he could not deliver other people's, and in this
one wishes others would copy him. He gave a long
course of Jeremy Taylor, and at my father's suggestion
chose " The Marriage Ring." The sermons were most
beautifully delivered and very popular.
If Mr. Bellew looked well in the pulpit, he did
not look so well walking, or in a room ; for the
surplice hid the stoutness of his body and the shortness
of his legs, which gave him an unwieldy appearance,
which I am sure he knew and was not proud of. He
was, I think, sensitive on the point, and it was this
158 In the Sixties and Seventies
sensitiveness I hurt, quite unintentionally. He came
into the drawing-room in Great Russell Street one day,
and was about to sit down in a very delicate bentwood
chair, when I, dragging forward a substantial armchair,
a perfect throne, said :
" Won't you take this, Mr. Bellew ? "
" No thank you, the one I have will do," he said.
" But I am sure you will like this chair better ; that
is so very fragile," I persisted.
" I am not an elephant, my dear girl," he retorted
in an offended tone, and added, " Are you afraid
I shall break the furniture ? '
Then down he sat, the chair giving an ominous
crack. I returned to my seat, feeling snubbed. On
my father's entrance Bellew turned round quickly,
and crack went the chair.
" Hallo ! ' said my father, u something seems to
be giving way here."
" I believe it is breaking after all," replied the
clergyman, and on examination he proved to be right.
I almost said " I told you so," but fortunately I
remembered my manners in time.
Mr. Bellew's public readings were very popular,
and he was anxious to read one of my father's poems ;
he had, he said, been studying Francis Spira* with
that view — <c but the piece John Fairfax, which is
very dramatic, I could not read for fear of having
the house about my ears worse than Vining did at
* A book of poems by my father.
A Letter from Bellew 159
the Princess's the other evening." I wondered what
Mr. Vining had done to have such a catastrophe occur.
Mr. Bellew then complained of the pieces he had
made popular being pirated by other people, and he
mentioned some well-known names of entertainers
(now dead), who came and sat listening, watching his
treatment, and then the pieces he had been reading
were taken by them. On this account he preferred
pieces that had not been published, and it was arranged
that my father should write him something and let
him have it in MS.
My father evidently wrote to him and gave him a
choice of subjects, for Mr. Bellew writes as follows :
" Marie Antoinette is the subject. I think if it were
written like Aytoun's Montrose, or Byron's Lara,
it could be made most telling. Ugolino or Raleigh
are most excellent ; but they could not touch the
Queen. There is so much pathos, tragedy, and thrilling
incident in her story : her watching through the chink
for the Dauphin ; her looking up to the window for
the priest's blessing at the appointed spot as she went
to execution ; her hair changing to white in one
night. What a field there is for a poet's pen ! '
My father took a much more simple subject than
Marie Antoinette. At this very time he read in the
papers an account of a platelayer on
The great north line, a serpent with two heads,
Each in a noisy city wrapped in smoke,
160 In the Sixties and Seventies
to quote the first lines of the poem ; this platelayer
rushed forward to save a little child, who, seeing its
father on the other side, attempted to cross in front of
the train ; the child was saved, the man killed.
My father took this homely subject, thinking it
sufficiently dramatic, and called his verses A Railway
Incident. Mr. Bellew was charmed with it and read
it most effectively for two or three seasons ; it was
then published in Casselfs Magazine.
I once went with my father to hear Mr. Bellew
read this poem, and we went in the interval between
the first and second part of the entertainment round to
his room at the back of the hall. I was very much
interested and amused to find several looking-glasses
in silver frames hung upon the walls at studied angles,
also hair and clothes brushes with silver backs, and a
beautiful hand-glass in mother-o'-pearl, and amongst
other things a hare's foot.
Mr. Bellew was not there. My father raised his
eyebrows and said in a low voice :
" Looks like a lady's dressing-table."
I made no reply ; I was busy trying, by tip-toeing,
to get a glimpse of myself in the different glasses, for
I had never seen so many placed in such positions ;
but, do what I would, I could only catch glimpses of
the top, back, and sides of my hair and forehead, but
it illustrated to me what the glasses were for.
" I should have thought/' I said, " that Mr. Bellew
would have practised at home ; what will the servants-
Bellew on Encores 161
attendants, I mean- -think of him? And oh, what is
that for ? "
I pointed to the hare's foot. My father frowned.
" Sit down," he said, in quite a severe tone.
I sat down, my eyes wandering round the long
slip of a room, that looked dull and almost dirty (it
was somewhere in the suburbs) with its oak-papered
varnished walls, and its one small, common looking-
glass and jug of water which stood on the table,
part of which had been covered by a superfine
white embroidered cloth, on which lay the toilet
paraphernalia. The smart looking-glasses that were
hung on the dirty wall, and the glittering glass and
silver on the table, only made the place seem more
dreary. My father in his evening dress looked quite
out of place, and, though I did not wear evening dress
at that time, I have no doubt I looked equally incon-
gruous. I know Mr. Bellew did.
" Glad to see you ! Didn't the Incident go
well ? " he said as he came in, and standing in front of
a glass ran his hands through his hair. My father
agreed, and spoke of the way the people clapped.
" Oh, they always do — but I never repeat, I set my
face against encores ; the public get quite enough for
their money, and if they want the Incident again, as
they always do, they can come to the next reading."
He sat down at the table, right opposite me, as I
sat with my back against a wall ; then he glanced
round the room.
II
1 62 In the Sixties and Seventies
" Did you ever see such a hole ? ' he said. " Like a
room at a railway station — not so good as some ; not
even a decent looking-glass, so ' (with a wave of his
hand) " I have to bring all these. Oh ! these suburban
halls, how well I know them ! Nothing to eat — if I
had known your daughter was coming, I would have
ordered some cakes or sweetmeats, but I've only
these."
He leant forward, and opening a silver box, like a
snuff-box, held it out to me — it was full of voice
jujubes. I took one, as I had been taught it was rude
to refuse ; then he helped himself, shut the box, and
put it in his waistcoat pocket, and taking two brushes
commenced brushing his hair. My father rose to go,
but Mr. Bellew would not hear of it.
" You must have a glass of champagne with me. I
don't usually indulge in such a thing, but I ordered
it especially, just to drink further success to The
Railway Incident.
Some one bringing the wine at that moment, we all
drank success ; then the audience, having grown tired
of the pianist, began to get impatient — we could hear
them clapping and stamping ; so we left Mr. Bellew
to finish his toilet, and returned to our places.
Another time I went with my father to a reading
of Romeo and Juliet. Mr. Bellew read the play, and
a company of actors and actresses acted it in dumb-
show. Every one expected it would be a fiasco, but it
was a great success — the illusion was perfect, j The
"Either that or Nothing " 163
stage was lighted and the reader was down below in
deep shadow ; the audience heard his voice, but did
not notice him, and it seemed as if the actors were
actually speaking ; even the women's voices were well
managed. All were, I think, astonished at the success
of the venture, and it says a great deal for the reader
and the actors that the illusion was so exact.
After nearly twenty years in the Church of England,
Mr. Bellew became a Roman Catholic ; his mother
had always belonged to that faith. Soon after his
perversion my father and he met in the British
Museum ; and on my father expressing sorrow at his
having left the Church, Bellew said :
"It was either that, or nothing, Friswell."
" Then you may be sure it is nothing," replied my
father, as he left him.
CHAPTER XIV
INTRODUCED TO CHARLES DICKENS — " LIKE LITTLE NELL " -THE FARE-
WELL DINNER TO DICKENS — ANTHONY TROLLOPE — LORD LYTTON-
A CURIOUS SCENE — INTRODUCED TO TENNYSON.
MY father was very fond of taking me out and
about with him, so that at a very early age
I became acquainted with authors, publishers, and
printers. On one occasion we were walking down
Wellington Street, Strand, and just passing the office
of Household Words^ when a hansom cab stopped, and
out stepped a gaily dressed gentleman ; his bright
green waistcoat, vivid scarlet tie, and pale lavender
trousers would have been noticed by any one, but the
size of the nosegay in his buttonhole riveted my
attention, for it was a regular flower garden. My
father stopped and introduced me, and I, who had
only seen engravings of the Maclise portrait, and a
very handsome head in my mother's photograph album,
was astonished to find myself shaking hands with the
great novelist, Charles Dickens. His manner was so
exceedingly pleasant and kind to a young nobody like
me that I was very much taken with him ; and I was
moreover very anxious to like the man who had
164
"Like Little Nell" 165
created Dick Swiveller and the Marchioness, and Little
Nell and her grandfather.
When I was ill — and in those days I was very, very
often laid up and confined to my bed — I used to read,
or get my mother to read to me, The Old Curiosity
Shop. My grandmother had a first edition of the
book, and I read it till I almost knew it by heart. I
admired Dick Swiveller very much, disliked Samp-
son Brass and his sister, hated Quilp, pitied the
Marchioness, and adored Little Nell and her grand-
father. My father told Dickens something of this,
and the great novelist smiled, and said, " She is not
unlike Little Nell, herself."
I felt that this was the very greatest compliment
any one could pay me, for if there was one person
I wished to resemble, it was Little Nell. She was
such a very good girl. I felt I could never be like
her, however much I tried. The fact was I only
thought of her when I was ill, and forgot my good
resolutions when I was up and about ; I was half a
mind to confess this to Mr. Dickens, but instead I
looked up and blushed with pleasure, and he smiled
very kindly as he again shook hands. I turned away
in a great state of elation, but my father I am sure
had not appreciated the compliment, for he said one
or two rather uncomplimentary things about Little
Nell. I fancy he thought I should grow morbid, and
he told me that when I was older and had read some of
Mr. Dickens's other novels I should no longer admire
1 66 In the Sixties and Seventies
The Old Curiosity Shop so much — " parts of it are
inimitable, but Little Nell is unnatural and too senti-
mental," he said emphatically, " and when you are
older you will see it. This was of course true ;
but my ardour was very much damped, and I soon
ceased to wish to be like Little Nell.
The next time I saw Dickens was about a year
after, at a farewell dinner given to him by many of
the best-known men of the day, on the occasion of
his second visit to America. I had of course no
business to be present at this dinner ; but Dr. Richardson
had impressed upon my parents the necessity of
my not being left always at home, to lie on my board
and become melancholy, and possibly consumptive,
and one of his prescriptions was that I was to
be taken to the theatre, or to see anything where
I could have a comfortable seat and no exertion.
Even then if it had not happened to be my
birthday I do not think I should have been taken
to the Dickens Dinner, but as it was I accompanied
my mother and a Miss Stevens to the ladies' gallery.
I remember how very uncomfortable and small that
gallery was, how the band of the Grenadier Guards
nearly filled it. I had heard a great deal of Mr. Dan
Godfrey from some friends who knew him, and I
had wished to see him ; but that night I was much too
near, and wished him and his band anywhere but
where it was, for the noise was deafening. The
brilliance of the decorations almost dazzled our eyes,
The Dickens Dinner 167
but I found one soon became used to it, and then
I amused myself trying to pick out any faces I knew.
But the authors did not show in great numbers ;
there were, I think, far more artists and actors.
The hall was quite new, and might have been
built for the occasion. The half-moons arching the
twenty mural compartments contained, in letters of
gold, the names of all Dickens's novels, Pickwick
being the one selected for the place of honour at the
end of the room behind the President's chair. Below
it were the initials C. D., surrounded by a wreath,
and beneath that another scroll, bearing the words
" All the Year Round." The English and American
flags indicated the international character of the enter-
tainment.
The band suddenly ceased, and Charles Dickens
entered, accompanied by Lord Lytton, who was
President ; as they passed down the room, followed
by Sir Francis Grant, President of the Royal Academy,
Sir Charles Russell, Lord Houghton, and several
others, the whole room rose and broke into loud and
continuous applause, which lasted till they had taken
their places.
We had a very good view of Dickens, and I can
see him now, standing smiling and bowing, a flush
upon his face. I even fancy I can hear, in this quiet
room, the echo of that wonderful applause — and yet
how many, many years it is ago, and how very few
of all that brilliant company there are left ! Dickens
1 68 In the Sixties and Seventies
looked very well and very much moved and gratified.
As he was in evening dress, he could not indulge
his taste for colour ; but my eyes ftew to his button-
hole— it was a camellia, surrounded by a ring of
violets ; I wished some little bird had whispered to
him to have chosen either one or the other.
We ladies went into a room and had a cold supper,
or collation as it was called ; then we returned to
the gallery in time for the speeches, and when we
returned the band had gone. The toast of the
evening : " A Prosperous Voyage and Long Life to
our Illustrious Guest and Countryman, Charles
Dickens ! ' was drunk with all honours, and one cheer
more ; and Dickens must have been more than human
if he could have looked round and not been thrilled
and stirred by the presence, and not only the presence,
but the enthusiasm, of so many brother artists. But
Dickens is very human in his writings, and was in
himself, for his eyes filled and his voice trembled
and shook, and I clasped my hands and was so excited,
I could have cried if I had not been determined to
hear and see all I could.
I cannot remember much of his speech. I think
I thought it too short, which is a decidedly good
fault in after-dinner speeches. My impression now
is that I expected Dickens to make more allusion
to the works of the authors, artists, and actors who
surrounded him ; and I was a little disappointed that
he only quoted Shakespeare and himself. 1 know
Charles Dickens 169
he ended his speech with : " as Tiny Tim observed,
God bless us, every one."
The speeches over, the ladies retired to the drawing-
room, where tea and coffee were served and the
gentlemen came in. I sat with my mother and Miss
Stevens on a lounge in the middle of the room, and
we were soon surrounded. Wilkie Collins, Ansdell,
Marcus Stone, Sir William Fergusson, Blanchard
Jerrold, Matthew Arnold, Serjeant Ballantyne, Land-
seer, and I know not who came up. I remember a
very pleasant old gentleman came, and bowing with
old-fashioned politeness said :
" Can J get you anything, dear ladies ? '
He addressed himself to us all, and on my mother
thanking him and declining, he sat down by me and
talked about the dinner and the speeches, and I
was so excited I forgot to be nervous, and gave him
my ideas, which seemed to amuse him vastly. As
to the hero of the evening, he was surrounded by
ladies and gentlemen and seemed to be doing nothing
but shake hands. At last he came up to us with
his son and stood talking a few moments.
"You are the girl," he said, " who reads The Old
Curiosity Shop ? '
I signified that I was, and he replied :
u What about Little Nell now ? You've grown
so much I hardly knew you," and then he smiled,
shook hands, and left us.
When I sat down again the old gentleman asked
i7° In the Sixties and Seventies
me if I was very fond of The Old Curiosity Shop,
and I told him I was, and how much I admired Little
Nell. His opinion was, I found, very much like my
father's, and not at all complimentary to my heroine ;
but he was exceedingly complimentary to me, and
when I said I wondered Mr. Dickens remembered
•me, he replied "he did not wonder at it at all;
authors never forget those who admire their works."
And then my father came up, and after some conversa-
tion with my nice old gentleman we moved away,
and my father told me I had been talking so long
to Mr. Anthony Trollope. I thought of what he
had said about " authors never forgetting those who
admire their works," and I wished I had read some
of his, and could have talked of them ; but I had
never read a line, though you may be sure I soon
remedied that, but I never met Anthony Trollope
again.
My father and I went in search of Mr. Greenwood,
but did not find him, though he was there. I had
not forgotten my first novel, Under a Cloud, and I
have always wished to see the author, but I've never
done so to this day ; though whenever I meet a Mrs.
Greenwood, I always ask her if she is the wife of
Mr. Greenwood the author and journalist, and she
never is. I am, of course, very disappointed that
she is not, and that I cannot talk of Under a Cloud ;
but I try to hide my chagrin, and I hope I do so
successfully, for it is not nice to be taken for
Lord Lytton 171
somebody who you are not, especially when the person
addressing you evidently thinks you should be that
particular person.
My mother and Miss Stevens were escorted down-
stairs by some of our friends, and I was following
with my father, but the crowd was great and we
could only move very slowly ; as we stood I heard
a voice say :
"Do tell me who the beautiful girl is, leaning on
the arm of that aristocratic man ? '
I turned round to see which girl, and met the
keen eyes of Lord Lytton. We had his portrait,
with his autograph, in our album. I always called
him Mephistopheles. I had seen him lingering round
our sofa, but took care not to catch his eye. He
had asked the question of Mr. Frederick Locker,
whom I knew well, and who smiled and nodded as
he answered :
" Don't know them \ — that's Hain Friswell and his
daughter ; they go everywhere."
" That Hain Friswell, the moralist, the man who
writes against thieves' literature ! ' exclaimed Lord
Lytton in a very interested tone. " Why, he looks
like a Duke ! You know them — do introduce me :
she's the "
" Hush ! you're the last man in London Friswell
would introduce his daughter to ; he's d d particular,
I can tell you, and she's very young."
" And why shouldn't I be introduced, pray ? '
i72 In the Sixties and Seventies
" You know, better than I can tell you, my lord,"
retorted Locker significantly, and then we moved on ;
but I turned my head again and saw them both
watching us, Lord Lytton with a very nasty leer on
his face. I was glad I did not know him- -he frightened
me, and I wondered if he had been doing something
very wicked, from Mr. Locker's tone.
As we went slowly down the stairs, step by step,
I looking about me, a curious thing happened : a door
was thrown open and I saw right into a room ;
it had a long table in it, and round the table was
grouped a number of men, shouting and drubbing
with their hands upon the table, while on the table
in a chair sat a man in evening dress, flourishing a
pewter pot and singing. I took it all in at a glance,
for the door was clapped to instantly, but not before
I said aloud :
" Oh, look, papa ! there's the actual scene in the
Three Jolly Pigeons, and Tony Lumpkin is ."
" Hush ! ' cried my father. " Look ! there's
mamma waiting for us."
I looked down and saw my mother smiling up at us.
Afterwards I heard my father say :
" There was a regular orgie going on in one of
the rooms. Laura said it was like the tavern scene
in She Stoops to Conquer \ and Tony Lumpkin
was ," and he mentioned the name I had been
about to mention, which belonged to the editor of a
religious magazine, and a dignitary of the Church.
Lord Tennyson 173
About eighteen months after this I met the Poet
Laureate.
It was, I remember, a beautiful summer morning,
and my father and I were going a little way out
of town. We were walking down the centre plat-
form at Charing Cross Station. I was dressed in a
pink cotton frock, with one flounce, just down to
my ankles ; a white muslin fichu with two frills came
over my shoulders, was crossed in front, went under
my arms, and was tied in a big bow and ends. A
large Leghorn hat finished the costume. The cotton
dress and the hat were ordinary, but I think the fichu,
which was called a " Marie Antoinette," was an old
fashion and a fancy of my mother's. People did
not dress so picturesquely then as now, and as I
did my hair up over a cushion and it fell in
curls all over my shoulders, I no doubt looked
remarkable.
A train drew up, and out of it stepped a gentleman.
My father said something which I did not catch, and
going up to him stopped and shook hands. The
gentleman would have been tall, but his shoulders
seemed somewhat bent ; his hair was long, so was
his beard ; he wore an ugly Inverness cape and a
large slouch hat ; he looked like a bandit in a melo-
drama, and I thought him some poor actor who had
come out in some of the stage properties. As he
talked to my father I was conscious of his looking
very often at me ; at last he said :
174 In the Sixties and Seventies
u So this is your daughter — you must be proud
of such a daughter."
My father smiled, and replied : " I could wish her
to be stronger."
" Is she delicate?' exclaimed Tennyson. "Why,
when I saw you coming she reminded me of the
Goddess of the Morn — she quite brightens up this
dull and dreary place," and he looked with disgust
round the station, which I have always liked. " She
looks the incarnation of youth and health," he added.
My father smiled. " I am glad you think so," he
said.
Tennyson took my hand and clasped it very warmly
as he shook it. "I am sure you are proud of your
father."
" Oh, 1 am," I replied very quickly and emphatically.
He smiled, and turning to my father, said, as he
shook hands, "I envy you your daughter," then he
sighed, and left us.
He seemed so sad, I felt quite sorry for him, as
I watched him walk slowly up the platform he said
I had so brightened. My father and I stepped into
the train ; and as we seated ourselves, he asked :
" Well, what do you think of your hero who
wrote In Memoriam and The Idylls of the King ? '
u Was that Tennyson ? ' I exclaimed, jumping
up and looking out of the carriage window, whence
I caught a glimpse of the back of the old gentleman
in the slouch hat and the hideous Inverness cape.
44 Was he really Tennyson ? '
Then I drew in my head, and, resuming my seat,
said in a voice of concern, " Was he really
Tennyson ? '
" Certainly/' replied my father ; "I said so as I
went up to speak to him. He is a handsome man
and a celebrated. People say he is not very genial,
but I have always found him so, and he was very
complimentary and charming to you. You ought
to be proud to think he shook hands with you, but
you are disappointed."
" I am proud," I said, " but — of course it's my
fault — but I did not think a great poet would talk
like that to a girl like me."
u Why, he paid you a great compliment," said my
father, " and better still, he meant it ; he is not a
man to pay compliments."
" It wasn't only what he said, it was his dress,"
I began ; and then I somehow told him the dreadful
fact that I had taken the poet for a third-rate actor.
I was very much shocked myself, and should not
have been surprised if my father had given me a
good scolding ; but he only smiled, and said, half
sadly :
" It is a pity, perhaps, that men of genius cannot
dress more like ordinary mortals."
CHAPTER XV
JAMES HAIN FRISWELL'S PHILANTHROPY — THE CENSOR DINNERS-
SLUMMING IN THOSE DAYS — A SAD STORY—" HAVE WE BEAT ? "
I OFTEN thought our house was a kind of refuge
for the unhappy and distressed, for my father
would, on any and every occasion, ask to the house
people of any age and class whom he thought un-
happy or in distress. For instance, one night, as he
was coming out of a public meeting and returning
home, he found sitting on a doorstep in a quiet street
a boy of about fourteen, quite wet through and crying
bitterly.
Regardless of the pouring rain, and his propensity
for catching cold, my father stopped and questioned
him and learnt that he was a page boy, who, having
displeased his mistress, had run away and now knew
not where to go. My father immediately told him
to come along with him, and he took him home,
where my mother had his clothes dried and gave
him some supper. That done, they did not know
what to do next, for my father, recalling the vagaries
of the " vulgar little boy ' in The Ingoldsby Legends,
was afraid to send him to bed in the spare room,
176
Haiti Friswell's Philanthropy 177
as my mother suggested, so, the night having cleared,
he took him round to Mr. Williams at the Refuge
in Great Queen Street. Next day he wrote to the
boy's mistress and his mother : the lady kindly
overlooked the boy's conduct and said she would
take him back ; the poor mother was so grateful she
came up to thank my father. This was only one of
the instances of his kindness to the poor, and his
was the hand that started the Christmas Dinners to
poor children.
It was in the winter of '67 that the first dinner
was given. They were called <e the Censor Dinners,"
for my father at that time was writing an article in
The Evening Star — which perhaps I need hardly say
was the evening edition of The Morning Star, a daily
paper edited by Mr. Justin McCarthy. The feuilleton
my father wrote in The Evening Star was called "The
Censor," and in it he wrote an appeal, asking, as
he said, " the whole alphabet to subscribe to this
fund for doing a palpable good ; for if all those
whose hearts are touched by the hungry faces and
pleading looks of the truly poor will only help
the Censor, and add to the subscription already
made, there will not be a merrier or larger party
on that blessed day than that which he will gather
round him."
This appeal was most promptly and generously
answered, the King, then Prince of Wales, being
one of the fi^st to send a large donation ; and Mr
12
178 In the Sixties and Seventies
Samuel Plimsoll, M.P., sent fifty pounds, and there
were numbers of guineas, crowns, florins, and even
three-penny-bits and pence, from all classes. Thus
the Censor Dinners proved a great success, and were
the origin of the Robin Dinners, and all the other
Dinners — and they go by various names — that are
given to poor children at Christmas time to this
day, though, shame be it said, not a word is ever
spoken in memory or praise of their founder.
I remember the first dinner well, for I went about
with my father and distributed many tickets, and
it was then that I first became acquainted with Mr.
Justin McCarthy and his family, also Mr. Yates and
Mr. Clement Scott. Mr. Ashby Sterry was an old
friend,, and he and Mr. McCarthy, Edmund Yates,
Clement Scott, and my father undertook to receive
and distribute the money.
In many quarters of London large numbers of the
destitute were fed out of the fund, and then there
remained a balance in hand. On Christmas Day four
hundred children sat down to a dinner of roast beef
and plum pudding served under the Gospel Arch,
a mission hall in North London ; three hundred
men, women, and children had both dinner and
tea in a building in Golden Lane, a thoroughfare
in whose name there is a certain amount of humour
of the grim and ferocious kind, seeing that even
copper is an object of great curiosity to the dwellers
therein ; large quantities of bread, meat, potatoes,
"The Censor" i?9
and other substantial " compliments of the season '
were sent to two hundred and fifty families in starving
Millwall ; and two hundred and eight little ones dined
together at the Lambeth Baths.
" The Censor ' made liberal grants to clergymen
and gentlemen officiating for the relief of distress —
to the Rev. C. J. Whitmore for Millwall ; to Mr.
Ewart for Gospel Arch ; to Mr. Orsman for Golden
Lane ; to the Rev. G. M. Murphy for the New
Cut ; to the Rev. Alfred White, a Roman Catholic
priest, for Paddington ; and to several others.
These gentlemen increased the grant by contributions
raised in their own parishes. But the largest of the
Censor Dinners took place at the Refuge, then in
Great Queen Street, High Holborn (now in Shaftes-
bury Avenue), where five hundred and twenty children
of both sexes were regaled on the national dish.
To bring this about " the Censor ' placed himself
in communication with the Rev. G. W. M'Cree,
known as " the bishop of St. Giles's/' and so well
known that his name needs no more than mention
here : he fought the good fight against poverty,
hunger, disease, and vice in one of the foulest spots
in London, viz. Seven Dials.
The Refuge is a kind of poor boys' casual ward,
and was called into existence by Mr. James Green-
wood's famous account of a night in a casual ward.
It houses a great number of boys and teaches them
trades. It has branches in the country for them to
i8o In the Sixties and Seventies
learn agriculture, and it has the ships Arethusa and
Chichester as training ships for those who wish to
be sailors.
The building in Great Queen Street was spacious ;
it had large workshops, dormitories and schoolrooms,
and in the last named the dinner took place. Here
is an account, written at the time, which describes
the scene better than I can, though I remember
helping.
" Many ladies and gentlemen, subscribers to the
Censor fund, came down at one to see the children
eat their dinner. They found them seated at long
tables, running the entire breadth of the hall, their
eyes fixed devoutly on a large counter, on which
smoked already two or three fine joints of beef, and
in perfect readiness to begin. Before they begin,
however, a word as to their appearance. We hope
it will not be expected of us to say that they had
all pretty blue eyes, and clean faces, and curly flaxen
hair, and that they only wanted a suit of knicker-
bockers apiece to make them little cherubs — because
such was not the case. Nor, on the other hand,
were they all gaunt and ragged and black. Not a
few were tolerably healthy-looking children in white
pinafores, and with clean chubby hands and round
cheeks ; for the poorest people naturally take care
that the bairns shall be stinted last. Still there
were among them examples enough of the worst
school of the picturesque — of little hands that had
The Censor Dinners 181
long lost the dimples of childhood, of little faces
from which the red, and even the white, had fled,
wherein the look of premature knowingness, anxiety,
weariness — as if life had already been tried and found
wanting — would have been droll if it had not been
horrible. This chiefly among the girls. Among the
boys there were not wanting examples of picturesque
poverty- -in fierce frowning faces, shaded by matted
hair ; in hands that in action played the devil's
tattoo as a voluntary with the knife and fork, and
in repose spontaneously coiled themselves up into
fists.
" When the children had looked at the beef a
little while they were told to prepare for grace,
which was said by the Rev. William Brock. Nothing
now intervened between them and their dinner but
the processes of carving and distribution. These were
not such simple matters as they may appear to the
proprietors of small families, for upwards of five
hundred children had to be served, and served
several times. Professional waiters could not be
thought of, for they would have wanted paying.
There .were not half enough attendants attached to
the place, so the ladies and gentlemen present
volunteered for the service.
"And then bachelors, being ordered to take their
places behind the joints, were obliged to confess that
they had never carved anything larger than a rasher
of bacon in their lives, and were made to fetch and
1 82 In the Sixties and Seventies
carry and give place to better men. In a little time
hundreds of pewter platters, well filled with beef
and potatoes, were placed before the guests, and Mr.
Williams, the secretary, gave the word ' Begin ! '
and then — oh, the clatter that ensued ! It was not
five hundred feeding like one ; no, that phrase may
do for the decorous feasts of the Church and the
Law, of fat prebendaries and well-fed Q.C.'s who
have already breakfasted, and lunched, and enjoyed
half a dozen interludes of biscuits and sherry through-
out the day ; it was five hundred feeding like five
hundred, each for himself, and no pudding for the
hindmost. Knives and forks rose and fell in zigzag,
' all together one after another/ like the oars of
a Cockney eight. Some of the boys soon abandoned
them and took to the weapons of nature ; the girls,
with that instinct of propriety that never deserts their
sex, clung to the encumbrances of art, only trying
now and then if they could get more service out of
their knives by grappling them near the interdicted
point. They were exceedingly well behaved, were
the little girls. Woman in miniature is still woman.
The harshest thing heard amongst them was a request
from Sally to Jane that she would not * scrooge '
her so ; whereas the boys, when the eye of the
vigilant secretary was off them, now and then had
furtive fights, which, however, they enjoyed without
any interference with the business of the hour, by
progging one another with their knees beneath the
The Censor Dinners 183
table, while they still kept Itheir hands employed in
the work of destruction.
"But the funniest sight was not to be found
amongst the children. After all, those who waited
on them were best worth looking at. Critics cut up
the beef, clergymen handed it round ; essayists ladled
out the potatoes, fox hunters served the bread, the
Universities * assisted to gravy/ and the Civil Service
took the empties away. The ladies, as may be
expected, were everywhere quietly helpful, and made
every little service appear doubly precious by their
grace in doing it — only, it must be confessed, they
connived at the rogueries of ingenious boys who,
having secreted the contents of their platters in their
pockets, meekly asked when they were going to be
served.
"A mere buzz and clatter had almost become the
normal state of things, when suddenly there was
heard a mighty roar. Pudding was on the table ;
four or five of these thirteen-inch Christmas pro-
jectiles were now lying where the bones of the beef
had lain but a moment before. How, in the twink-
ling of an eye, these puddings fell to pieces and
disappeared can hardly be imagined. The trans-
formations of a pantomime were nothing to it : how
little boys, who had hitherto born an unblemished
reputation, were caught trying to look hungry long
after they had made large slices of those puddings
part of themselves ; how even little girls for a
184 In the Sixties and Seventies
moment lost their sense of the becoming, and clutched
at the speckled treat — it would not be gracious to
tell.
" Enough to say that new proof was afforded of
the great truth that we of English stock, whatever
our differences of creed, caste, temper, character, and
opinion, all unite in a universal respect and affection-
nay, even reverence and love — for Christmas Plum
Pudding.
" When dinner was over a short grace was sung,
the Rev. G. W. M'Cree leading, and then three
cheers were given for cThe Censor/ who was introduced
to the boys and made them a short speech. Mr.
Plimsoll followed him, and the secretary spoke the
parting word — the word evidently of a man who knew
exactly how to manage children, and above all these
children ; they cheered him to the very echo, as indeed
we fear they would have cheered a much less deserving
man, so thoroughly well pleased did they seem with
themselves and everything about them. After that
they defiled out of the rooms in the best order, each
receiving an orange at the head of the stairs. It was
a cheering and yet a sad procession, for the clean,
bright, golden fruit contrasted painfully with the
dirty, rust-hued covering of most of the bosoms
against which it was pressed. None of the bosoms
in question, however, seemed to be oppressed for a
moment with the feelings of such contrast ; on the
contrary, they were full of a joy that found expression
Slumming in those Days 185
in songs, sung to the tune of ' We won't go Home
till Morning/ in honour of their benefactors."
Mr. McCarthy said, in a charming sketch he sent
me of my father, and which I published in the Memoir,
" the association which I cherished most in regard
to him is that of his kindness to the little children,
who had nothing to offer him in return but their
unskilled, spontaneous thanks."
Slumming was not a fashionable pastime then.
Duchesses and other fine ladies did not go to the East
End and show themselves in their most fashionable
dresses, nor were there bazaars and other charitable
functions, where the expenses are so great, the Public
is given to understand, that the Hospital, Church, or
Home receives the minimum of the money taken.
In those days charity had not become a profession,
nor an excuse for fashionable people to try a little
shop-keeping, while they show off themselves, their
dresses, and entertain their friends.
The free-and-easy way these things are done now
would have shocked even the most Bohemian members
of the Bohemia of that time, and my father and his
friends, who objected to the Bohemia of those days,
would have been aghast at the fastness of these. Nor
was it thought in good taste to blazon one's good
works abroad, and pander to the vanity of one class
and the snobbishness of another. Certainly the cause,
whatever it was, had to be made public ; but there
was no show, no amusement provided, as there is at
1 86 In the Sixties and Seventies
a bazaar ; a letter was written to a paper and people
sent in their money.
It was so in the case of Alfred Gunn, a poor man
who was struck down on Holborn Hill. It was in
the winter of 1861, when garrotting was so prevalent.
Mr. Gunn was a scale maker, a business which requires
great delicacy and accuracy. One night he was re-
turning home from his work, and as he walked rapidly
up Holborn Hill a man and woman just on the rise
of the hill made at him ; he, seeing their intention,
rapidly dodged them, and tried to seize the woman.
In this he would have succeeded, but the man struck
at him suddenly with a sharp pen-knife, and the blade
entered his left eye. He never forgot the long thin
fingers and the sharp blade, but bore the dreadful
recollection to his grave.
A policeman found him and took him to St.
Bartholomew's Hospital. There he remained six weeks ;
and after being sent out for a few days to recruit his
strength, an operation was performed, and the eye
taken out by Mr. Paget ; but the other eye went from
sympathy, and he became totally blind, which a painful
operation at Charing Cross failed to cure. When my
father heard of the case and went to see Alfred Gunn,
he found him and his young wife and infant child in a
miserable garret ; and my father, in speaking of him,
said : "A pitiable sight he was, pale, sickly, and in
rags, without a coat, as he sat glaring at me with
one sightless eye."
From Prince to Dustmen 187
His wife, an industrious needlewoman, had just kept
a roof over their heads, but they were almost starving
when Mr. I , a friend of my father's, found them.
In this case an appeal was made to the public in The
Morning Star ; the King, then Prince of Wales, again
sent the first donation. I was quite a child at the time,
but I well remember General Knollys's letter coming,
and my father's delight. The letter says (I have it
by me still) : "I am commanded by the Prince to
send for the use of Alfred Gunn, whose sad case
was this morning brought under the notice of his
Royal Highness."
" God bless the Prince of Wales," said my father
as he read the letter.
From the Prince to dustmen, who collected their
beer money and sent it by a deputation — I remember
the deputation coming, also some coalheavers, who
wore their curious leather hats, which had large flaps
resting on the backs of their necks and coming down
to their shoulders, — from Members of Parliament,
who sent their guineas, to workgirls who saved their
pence,- -upwards of ^280 was collected.
The money was invested in a shop at Berkhampstead,
and the Gunns began a new career which for some
time was successful. Mrs. Gunn did her best, but
she was not a businesslike woman, and to manage a
house, a small servant — and servants of any and every
size take some managing — a business and a lodger, is
not an easy task ; then, too, her poor husband's health
In the Sixties and Seventies
gave way and he fell into consumption, and was finally,
by my father's instrumentality, admitted to the Con-
sumption Hospital at Hampstead. The business was
sold and his wife and children went to live near him.
In fact, Mrs. Gunn went into the Hospital as a nurse,
and was with him till he died. It is a miserable story,
for they were both young and fairly prosperous people
when the assault occurred.
My father still took an interest in the parish where
he had spent the first years of his married life, and
knowing this the different vicars of St. Philip's,
Granville Square, were not backward in asking his
help. It was in this way that the following story
concerning a certain Mrs. Pugh, who, at the age of
eighty, was living in poverty, hunger, and dirt, in a
second floor back in Easton Street, Exmouth Street,
came to his ears. My father did for her what he had
done for Alfred Gunn — he appealed to the public, and
thus her last days were not spent in the workhouse, ot
which she had a great dread.
Here is her story ; I make no apology for adding it,
as I think she was a heroine, and deserving of a better
fate than to pass her last years in such squalor.
Mrs. Pugh was a pretty little quaint old lady, the
cousin of Dr. Arnold of Lincoln's Inn. From the
time of the Conquest, she told us, " the Crown has
never wanted an arm of the Arnolds to fight for her."
Her great-grandfather served under Marlborough ;
her father under Nelson, and was captain of the
A Sad Story 189
main-top to Lord Collingwood, when, after the death of
Nelson, he cruised the seas to protect our merchants.
On board Collingwood's ship sailed Arnold and his little
daughter, who was companion to Lady Collingwood.
One day the frigate gave chase to a French ship,
armed to the teeth, crowded with men, that stole out
of Brest Harbour. At the roar of the cannon the
little maid ran as hard as she could to hide away, but
the surgeon caught her at the bottom of the " com-
panion ' ' (Surgeon Cole), ready for action too, and said :
" You'll do, my little maid ; sit here and pick tow
for the men's wounds."
So the little girl, trembling with fright, sat under
the ladder, with busy fingers picking what we call charpi ;
and, while the battle roared above her, and the men
cheered and fell, and the " companion ' grew slippery
with blood, every now and then the poor child peered
forth to see if they were bringing down her father ;
but one of the boys, who was picking tow at her side,
covered her eyes with his hand once and said :
"Don't look, Fanny, don't look at that" and then,
she supposed, some more ghastly object went by.
The little maid's father was not carried down, and
presently the firing ceased, and there was a great cheer,
and the first man who stepped down into the cockpit
to see his wounded men was the great and good Lord
Collingwood himself.
" Well ! ' said he to Surgeon Cole, with a great
sigh of relief, "thank God that's over!
19° In the Sixties and Seventies
"What!1 cried the little maid, jumping up.
" Have we beat ? '
" I do not know about wey my little girl," said the
great seaman, " but the French have given in."
" And I do know about we" said Surgeon Cole,
red-handed now, alas ! " for she stuck to her place and
picked tow and did her share like the rest of us."
True to her lineage, Fanny Arnold (married to a
Pugh) sent her sons to fight for her Queen, and the
last, then in the 6oth Regiment, died at Devonport
some years before Mrs. Pugh's circumstances were
made known.
I well remember going with my father to see the
gentle, little old woman — pretty still, though living in
poverty, hunger, and dirt. She was in receipt of parish
relief, and had only is. 3^. a week to live on ! The
house was very dirty and dilapidated, the stairs worn
into holes, the plaster dropping from the walls and
ceiling. But Mrs. Pugh's room was scrupulously
clean, though very tiny ; the fender was in two pieces,
the hearthrug in holes, there was no carpet, and
the window principally consisted of brown paper.
Mrs. Pugh was out, so my father suggested we should
buy her a few things and make her room look more
comfortable. We found our way downstairs again
and purchased a fender and a large warm rug at a
shop close by, also a thick coloured blanket for her
bed ; and, accompanied by the shopman, we returned
to the house, and, dismissing him at the door, we
"A New Eye"
carried up our purchases. Mrs. Pugh was still out,
so we put down the new rug and fender and covered
the patchwork quilt with the gay blanket. We then
went down again to look for a glazier and to order
some coal. When we returned our heroine was in
her room. She had rolled up the rug and stuffed
it under the bed with the new fender, and she had
the old fender and rug back in their places, and the
blanket she had hung up like a shawl behind the
door. My father said nothing, but I could see he
was desperately disappointed. He told her her
window should be mended and cleaned, but she
seemed anything but grateful ; all she wanted, she
said, was " a new eye ' in her spectacles, as she could
not read her only book, the Bible. Her husband's
and sons' photographs hung round the mantelshelf
with some funeral cards. They were very faded and
poor likenesses, but these were her treasures, and she
quite brightened up when she talked of those long
past days when she was young, and she was very
proud that " the Crown and the country had never
wanted an arm of the Arnolds to fight for them."
Our visit to her was paid before the letter appeared
in the papers. I do not know how long she lived,
but I think about eighteen months or two years
after the letter appeared ; and money enough was
found to keep her in comparative comfort while living,
and to bury her when she died.
CHAPTER XVI
MR. AND MRS. JUSTIN MCCARTHY — WILLIAM BARRY— MISS HERAUD-
HENRIE DRAYTON — " THE GINGERBREAD MAIDEN " -LETTERS FROM
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN.
MR. McCARTHY was one of the many charm-
ing Irishmen we knew. He is of middle
height, and had in those days auburn hair, which he
wore rather long. I never saw him without spectacles,
through which he used to beam kindly on all. I
can well remember him at the Censor Dinner carrying
round bread, or plates of meat and vegetables, or
helping me to ladle out potatoes and gravy, and I
can again see him standing looking down the long
tables, a great look of pleasure, gratification, and
kindness on his face. I always felt confidence in
Mr. McCarthy ; he neither treated me as if I were a
small child, nor paid me compliments, but his kind and
pleasant manner set me at my ease, and he was one
of the men of letters I was always delighted to see ;
so much so that my father used to chaff me and say :
" I am sure your favourite is a Fenian ; some day
we shall hear of his being put in orison, then what
will you do ? '
192
Mr. Justin McCarthy 193
1 was rather scared at this, and 1 used to look at
Mr. McCarthy and wonder of what he was thinking,
and as he was usually very silent I wondered if he
were hatching plots to blow up the Government, or
one of the prisons, but I always decided that he looked
a great deal too kind, and that he must be thinking
of the plots of his novels — he could not otherwise
look so good and happy.
But if I was charmed with Mr. McCarthy, I was
equally so with his wife and children. Mrs. McCarthy
was very handsome, and my idea of Marie Antoinette
She had the same clear-cut features, a most delicate
skin, and beautiful grey hair — in fact, she was the
image of De La Roche's Marie Antoinette. Her
manners were charming and her Irish-English so very
pretty. Then there were the two young people,
both delightful. I can vividly recall a dramatic per-
formance we had in our drawing-room, in which
Miss McCarthy, though quite a child, played Mrs.
Bouncer in Box and Cox in a wonderful manner — she
had quite caught the spirit of the farce. Justin
Huntly McCarthy and my brother Harry were re-
spectively " Box ' and " Cox."
My father often used to take one or two ot us
down to the theatre and put us into a seat ; he would
stay sometimes himself, but he more often left, and
came back and fetched us. My governess and
I frequently went to the play in this way. I saw
Bellmore in Dion Boucicault's play The Flying Scud.
'3
194 In the Sixties and Seventies
It was acted at the Holborn, which is now a music
hall, but was then a well-known and fashionable
theatre. The Flying Scud had a strong caste ; Bellmore
was the old jockey " Nat Gosling," Miss Bessie Foote
"Kate Hideout," and Lord Woodbie "Fanny Josephs."
We enjoyed the piece immensely. At the close of
the performance my father came in to fetch us, and
introduced me to two young Irishmen who had been
sitting near us in the dress circle ; they were William
Barry and his brother Michael. They were both
young — the latter quite a youth, just over from Ire-
land for a holiday and to visit his brother.
" I'm showing Michael about the town," said
William Barry. " I thought you were your father's
daughter — he looked like ' the relieving officer.'
I was not prepossessed by this address. I had
heard both young men and young women call their
father " the governor," but I did not know that in
the slang of the time a father was dubbed " the
relieving officer." I disliked slang, and I strongly
objected to my father being spoken of in such terms.
Mr. Barry saw that I was annoyed, and he quite
made amends by saying that " it was a silly expression
and he was sorry he had used it."
William Barry was at that time editor of The
London Review, which was then the property of Mr.
McCullagh Torrens, M.P., another friend of my
father's, and one who not only gave liberally, but
came and assisted at the Censor Dinners.
William Barry 195
In those days there used to be a regular coterie
of journalists and men of letters who met at an
informal dinner at the Whitefriars Club, which was
held in Radley's Hotel, an old-fashioned place which
has been improved out of existence.
Most of the staff of The Evening and Morning
Star, which, as I have said in a former chapter, was
edited by Mr. Justin McCarthy, met at the White-
friars. There was the well-known journalist Mr.
E. D. J. Wilson, now of The Times, Mr. Charles
Cooper, afterwards so well known on The Scotsman,
Sir Edward Russell, now editor of The Liverpool Post,
who has not only distinguished himself as a journalist
and editor, but as an author and a debater in the
House of Commons. There was Mr. Edmund Yates,
who wrote a social article in The Morning Star, and
there was my father, who wrote for The Evening Star,
and signed himself " The Censor." Neither " The
Flaneur ' (Edmund Yates) nor " The Censor '
(J. Hain Friswell) agreed with the Radical politics
of The Star, but, to quote Mr. McCarthy, " each
writer had his distinct province of literature and art,
theatricals and town talk."
Mr. Barry's particular bent was, I fancy, natural
history and sport. I know he wrote articles on
these subjects for The Daily News, and he is the
author of Holiday Rambles, Moorland and Stream,
Sporting Sketches^ etc. He was a most genial, brilliant
little man, but very delicate-looking. He often came
196 In the Sixties and Seventies
to our house and we all grew to like him, for he
was very simple and natural, having the sympathy
and wit which generally characterise the Celtic tem-
perament, and he was very kind-hearted. I remember
one notable evening when he had coaxed me out of
my corner, and when I was asked to play he reassured
me by telling me the old story of the clergyman
who was very nervous, and who used to learn his
sermon by heart and declaim it in the kitchen garden
to the cabbages.
" He learnt it perfectly," said Mr. Barry, " but
confessed to a friend that he expected it would fizzle
out of his head when he mounted the pulpit. * Non-
sense/ said his friend, c think that you are still in
the garden and that you have a congregation of
cabbages/
The story was only just finished when my governess,
who played beautifully, came towards me and told me
I must play.
" Oh I can't, I can't," I said, drawing back.
" Yes, I am sure you can," said Mr. Barry ; and as
I knew I must, I rose from the seat to which he had
beguiled me, and went up, with fear and trembling,
to play a Lieder of Mendelssohn's. Mr. Barry came
with me, and as I began falteringly he whispered :
" Cabbages — we are all cabbages."
I was so nervous that I could scarcely see, but I
determined not to disgrace myself before this kind
little man, so I set my teeth and played, quite
44
All Cabbages" 19?
forgetting my audience, and everything but my beloved
Mendelssohn.
I came back to earth rather suddenly, for a voice
said, <c Well done ! ' and looking up I saw Mr. Edward
Clarke standing near with my governess, who was
about to play his accompaniment for him, for he sang
sentimental songs very well indeed, having a pleasant,
though not powerful, voice. Mr. Barry escorted me
back to our seat on the sofa.
" Now don't deny it," he whispered ; " I know you
thought we were all cabbages."
<c I forgot everything but the music."
" That's right, that's the way ; now you must never
be nervous again," returned the little man, beaming
at me.
I looked round the room, then I laughed.
" They are very celebrated cabbages," I said, " and
I think it is great impudence of us to call them so."
A very serious look came into the young Irishman's
eyes as he glanced at the company.
c< Fame," he said, u fame is worth nothing — what
does your favourite Tennyson say ? ' 'Tis only noble
to be good.' That's the crucial test ; soon we shall
all be dust and ashes."
I knew not what to say, and so looked round the
room and listened to the ceaseless buzz of conversation.
Parties always more or less saddened me, so I was
not so much astonished at Mr. Barry ; but his serious
mood soon passed off, and he drew me out on my
u
u
In the Sixties and Seventies
favourite subjects — poetry and politics. I am sure he
was very much amused at my opinions, especially when
I confided to him my ambition to have a Salon, like
Madame de Stael, where I could gather all the learned
women and men around me. He never laughed, but
quite gravely, though not too gravely, asked me
whether I had decided where the Salon was to be.
" I have thought of Park Lane," I replied.
It's rather expensive," he said quietly.
Yes, I have thought of that. 1 want to be a
singer, but my father won't even let me join Leslie's
Choir, though I've been asked. My singing master
teaches a number of the professionals at the Italian
Church, and says I have a fine voice ; he wants to
train me for the Opera, but / want to be a ballad
singer. My father says he won't let me go c singing
about on platforms ' ; he doesn't approve of women
earning their living like that, I know."
This was my grievance, and I poured it out to
this kind friend ; but I was grievously disappointed
in his answer, which did not come at once, for the
buzz of conversation had stopped, and the beautiful
tenor voice of Mr. Fielding (then tenor of St. Paul's)
rang out with :
Come, come live in my heart, live in my heart and pay no
rint,
Come, come live in my heart, live in my heart, Mavourneen.
We listened breathlessly to the end, and then under
cover of the clapping Mr. Barry whispered :
"The Happiest Life" 199
" That's the happiest life for a woman — to live in
some good man's heart."
a And pay no rint," I interpolated.
" Yes," he said ; " yes, the happiest life is a private
station."
I was not quite clear what this meant.
" Don't you intend to marry ? ' he asked.
" Oh yes, I suppose so," I replied indifferently.
u Most people do."
Then he laughed. " What a melancholy tone ! ' he
said.
Whilst we had talked the room had partially been
cleared of furniture, and Miss Heraud gave us the
sleep-walking scene in Macbeth, and it was so realistic
that I clenched my hands to keep from crying out. The
silence was perfect ; after it was over every one
seemed to give a gasp of relief — it was so intensely
painful.
Henrie Drayton, a very well known singer with a
terrific voice, sang " Drinking." Mr. Drayton was
a fine, big man and had a very powerful bass voice,
which would have penetrated through all the walls of
a whole street of modern houses. He made quite a
picture as he stood waving a silver cup and singing
the refrain :
Drinking — Drink — ing — Dri — ink — ing !
That same evening Mr. Fielding sang " Maid of
Athens," so beautifully that I am sure no one could
200 In the Sixties and Seventies
forget it. At the close of the evening, as a compliment
to our Irish guests, " Come Back to Erin," " The
Shan- Van- Vach," and "The Wearin' o' the Green " were
sung, and every one joined in chorus. As the en-
thusiasm grew the noise was great, so much so that
my mother laughingly said she would have to shut
the windows, for she was " sure the police would
come in and take us up for holding a Fenian
meeting."
Mr. Barry, having induced me to come out of my
corner and play, did not forget his good offices, for
he sent me almost every week for two or three seasons
tickets for recitals and concerts, to which my governess
used to take me. Amongst others, I heard Arabella
Goddard, Madame Schumann, and Madeline Schiller.
William Barry was always there to meet us and always
sat at my side. He often asked me why I did not
try to write stories, telling me he was sure I could,
and saying it was better than being a public singer,
but to that I would not agree.
" Some day you will bring out a book and I will
review it," he said, but I used to shake my head.
However, Mr. Barry's words came true : about
this time Miss W , my governess, took to writing
fairy tales and sending them to The Quiver. One
day, when she was scolding me for my composition
on some Dryasdust subject, I said in a fit of bravado
that I was sure I could write a story. Having made
this statement, she kept me to it, and I wrote one,
A Dedication 201
which she said was so good she would send it to
The Quiver. It was sent anonymously, and to my
delight and amazement appeared. But my pleasure
was very much diminished when I found my father
was quite cross about it and told me severely " that
he did not want a daughter like Caddy Jellyby,* with
fingers inked to the bone." At this 1 was inconsolable ;
I was but fifteen at the time.
In about a week I received a substantial cheque for
my story, and encouraged by my governess I wrote
many others, which were a year or two afterwards
collected and brought out as a book called The
Gingerbread Maiden. This I
Befcicatefc
WITH SINCERE ADMIRATION
TO
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
THE PRINCE OF CHILD STORY TELLERS
WHO BY HIS GENIUS
HAS GIVEN SO MUCH PLEASURE TO BOYS AND GIRLS
AND TAUGHT SO MUCH WISDOM TO
MEN AND WOMEN.
A copy was sent to Hans Andersen ; Mr. Frost,
a friend of my father's, kindly promising to deliver it.
A few weeks afterwards I received from Mr. Frost
a letter he had had from Andersen, and which he
had been good enough to translate for me. It
ran :
'" Caddy Jellyby, a character in Dickens's novel Bleak House.
202 In the Sixties and Seventies
" KDLIGHED. (Quietness.)
" August 2oth, 1874.
" DEAR MR. FROST,
" I received your kind letter at my little country
retreat, where I expect to stay some time longer. As
soon as I return to town I shall go to my old chambers
in Nyhain, where I shall hope to see you, to thank
you for your kindness, and to receive the little book
which you tell me a young English authoress has
given you in London for me.
" My health is rather better, but I suffer very much
from rheumatism, which I am sorry to say seems
on the increase.
" One of these days I shall get Nier & Fyern *
to read your interesting descriptions.
" Yours sincerely,
" H. C. ANDERSEN."
" The prince of child story tellers ' had always been
a hero of mine, so one may be sure that I was highly
pleased with this letter ; but it was nothing to niy
delight of a few weeks afterwards when I received,
from Hans Andersen himself, the following letter
written in English, and enclosing a large cabinet portrait
of him. It is well known that he was very fond of
flowers, and both the portrait and the letter are
characteristic of him ; in the former he is seated with
a large bunch of flowers in his hand, and on the latter
* Near and Far, a weekly paper something like The Saturday
Review^ to which Mr. Frost was a contributor.
Hans Christian Andersen 203
he had stuck a large coloured bunch of flowers like
those one sees upon crackers. The letter ran as
follows :
" MUCH HONOURED Miss FRISWELL,
" After having removed to town I received,
through Mr. Frost, your cordial letter and beautiful
book The Gingerbread Maiden and Other Stories. Your
sympathy towards me and your flattering dedication
make me poor in words to express my thanks.
" I am, with gratitude,
" Yours respectfully,
" HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN."
In a letter which Mr. Frost some time afterwards
wrote to my father, he said that Hans Andersen spoke
most flatteringly of my stories, and especially liked the
first, and begged for my photograph to be sent to him.
When my book came out we were living in Kent,
where we had gone on account of my father's health.
We had been obliged to give up our literary evenings,
and unless we were staying in town we seldom went to
any, for Bexley Heath was somewhat out of the world.
But in spite of this I one day received a number of
Public Opinion^ in which there was a very good little
notice of The Gingerbread Maiden ; it was sent to me
by Mr. Barry, who I did not know had seen my book,
and who was very ill, for the bright young Irishman's
life was drawing to a close — he was a victim of that
dreadful disease consumption.
CHAPTER XVII
AN "AT HOME'' AT THE MCCARTHYS' — WILLIAM BLACK — MR. RICE ON
"WOMEN'S HEROES" -WILLIAM BLACK'S KINDNESS — RICHARD
WHITEING.
IN the summer of 1870 we used to go very often
to Mr. and Mrs. Justin McCarthy's, who, having
returned from a visit to the United States, had taken
rooms close by in Bedford Place, Russell Square, and
had resumed their pleasant, informal Saturday evenings.
These At Homes were very like our own, but in
those days every one was talking of the Franco-
German War, and Ireland and its troubles, and its
songs, seemed to be for the time forgotten. Sympathy
ran high on the German side, and we were all taken
up with German literature and the German character.
Indeed, I believe that scarcely any one in all that
little assembly sympathised with the French, though
many pitied Napoleon, chiefly because he was so ill.
I am sure all rejoiced at the way the war terminated,
and would have endorsed Canon Kingsley's opinion,
who in writing of the termination of the war said,
" It is the triumph of Christianity and the Gentle
Life."
Sympathising so thoroughly with the German cause,
204
The McCarthys' At Home 205
Mr. McCarthy naturally had many German friends,
and it was at his house I met Mathilde Blind, Mr.
and Mrs. Kroeker, and others. Mrs. Kroeker was
a daughter of the poet Ferdinand Freiligrath, whose
works had many English admirers, Mr. McCarthy
and William Black, the novelist, being amongst the
foremost. Mr. Kroeker could sing a good German
song. One in particular I remember called " Prinz
Eugen," and we all joined in the " Wacht am Rhein,"
which was sung whenever there was news of the
French being defeated. I did not feel so thoroughly
German as some, perhaps because war seemed to me
too dreadful to be a source of rejoicing. I could
not forget the horrors of it. Songs of triumph seemed
almost cruel, though I was by no means on the side
of the French, who I believed brought most of their
sufferings on themselves.
It was at one of these At Homes that I met William
Black, I may say for the first and only time ; for
though I knew Miss Simpson, whom he afterwards
married, intimately, it happened that we never saw
much of each other after her marriage, though as
girls we were often together. Mr. BJack had at
this time published two of his best novels — Kilmeny
and In Silk Attire — and was even then being talked
about as a novelist of great promise, but of a very
modest and retiring disposition.
I remember Mr. McCarthy saying that night that,
though he hoped he would come, he should not be
206 In the Sixties and Seventies
surprised if he did not put in an appearance. Almost
as he spoke Mr. Black walked into the room followed
by his friend Charles Gibbon, also said to be a rising
novelist. I do not in the least remember Mr. Gibbon,
but I have a vivid recollection of William Black.
He was not tall, but he had a good-looking face and
very bright, kindly brown eyes whose brilliance was
somewhat marred by spectacles. I remember saying
to myself, " What a pity he wears glasses ! ' I do
not always think spectacles are a disfigurement, and
one became so used to seeing Mr. Black in them
that one cannot fancy he would have looked better
without them, but when I first saw him I certainly
thought them a disfigurement. It may partly have
been because he was so young a man, for one naturally
feels sorry to see young people wear anything that
is supposed to be the prerogative of age.
Mr. Black took a seat by my side for a few
moments, and I ventured to speak to him, but he
seemed too nervous to look at me, and he replied in
monosyllables. I was intensely conscious of Mr. Rice
watching me. Rice was at that time editor and
proprietor of Once a Week> in which he was himself
running a serial novel ; he was a constant visitor
at our house and had come round with us to
Mr. McCarthy's.
He was a much taller and bigger man than Mr.
Black, and having graduated at Cambridge had by no
means a modest opinion of himself. He came almost
J* S. Rice 207
daily to our house, and used to amuse and rather
astonish me by his flippant and jocular remarks on any
and every subject. He was very particular about his
dress, never without a flower in his buttonhole and
scent on a large white pocket-handkerchief. He talked
very differently from the authors, artists, and journalists
I was accustomed to see almost daily at my mother's
tea-table. Their conversation generally ran on the
last new book or picture, Gladstone's or Dizzy's
speeches, the theatre or the Church ; but Mr. Rice
talked of the city, the money market, stocks and
shares, " bulls ' and u bears." His jokes consisted of
the old stock speeches about mothers-in-law, which I
have heard since ad nauseam, but he was very lucky
then in having a listener to whom they were quite new.
I had never read Douglas Jerrold's book, so delightful
to men, entitled Mrs. Caudle s Curtain Lectures, which
Mr. Rice was fond of quoting. His jokes I could not
always see, and his catch phrases puzzled me and led
me into many errors.
From the way he was watching my endeavours to
talk to Mr. Black, I knew he would have something
to say, and I was therefore not surprised when, Mrs.
McCarthy taking Black away to introduce to some one
else, Rice dropped into his seat.
" Well," he said, " what do you think of the great
novelist ? Is he your idea of a hero ? But of course
not- -women always want tall, fine, black-haired men ;
now confess that such an one is your ideal ?
20 8 In the Sixties and Seventies
" I haven't thought anything about it,'* I returned.
" Oh, but your favourite heroes are bold, bad men."
This I find is a very common opinion amongst men,
or used to be in those days, for I have often had the
same thing said to me since. But Mr. Rice was the
first who talked in this way to me, so I looked him
straight in the face and prepared to show him that
he was wrong in his judgment of women's heroes.
He listened with a smile and then he said, " I
never saw any one like you ; you look a man straight
in the face, and you talk like a well-educated Eton
boy."
" I have always been taught that it is polite to look
any one in the face who is speaking to me. I don't
know anything about Eton boys, but I am glad I am
like a well-educated one," I returned calmly, and with
what dignity I could muster.
Mr. Rice laughed. " You are sharp," he said, c' but
I did not mean to offend ; only one does not know
quite what to say- -you are so much in earnest, and
have none of the little tricks of other girls."
" Little tricks — what tio you mean ? '
Mr. Rice had the grace to blush, but I, with my
eyes on him, waited calmly for his answer. It came
falteringly.
" I — I only mean that other girls always look down
when a man speaks to them."
" Why should they ? ' I asked in astonishment, and
added : " But I suppose they have been taught ;
Rice on Women's Heroes 209
no one told me to do so — so I shall do as 7 was
taught."
Mr. Rice smiled as he gingerly peeled a peach for
me, saying as he put it on my plate, " I don't
think much of this fruit ; mind it does not make you
ill."
In those days people were not always talking .of
their ailments, as is the custom now. The people
I was accustomed to see seldom mentioned their
digestions- -they were all too much interested in
politics, books, plays and pictures, and never fussed
over their health. Now and then one came across
a valetudinarian, but very seldom. But Mr. Rice
was one of the new school, and was never well,
or so he said ; he was always going to a doctor, or
under one ; I considered him fussy, so when he
went on to say, " Don't eat that pear — I am sure it's
not ripe ; and the peach is like a turnip — it will give
you indigestion," I replied, " Don't be alarmed-
I haven't a digestion, or rather I am told I can
digest horse-shoes and tenpenny nails." Mr. Rice
laughed, and told me that in thirty years' time I
should talk differently, but his prophecy has not yet
come true.
He was very persistent in his questions, and, though
I thought he had done with women's heroes, he re-
turned to the subject.
" Now confess," he said, " you are disappointed in
the novelist."
210 In the Sixties and Seventies
" I am not going to confess anything, and Mr.
Black is not the only novelist here," I retorted.
" You need not mention names," said Mr. Rice,
" but tell me what you think of him."
" I think he looks melancholy and unhappy, but he
is a widower," I said.
" And to lose his wife makes a man unhappy, you
think," said Rice, with a smile which I did not like.
" Some men are glad ; it gives them another chance-
they soon marry again, so will your novelist."
This speech scandalised me, and I replied hotly
that I did not approve of second marriages, and that
I knew several people who did not. " Mr. Wharton
Simpson does not, and won't allow Enoch Arden to
be read in his house."
Mr Rice laughed aloud.
"And you believe just what people say! — that
shows how young you are."
" I believe Mr. Simpson means it," I said emphatic-
ally.
" Ah ! he is just the man who will marry again if he
is left a widower, and I should not wonder if his
daughter is a second wife- -you wait and see."
A few years after, this conversation was recalled to
my mind, when Miss Simpson married Mr. William
Black, and a little later her father married a second
time. But at the time I was sure Mr. Rice would be
wrong, and I stuck to my point and quoted Mr.
Simpson on the subject, for it was one he was rather
William Black 211
fond of, and I remembered a great argument between
him, my father, and some other ff>ends at the time that
Tennyson's poem came out.
Mr. Rice tumbled all my ideals to the ground,
and I was glad when Mrs. McCarthy came up and
carried me off to talk to Mr. Barry, for Rice and
I nearly always came to the verge of a wrangle.
Mr. Barry was, though I did not know it at the
time, a great friend of William Black's, and we talked
about his novels Kilmeny and In Silk Attire. The
first I had not read, but Barry praised them both
enthusiastically.
Decidedly the most pathetic and sympathetic touch
in Sir Wemyss Reid's Life of William Black is in
the chapter where he describes the novelist going
to visit Barry at his lodgings in Brixton : "A frock-
coated figure, more suited to Piccadilly on a summer
afternoon than to the unfashionable suburb," and
always carrying with him some gift for the dying
man ; " a hare dangling in dangerous proximity to
the smartly cut coat, or a basin of soup or jelly,
which seemed somehow or other to harmonise still
less than the hare did."
Sir Wemyss Reid goes on to say that "the world
never saw this side of Black's character " ; still less
did the men who, envious of his fame and fortune,
i
" sneered at him as a dandy, and charged him with
being absorbed in his own ends, imagine that he
was earning by the work of his own pen the money
2i2 In the Sixties and Seventies
which kept his friend in comfort during the last sad
days of his short life. This was the real Black,
however, the Black who was never visible to writers
of personal sketches in the newspapers, or the casual
acquaintances who saw in him only the literary lion
of the season." No man, I think, could have greater
praise than this, and one can quite imagine how his
dying friend would look at him with eyes full of
tenderness and love. And to another friend, the
Charles Gibbon I have mentioned, he was just as
good ; for during the severe illness of this gentleman,
who had undertaken to complete a novel by a certain
date, Mr. Black came to his relief, and, questioning
him about the plot and the characters, " set to work
and finished Gibbon's story before he put pen to
paper on his own account.1' It is true that at this
time Black was at the height of his career as the
most popular novelist of the day, and was able to
command his own terms from the publishers ; but
even under these circumstances it is not every man
who would be so unselfish and generous, and it is
only the man who has to earn his living by his
pen who can fully appreciate the magnitude and
generosity of such a service as that which he under-
took for Gibbon and Barry. But Sir Wemyss Reid
tells us that there were "few men who had secured
a more lasting hold upon Black's affections than
Barry," and this was proved by his making him
the hero of that charming novel Shandon Bells.
Mr. Richard Whiteing 213
Amongst the company that night was Mr. Richard
Whiteing, who has since become so well known
through his popular novels The Island, No. 5 John
Street, and The Tellow Van. I had no conversation
with him that evening, but I overheard him say to my
mother, in a rather slow and solemn voice :
" Which would you rather be, beautiful or clever ?
My mother's answer was characteristic : " That
requires consideration/1
Mr. Rice, who was again at my side, said, " Which
would you be ? '
And I answered quickly, " Oh, clever, of course.
What a silly question ! '
Whereupon Mr. Rice laughed in his quizzical manner.
This was not the first time I had met Mr. Whiteing.
He was known in those days among journalists
and literary people as " The Coster monger," (for
he had made a name by writing articles on the
poor and signing them " The Costermonger "), just
as James Greenwood was known as " The Amateur
Casual." My father, who was always looking about
to ask some one home, especially at Christmas time,
came in one day and announced :
" I have just met ' The Costermonger,' and asked
him to dine with us on Christmas Day."
My mother said nothing, but I, who was rather
tired of visitors, and knew my brothers were, for we
liked to be by ourselves sometimes, and at Christmas
especially, broke in with ;
214 In the Sixties and Seventies
" Oh ! I am sorry."
My father raised his eyebrows questioningly.
"..We never seem to be by ourselves at Christmas ;
we always seem to collect the halt, and the blind, and
the lame "
" What do you mean ? asked my father, in a
surprised tone ; " Mr. Whiteing is neither halt,
blind, nor lame ; and you surely know he is not a
costermonger ? '
" Oh, I know he is only a clever man pretending ;
it would be more fun if he were real."
My father tapped the fingers of one hand on the
knuckles of the other ; he was half amused and
half annoyed ; he said quite gently, but with
emphasis :
" Mr. Whiteing is very clever, and quite young ;
he is alone in London, and that is why I have asked
him to dine with us."
4< I knew there was something the matter with him,"
I grumbled ; <c he is sure to be melancholy, thinking of
his home and friends."
" So you grudge him a dinner on the day when we
ought to feel kind and generous to all — I am ashamed
of you ! '
My father did not often speak severely to me, and
I accordingly felt very much ashamed of myself,
especially when he continued :
" What we have to do is to make others happy ;
and if you think Mr. Whiteing will be melancholy,
One Christmas Day 215
then do the best you can to entertain him. Now
mind, I shall expect you to do so."
I wished I had not spoken, and it was with no little
trepidation that I awaited the coming of Mr. Whiteing
on that Christmas Day. How I hoped he would be
gay and cheerful ; full of talk, and even of tricks
like young Mr. Creswick ; but I did not see how
he could be when he was so much amongst the poor
and saw so much misery. Far from grudging him
his dinner, I hoped he would eat a good one, and not
blame us if we did the same ; but I feared he would
be thinking too much of those who had none, to
enjoy himself, or to let us enjoy ourselves. In those
days I imagined philanthropists and reformers would
expect one to give up everything to the poor. I
think now it was rather hard on us youngsters to
always have so many clever and brilliant people
round us ; we always seemed to be kept at
attention.
Mr. Whiteing came. I can see him now as he was
in those days — a tall, dark-haired, rather melancholy-
looking man, with a very white face. I can recall
him sitting in a low chair, which had a very uncom-
fortable back, which squeezed one's shoulders together ;
the chair was so low he had to stretch out his long
legs, and he looked most uncomfortable. By way of
making myself agreeable I had a mind to offer him
another chair, but, vividly recalling the snub I had
received from the Rev. J. M. Bellew only a few short
216 In the Sixties and Seventies
weeks before, I thought discretion the better part of
valour.
I do not remember how the dinner went off, but 1
have no doubt successfully, for my father was a host
in himself, and so full of spirits and anecdotes that I
feel sure our guest enjoyed himself; at all events, it
must have been less melancholy than dining alone in
lodgings, or at a restaurant.
Home life was everything in an Englishman's eyes
then. Restaurants were few, and not the gorgeous
places they are now, nor were there half the amusements
we have now ; so a young man alone in London
in those days would not find himself so well off
for entertainment as in these. We had not become
continental in our habits ; Christmas was still a high
festival, and Dickens had made Christmas at home an
institution.
The next day but one was the Censor Dinner,
and at that Mr. Whiteing again appeared, and was
very much in his element, carrying round large baskets
of bread, and talking to Tommy, Bobby, Sarah, and
Jenny in quite a fatherly manner.
CHAPTER XVIII
SIR THOMAS AND LADY DUFFUS HARDY — IZA DUFFUS HARDY — YOUTH-
FUL SCULPTORS — BLOWING BUBBLES — OUT ON THE ROOF — GENERAL
LOWE.
ONE of the most popular of literary women and
hostesses at this time was Mrs. Duffus Hardy.
No one amongst the literary and artistic circle gave
or received more invitations than this lady. She used
often to come to our house to consult my father
about a novel he had placed for her in the hands of
Messrs. Sampson Low & Co. It was, I think,
her first novel, and had a very good plot, and by my
father's suggestion it was called A Casual Acquaintance.
Lord Romilly was then Master of the Rolls Court,
and Mr. Duffus Hardy, afterwards Sir Thomas Duffus
Hardy, was Assistant Keeper of the Records, and one
of Her Majesty's Commissioners on historical manu-
scripts. We had been intimate with them for some
few years before Mr. Duffus Hardy was knighted,
but to save confusion I shall now call them Sir Thomas
and Lady Duffus Hardy.
Sir Thomas was a tall, aristocratic old gentleman,
with gentle and grave manners ; he had been married
21:
2i 8 In the Sixties and Seventies
twice, and was a good many years older than his second
wife. Lady Duffus Hardy was very good-looking,
and rather stout ; she seemed to me the incarnation
of good-nature, fun, and joviality. They lived in
a pretty, secluded house near Regent's Park, and used
to give charming little dinners, to which my father
and mother were invited, while 1 often went to spend
the day with their only daughter Iza, now a well-
known novelist.
Miss Duffus Hardy's ambition was evidently in
those days to become a sculptor. I well remember
the first time I saw her — a tall, pale-faced girl, with
large, beautiful brown eyes, with a serious expression
that made me think of a picture I had seen of the
Madonna. She was a little older than myself, and
at that time very much taller, and she had on a
long blue overall. As soon as the maid who had
brought me left, Iza hurried me upstairs to take off
my hat, when she proceeded to invest me in an overall
like her own, and carried me off into the garden,
which I remember was exceedingly pretty, and I
thought quite like the country, as it ran down to
the Regent's Canal. It had some fine old trees in
it and a terrace overlooking the canal. There was
also a good-sized greenhouse, which seemed to contain
a great many garden tools and chairs, but few flowers.
I believe it was used as a wet weather play-room for
Iza. We certainly spent many happy hours in it,
and made ourselves " beautiful objects," as Lady
A -Favourite Pastime 219
Hardy used laughingly to say. We used to get
some common or garden clay, and, to quote Artemus
Ward, try our hands at " sculping." I am bound
to admit that we made a frightful mess, but after all
we were only anticipating the " Kindergarten System '
which was already being tried in Germany, though
of course we knew nothing of that.
Our arduous labours at modelling were varied by
walks in the park, accompanied by one of the servants,
or to the Zoological Gardens, where we gazed at the
animals we had been vainly trying to reproduce, for
we had a fine ambition. Like all great geniuses, we
had our moments of depression, when in our despair
we solaced ourselves with a pipe — I may say many
pipes. I can imagine the reader's astonishment at the
thought of girls indulging in pipes in those days,
when even Lordly Man was not allowed to smoke
at the early age he is now ; but then cigarettes were
not so common. Our favourite pipes were long
churchwardens ; I am afraid to say how many the
maid bought us at a time, or how much of our pocket
money we spent on those luxuries. It was lucky for
us that they were as cheap as they were fragile, for we
often broke three or four at a sitting, and the soap
we consumed in making a lather for our bubbles Lady
Hardy declared would ruin her. This favourite pas-
time of ours came to a sudden end, and it happened
in this way.
Lady Hardy was fond of sending for us to appear
•
220 In the Sixties and Seventies
in the drawing-room when she had visitors. One
day, as we were in the throes of modelling, a summons
came, and we, hastily washing our hands, and quite
forgetting our pinafores, appeared before a distinguished
visitor (I believe it was Lord Romilly himself) in clay-
covered overalls and besmudged faces. The gentleman
tried not to laugh, and Lady Hardy, who was very
good-natured, dismissed us with a smile and the
caution to " look in the glass another time." But
we were both very much chagrined and ashamed,
though, as Miss Hardy indignantly and sagely remarked,
" Visitors are a nuisance when people are busy ; and
how is any one to remember to look in a glass
when she is making statues and feels in a hurry."
The next time I went to see Iza she informed
me ruefully that " we must not do any modelling, as
we were expected to take tea in the drawing-room."
This was such an appalling announcement that I
suggested our hiding. Iza was quite willing, but
where to hide was the difficulty. We were not
allowed out alone, and any room in the house could
easily be searched, so I suggested the roof. In our
house in Great Russell Street there was a flat roof, and
I and my brothers were accustomed to go out there
at any and every time. We used to get up in the
night and mount the roof to see fires. When Day
& Martin's blacking factory, which was then in
Holborn, was burnt down it was a fine sight from that
roof, also a fire at the British Museum, the heat of
Out on the Roof 221
which almost scorched us as we stood on the roof
of 74, Great Russell Street. But to go up an easy
staircase and step out upon some leads was a very
different thing from mounting a step-ladder placed
against a trap-door in the ceiling, and partly over a
staircase, which was the way to the roof of Sir Thomas
Hardy's house. But we accomplished it, taking with
us our pipes and Sir Thomas's shaving soap, in its
pretty china bowl, and some hot water which had
been left for us to wash our hands.
The roof was not nearly so nice as ours, and so I
told Iza ; it was a steep slope, but we managed to
creep up the slates and sit on the ridge with our
backs against the chimney stack. It was rather cold
and windy, but- -the shaving soap was Pears', and it
made most excellent bubbles, nor were we discovered
till long after the visitors had gone, and some one had
come to take me home. The house had been searched,
and one of the servants had gone into the park, when
a housemaid, coming upstairs, fancied she heard voices
and laughter, and, mounting the step-ladder, discovered
us. I shall never forget her face as it appeared
through the open trap ; her consternation and fright
were extreme, nor did she know how to get us down.
c Oh, Miss Iza, how could you ? ' she said reproach-
fully, but Iza invited her cheerfully to come and join
us, and I assured her that " if you sat with one leg
up, as if you were on horseback, it was very safe and
comfortable " ; but she only implored us to come down.
222 In the Sixties and Seventies
The difficulty and danger were great ; getting up had not
been easy, but it was as nothing to getting down. I
shall never forget sliding down those slates and getting
through the trap backwards. But we managed it
safely — only Sir Thomas's handsome china shaving
bowl, a present from his wife, was smashed in the
descent ; it fell through one of the spaces in the step-
ladder, down upon the stairs with a great crash,
and was past mending — as we should have been had
we slipped. After this adventure, bubble-blowing
lost its charm for us.
At Lady Hardy's At Homes I met many notable
people, but my great favourite in those days was
General Lowe, one of the survivors of the celebrated
Six Hundred.
I remember the first night I saw him he was sitting
quite alone looking rather soberly at a group of
chattering young people that I sat near. The con-
versation was not very edifying ; a journalist was
sneering at Christianity, and some of the Pre-Raphaelite
young women were posing in their usual limp and
die-away manner, while Miss Hardy and I looked on
with great interest, not unmixed with admiring
wonder. Suddenly my father came across the room
and carried me off and introduced me to General
Lowe, asking him to be kind enough to tell me
something about that celebrated charge, that I was
so fond of reading in Tennyson. The General's face
lighted up, he seemed quite pleased at the request,
One of the Light Brigade 223
and I seated myself in a low chair close to his knees
and listened ; I remember saying to him that u people
thought Lord Cardigan was in fault." From what I
remember, that was not his opinion ; " He only obeyed
orders," he said.
" But should he have obeyed such an order ? ' I
asked.
a It is a soldier's first duty to obey," he replied
proudly.
He told me too that in the press and excitement
of battle soldiers do not realise their great danger.
After that night General Lowe and I were great
cronies, and he often spoke of me as " my little girl,"
though I was by no means little then ; and I used
to please him by quoting softly to him verses of " The
Light Brigade," especially this one :
When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made !
All the world wondered.
Honour the charge they made,
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble Six Hundred.
And I used to bow to him, for, as I told him, he
represented all those brave men to me.
If I could only draw some of these people ! As
I write I can recall even their tones of voice and their
expressions, and I long to make pictures of them- -but I
cannot draw, even in the crudest way ; and if I could,
I should never be able to reproduce the kindly, almost
224 In the Sixties and Seventies
tender, expression in the faces of those great men
who talked to me. The flash of pleasure and kindness
that used to come into General Lowe's somewhat
sombre and decidedly stern countenance when he saw
me, and the smiling way he would listen to my
opinions, often made me wonder, and I began to
congratulate myself that I could not be so stupid as
the Philosopher said I was, and I, in consequence,
thought myself.
I have heard some people talk of the smug satis-
faction depicted on the faces and in the manners of
celebrities ; but from Gladstone downwards — or should
I say upwards ? — I have never seen it. It must be
the people who fancy themselves great who put on
what we should now call " side."
Nothing could have been more bright and charming
than Charles Dickens's expression as he smiled at me
when my father told him how much I liked The Old
Curiosity Shop, and how I wished to be like Little
Nell ; nor Tennyson's when he shook my hand and
said " I am sure you are proud of your father."
CHAPTER XIX
NICK-NAMES — "MARIE ANTOINETTE" — "A MODERN ANTIQUE" — A
DANCE AT LADY HARDY'S — CURIOUS PARTNERS — LORD ROMILLY's
SON — LOUIS BLANC — I DANCE WITH LOUIS BLANC — LOUIS BLANC
AND " MARIE ANTOINETTE '' — GENERAL LOWE.
I WAS continually having nick-names given me.
It was, I think, a mark of favour, but one I did
not always appreciate. For instance, when a gentleman,
a young man, but a very old and intimate friend, who
had known me from my infancy, took to calling me
" Shalott," I naturally wondered. I guessed he meant
" the Lady of Shalott," for he was a decidedly dignified
little man, and would not be guilty of a joke, especi-
ally one that could hurt in any way the feelings of
" a member of the fair sex," as he would say. He
was always very kind to me, bringing me boxes of
bonbons, gloves, chocolates, pocket-handkerchiefs, and
many more valuable presents. I am afraid I did not
always receive these attentions very graciously ; I
know when he presented the pocket-handkerchiefs,
in a highly ornamental box, I horrified my mother
by exclaiming :
" I hope they are hemmed."
225 15
226 In the Sixties and Seventies
This was not a joke on my part, nor was I trying
to be sharp or witty, for that kind of speech would not
have been thought funny in those days — rudeness was
not taken for wit. It was pure consternation on my
part, for 1 hated hemming pocket-handkerchiefs ; I
had many and many a time made the first finger of my
left hand sore and stiff with such work, while the hem
of the handkerchief was ornamented with little specks
of blood. Sewing machines were only just coming into
fashion ; we had none, for my mother, who was a
fine needlewoman, and in her girlhood had made her
father a shirt, looked askance at such innovations.
But she was quite horrified at my unlucky speech, and
I had to apologise.
" That's all right — never mind, Shalott," said
Mr. . " Don't say anything more about it. I
remembered that finger pricked to the bone, and had
them stitched."
I thanked him, and made no further remark then ;
but on another occasion I asked him why he had taken
to calling me " Shalott," at the same time reminding
him that I was not inordinately fond of onions. He
pretended to be horrified at my suggestion that he
should think such a thing.
u You know it isn't that," he said seriously. " It
is your dignified and silent manner, and your admira-
tion for Tennyson's poems. Do believe me, I never
even thought of onions — of course I mean * the
Lady of Shalott.' "
Nick-Names 227
Thus I got rid of that nick-name, but he then took
to " Marianna ' (he was very literary in his tastes), and
again I had to remonstrate with him. I assured him
that it was absurd, that a substantial, cheerful house
in the heart of London was not like a " moated
Grange ' ' ; and therefore the name was ridiculous.
He replied that I was " remote " ; I thought he meant
this for a pun. He assured me it was not so, but that
he meant it as a fact — that I had an aloof and remote
manner, and he ended by saying :
c< If you won't be called ' Shalott ' or ' Marianna,'
I shall call you c Antoinette,' for you are like Marie
Antoinette — every one says so."
" 1 can't bear being thought like her," I retorted ;
but it was useless.
The Hon. Mrs. Norton, Mr. Rice, Mr. Creswick
the actor — every one, in fact — declared I was like
Marie Antoinette ; and to make matters worse, as I
was one day in Oxford Street, with my governess, two
people stopped as we were crossing the road — they
were an old gentleman and, I should think, his wife.
" There ! — there's the girl I told you of. Is she
not like Marie Antoinette ? " remarked the old man.
" Like her ! — she is Marie Antoinette — it is a case
of reincarnation," returned his companion.
She spoke so solemnly that I was positively scared,
and stood staring at her. My governess hurried me
on, and when we were some yards away she turned to
me with a smile, and the remark :
228 In the Sixties and Seventies
" There — now will you believe you are like Marie
Antoinette ? *
" I am not," I replied stoutly. " But tell me what
that lady means by reincarnation/1
I had an idea of what it meant, still 1 hoped I was
wrong ; but after my governess's explanation, my heart
sank. Was it possible that I had lived before, and
really been that unhappy woman ? I fought against
the idea, but I was very imaginative, and it haunted
me. I remember I argued the matter with Miss
W- — as well as I was able ; still, I was no match
for her, and, whether she did it to tease me, or really
believed in the theory, she certainly led me to think
that she believed it. In spite of all I could say, she
declared that I must have been the French Queen,
from my extraordinary likeness. I argued that it
was merely the way I did my hair, something in the
shape of my face, and a great deal people's fancy.
This theory she would not admit, though she must
have known it was the true solution. Then I main-
tained that if I was like the French Queen, it was a
proof that my soul was not hers, " for the Almighty
would this time have put her soul into quite a different
body." Our usual promenade was up to Regent
Circus and back, for I could not walk far. The dis-
cussion lasted all the way back, and I remember as
we reached our own door I ended with :
"Well, if I am Marie Antoinette, I shall not be
so stupid as to say now, when I am told people have
"The Modern Antique" 229
no bread, * Then why don't they eat buns ? ' But
I don't believe she did say it — it's a make-up of the
historians ; and as it seems I can't call my soul my
own, I shall name myself c the modern antique.'
Miss W went into a fit of laughter, which
she vainly tried to stifle as the door opened.
As might be expected, I naturally began to think
a good deal about the French Queen ; and as I was
at that time reading, in French, Clery's Journal des
Dernieres Heures de Louis XV I .^ she was still more
impressed upon me. I had thought her a vain and
foolish woman, but my opinions began to change,
and I saw that she and her husband were not so bad
as their predecessors, but were victims suffering for
the sins of their ancestors, more than for their own.
It must have been in the spring of that same year
that I went to a dance at Lady Hardy's. It was a
memorable evening, and I had looked forward to it
for some time ; but owing to the Philosopher's pessi-
mistic way of looking at dances, the bore he found
them, the melancholy things he said about them, and
my own conviction that the late hours and excitement
were not good for me — to say nothing of the lassitude
and pain I endured afterwards — when the day came
round I was in a very unhappy frame of mind and
declared I could not go. But a dress had been made
for the occasion — a gorgeous dress of white silk, trimmed
with blue, and long too, my first long dress ; yet if
it had not been for my aunt's encouragement and
230 In the Sixties and Seventies
persuasion I should have stayed at home and never
even seen Louis Blanc.
I can so well remember that evening — how my
mother and my aunt hovered about me, helping me
to dress — in my grandmother's room too, for mine,
which led out of it, was not nearly big enough for
such a grand occasion. I remember my aunt's com-
ments on the perfect fit of the dress ; she said, " It
looked as if I had been melted and poured in," and
then, when I laughed and exclaimed " What a good
idea ! ' she promptly told me " it was a very vulgar
saying, and that I was not to repeat it."
My father, my governess, and the servants all
admired me in my pretty dress. Every one but the
Philosopher had something pleasant to say — he alone
was gloomy and cross. He was the fly in my
ointment, the skeleton at the feast. His thoughts
were then, as always, bent on science, and to that
he had added volunteering. " Caper about in a
heated room like an idiot he would not — it was not
manly, and to see others doing so was not amusing.
As to girls, they were a nuisance." But in spite of
his grumbles he had to take me, and so disagreeable
was he on the way that I cried ; whereupon he said :
" Now make your eyes red, and arrive looking a
sight ! "
His tone was so vindictively savage that I could
not help laughing, whereupon he exclaimed :
" Now go into hysterics ! '
A Dance at Lady Hardy's 231
I stopped and let him growl on, taking no notice,
which was the only thing to do.
The room was full when we arrived, but after we
had shaken hands with Sir Thomas and Lady Hardy,
and Iza had nodded to me from her place in the
first quadrille, I found General Lowe at my side,
bowing and smiling, and declaring he was lost in
admiration and hardly knew " his little girl." " If
you can't manage that train, come to me and I'll
be your train-bearer," he whispered as I was carried
off to join in the lancers. "That train* was only
about two inches on the ground, yet as I danced
I would have given anything for my short petticoats.
My first partner was a melancholy young man who
had been disappointed in love, or so he said, and he
came up to me at intervals during the evening and
insisted on telling me his miseries. I comforted him
as well as I could. Never having then suffered from
the complaint, it was wonderful what sage advice I
gave him. I danced all the square dances ; but as
the round ones were forbidden by Dr. Richardson's
orders, I had a great deal of sitting out. , In the
middle of the next set of lancers my partner horrified
me by saying :
" It is curious to find oneself dancing in the same
set of quadrilles with three people who resemble
respectively Christ, Shakespeare, and Marie Antoinette."
I stared. " Christ ! " I said. " You mean Mr.
Joseph Knight, I suppose ? '
232 In the Sixties and Seventies
" Yes ; don't say you cannot see the likeness."
" He is like a print I have seen of a picture by
a Frenchman. I have forgotten his name. But I
do not care for it, I do not think it can have been
like Christ ; still, I wish you had not reminded me
of it."
"Why not?' he said, "you should be pleased";
but here the exigences of the grand chain cut him
short, and the dance being over I avoided that young
man and Mr. Joseph Knight for the rest of the
evening.
As to the gentleman who thought himself like
Shakespeare, I considered him a mere caricature. He
had sloping shoulders, a bald head, and long, thin
hair. I do not remember his name, but he was a
literary man of no mean ability, though not a well-
known novelist.
During the round dances I ensconced myself on
a comfortable seat just inside the smaller drawing-
room, whence I could watch the dancing in each
room. There the son of Lord Romilly found me,
and asked me several times to valse with him ; and
when I would not consent to do so, he catechised
me in this way :
" What's the matter with you ? '
"Nothing."
" Oh, but there must be something. Have you
got heart disease ? '
"No."
Louis Blanc 233
u Are you consumptive ? '
"No."
" No, you don't look so, and I shouldn't think
you were — except in the way of victuals."
I was amazed at this speech, for manners were
better in those days than they are now ; but I could
not help laughing.
" Well, I must go now, but I shall have that round
dance," he said.
And he managed it later in the evening, by getting
the band to turn a square dance into a valse.
It was whilst I was sitting in this corner that
Lady Hardy came to me and said she wanted to
introduce me to M. Louis Blanc, and she indicated
a very short, grey-headed man with brilliant dark
eyes, who sat in a corner near the window in the
same room, and almost opposite me.
" I am very anxious to get him to dance," she
said ; " I have asked him many times, and offered
to introduce many girls to him, but he says he will
c only dance with Marie Antoinette,' and that's you.
He's a red Republican, you know," she added with
a laugh.
I declined the honour, but when one's hostess is
determined what can one do ? I had to give in,
and was led up to the little man, who bowed in
derision, or so I thought. He could not dance at
all, and said so. He never spoke a truer word. I
pushed and pulled, and, with the help of the other
234 In the Sixties and Seventies
couples, bustled him through the lancers ; but as he
would do his steps and bow over my hand every
time we met, the grand chain was a hopeless muddle.
Fortunately we danced in the small drawing-room,
which would only hold one set, and we had it to
ourselves, except for a few spectators.
There was a good deal of chatter and laughter, and
when we finished the dance Louis Blanc thanked me
for piloting him through it, and apologised for dancing
so badly. I said something polite in return. I was
beginning to forget that he was Louis Blanc and I
Marie Antoinette, and no doubt we should have
become very friendly, but the other dancers crowded
round us, and some officious person, clapping his
hands softly, said :
" Bravo ! Louis Blanc and Marie Antoinette ! '
That was too much for me. I retorted, " I am not
Marie Antoinette ! "
" Oh yes, yes you are ! " said several voices. " Isn't
she ? ' appealing to Louis Blanc.
The Frenchman, smiling and bowing, kissed my
hand and declared I was " the image of a young
portrait of her," and so he had " determined to dance
with the French Queen." Now I looked upon all
this not so much as a foolish game, but that they were
laughing and sneering at the unfortunate woman whose
double I was said to be ; so I turned to Louis Blanc
and asked :
" How dare you, a Radical, a red Republican,
Louis Blanc and Marie Antoinette 235
propose dancing with a Queen ? You know the real
Marie Antoinette would not have spoken to you ! '
(<c That's true ! " cried some one.) — " Your countrymen
behaved in a most horrible and abominable manner.
The French Revolution is a scandal you cannot, as a
nation, get over." *
"That's true!" — "She has sense." — " She speaks
well," -were the sentences I heard whispered round
me ; but Louis Blanc shook his head as if he did
not understand, and turned to a countryman of his,
who evidently explained.
" Ah ! C'est vrai ! ' he ejaculated, and I con-
tinued more slowly and very distinctly :
" You sneer and mock at your Queen, whose head
you chopped off. I believe she was not so foolish as
she was made out. She was in a difficult position,
which, as you did not live then, you can know nothing
about — and she was very young, no older than I am
now, when she came to the throne."
Here Louis Blanc shook his head, and I saw I had
made a mistake ; but it in no wise deterred me. I
said a great deal about Republicans, their impatience,
impertinence, and violence, that I do not now remember,
and ended up with :
" Whatever were her faults, she suffered, and she
went to her death like a Queen. Surely you can let
her rest now"
* I had no doubt heard my father, or one of his literary friends,
make this remark.
236 In the Sixties and Seventies
I had spoken with the greatest vigour and emphasis,
which had silenced their sneers and their laughter ;
but my excitement was cooling, and my voice faltered
and broke. I turned away, and the little crowd silently
opened to let me pass.
" Look, her eyes flash scorn, as Marie Antoinette's
did at the rabble," said a voice.
I gave my hand a backward fling and retorted,
u You are the rabble!- -let me pass." Directly I had
spoken I was ashamed of myself, and my anger cooled.
I saw the Philosopher's youthful face looking
curiously at me from a doorway ; he was evidently
wondering what had disturbed my temper. I saw
General Lowe coming to the rescue ; I turned to
him, but M. Louis Blanc stopped me with a burst
of complimentary eloquence, only one sentence of
which I distinctly remember ; it was :
" If you had been the Queen there would have
been no Revolution."
I gave an indignant denial and waved my hand to
wave him aside.
" Ah, no ! ' he cried, taking my hand ; " I am
not sneering, I mean it. It is a new idea you give
me of Marie Antoinette — yes, there's something in
it — I'll not laugh at her again, I promise you."
These, though not quite all his actual words, which
were more complimentary to me, were the gist of
what he said, as he wished me a happier fate than
hers. But I heard him, as I walked away, tell his
General Lowe 237
countryman that I was too spirituelle, too highly strung,
to have a happy life. " But what a likeness, what
a likeness ! Ah ! poor Marie Antoinette ! '
I shivered with nervous exhaustion and excitement,
and felt ready to cry, especially when I saw the dancers
from the large room come crowding in, asking, " What
is it ?- -what has happened ? But General Lowe
turned a smiling face to them and made some jesting
reply ; and then as we came into the supper room
he patted my hand, which lay on his arm, and wanted
to know " who had been upsetting his little girl."
So I told him what had happened, and ended by
saying, as I usually did, that I hated to be thought
like any one who was so ill-used and unhappy.
" Like her ! ' ' exclaimed the General. " Why, Marie
Antoinette had grey hair and a Roman nose, and you
have neither."
" That's just what I think ! ' I exclaimed eagerly,
" but people say "
" People say anything, so don't worry yourself,
little girl. Now what will you have to eat ? '
I chose my usual party supper of cold beef and a
glass of port. We were soon seated at a little table,
the General deep in military matters, when Lady Hardy
found us, and, sitting down at my side, said, " You
have made quite a conquest of Louis Blanc." But here
the General broke in quickly by asking her to take
a glass of port. She lifted her hands in horror, and
scolded him for drinking it.
238 In the Sixties and Seventies
" Don't you know," she said, " it flushes one's face
and makes one look ugly ?
The General laughed, and filling his glass drank
Lady Hardy's health in port.
" It will take a great deal to make this child look
ugly," was his joking reply.
CHAPTER XX
MADOX BROWN — THE PRE-RAPHAELITE YOUNG LADIES — "A GREAT
DISTINCTION " -THE PRE-RAPHAELITE YOUNG LADIES ON WILLIAM
MORRIS — SIR BENJAMIN RICHARDSON ON TRUTH.
IT was at Lady Hardy's At Homes that I met the
Madox Browns, O'Shaughnessys, Hepworth
Dixons, Cordy Jepherson, and W. S. Wills. Mr.
Madox Brown was one of the Pre-Raphaelite school ;
he was a great friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti and
William Morris. Rossetti was his pupil, or at any
rate worked in Mr. Madox Brown's studio, and they
influenced each other greatly. It was after they had
been working together, and when Mr. Madox Brown
had taken up Pre-Raphaelitism — in fact, in the days
when he was looked upon as the father of the Pre-
Raphaelite school — that I used to meet him.
He was a tall, good-looking man, with a long
beard, almost down to His waist. It was brown and
flecked with white, and reminded me of fine seaweed.
He never talked much, nor was he ever very sociable,
even to his hostess, who was always so talkative, good-
tempered, and charming to every one, that it was
difficult not to become genial in her presence. But
339
240 In the Sixties and Seventies
Mr. Madox Brown used to walk about and occasionally
pose near the piano or fireplace, and I used to look
at him and admire him, and try to think what hero
of mine he would do for ; but unfortunately one of
Leah's nonsense verses would come into my head,
and I found myself quoting :
There was an old man with a beard,
Who said : " It is just as I feared ;
Two owls and a hen, four larks and a wren,
Have all built their nests in my beard !
It was the beard that did it, and even to this day
when any one quotes that verse Mr. Madox Brown's
tall figure, serious face, and long beard come before me.
I am always annoyed at this freak of fancy, for I liked
the artist ; there was nothing frivolous or undignified
about him, and even in those days, more than these,
I disliked to see people make themselves ridiculous,
especially if they were authors or artists.
In the sixties and seventies the childishness of grown-
up people was not so apparent as now — seemliness in
behaviour was more studied. The comic man of the
party seldom went further than pretending to draw
corks by putting his fingers into his mouth and sud-
denly withdrawing them, tapping his cheeks to imitate
liquid coming from a bottle, buzzing like a fly, and
so on. These exhibitions seldom occurred except at
children's parties ; and though the performer made
himself look very hot and ridiculous, the spectacle he
presented was as nothing compared with that of a
Madox Brown 241
party of grown-up people in the present day when
they have just finished tobogganing down the stairs
on tea trays, or are romping over Puss-in-the-corner,
Hunt-the-slipper, and other childish games.
It was the quiet dignity of Mr. Madox Brown I
admired, but I used very much to wish he would
make himself comfortable and sit down and talk about
pictures. Though he belonged to the Pre-Raphaelite
school, and was a great admirer of Dante Gabriel
Rossetti- -and there was at that time a great deal of
talk about Rossetti and also about William Morris —
Mr. Madox Brown seldom joined in the conversation,
which he left entirely to his wife, daughters, and the
Misses O'Shaughnessy.
Only once did I hear him speak at any length,
and that was one moon-lit night, when we walked home
through the silent streets and squares — a whole, rather
noisy, party of us. Mr. Madox Brown, my mother,
and I walked together, and he and she talked about
painting, and very interesting the conversation was.
The artist became quite eloquent and genial, and one
really saw what a charming man he was. He had
i
found a congenial spirit, a sister of the brush ; for
my mother painted in those days, exhibiting in the
Royal Academy, and most of the other exhibitions.
Mrs. Madox Brown and her daughters were pro-
minent members of this literary and artistic coterie.
They were always dressed in what was then con-
sidered the height of artistic and aesthetic fashion. It
16
242 In the Sixties and Seventies
consisted in wearing soft, limp, full dresses, with short
waists, or none at all. The material was generally
either cashmere or what is now called nun's veiling ;
the favourite colours dull brick red, peacock blue,
sage green, and cinnamon brown. The dresses were
often cut slightly square at the throat and had very
full sleeves ; jewellery of the barbaric kind was iworn
with them, and the whole effect was Rossettian and
Burne-Jonesian in the extreme. But these ladies were
not quite so consumptive and willowy-looking as
Burne-Jones made his figures — no human being could
be so and live ; but their hair, colour, and pose were
very like a Burne-Jones picture, and I wondered
how they did it. Was it, I asked myself, eating very
little and drinking vinegar ? Did they breakfast on
red currant jelly and a glass of champagne, as I had
heard of Swinburne doing, and dine off the wing of
a lark, as another genius was supposed to do ?
There is something in the superior way that very
slim, willowy people look at big ones that makes
the latter ashamed of their size. In the days I am
writing about the average height of a woman was, I
should think, not more than five feet three inches, and
I was four inches above that, and thought too tall.
I should say now the average size must be five feet
five or six. The Misses Madox Brown and their
friends looked tall from their slimness, and Miss
Duffus Hardy and I used to squeeze ourselves into
as small a space as we could, and sit and admire them,
"A Great Distinction" 243
though they never spoke to us that I can remember.
But this did not render us unhappy, for we had each
such a happy knack of being interested in all we saw
and heard that we were not at all self-conscious ; and
this trait led to a scene which my father witnessed,
and which delighted him very much.
At a dance at Mr. Henry Dunphie's, of The Morning
Post, when the ladies had left the gentlemen in the
supper room, a gentleman (a stranger to my father)
rose and made a little speech, in which he alluded
to the way ladies were toasted in the olden time, for
their beauty and wit, and said that though it was an
old fashion he thought it a good one, and wished to
propose such a toast. From certain speeches that had
come to his ears he knew he had all the men on his
side ; he saw they had their glasses charged, but this
must be drunk in bumpers and with honours. Every
one rilled his glass and rose to his feet, and my
father's amazement was great when he heard (I quote
the toast as it was told me) : " Here's to the health
and happiness of Miss Hain Friswell and Miss Duffus
Hardy — the two prettiest, most unaffected, and charming
girls in London ! ' We heard the noise and cheering
upstairs in the ballroom and wondered what was
happening. Probably if such a scene had occurred at
a dance in these days it would have found its way
into one or more of the papers ; but in those times
people were not fond of advertising all that was said
and done in private — they did not think it good form
2 44 In the Sixties and Seventies
for their families or themselves to be so advertised, and
my father would have disliked it intensely. But I have
never seen him more pleased than he was when he
told me, as we drove home, of the honour that had
been done us.
He impressed upon me that it was a great distinction
and a most unprecedented thing in those days, some-
thing to be very proud of; and I was not to think it
was done to flatter him — the proposer did not know
him, nor Lady Hardy. Sir Thomas was not there,
he seldom went to dances. My father went on to
tell me that it was a a great mark of admiration on
the part of the gentlemen," and one to be especially
proud of, " as they were all men of culture, and many
of them distinguished in literature, art, and the stage."
But what had pleased him most was the expression
" unaffected " — that was, he said, " the highest com-
pliment ; beauty and wit were nothing if a woman
was affected — to be natural was the mark of a true
gentlewoman."
I can remember my feelings during this speech.
I was unfeignedly glad my father was so pleased ; yet
I was rather astonished at his pleasure and not at
all elated myself. I never could believe in compli-
ments ; I looked upon them merely as a finish to a
gentleman's education, a fa$on de parler, of the least
consequence. They ran, as a gentleman once angrily
told me, " like water off a duck's back."
But in mentioning the party at Henry Dunphie's I
"The Establishment" 245
am anticipating, for it occurred a year or two after the
time when Miss DufFus Hardy and I used to meet Mrs.
Madox Brown and her daughters, and sit listening
to their praise of Swinburne, Rossetti, and above all
William Morris. These ladies and their friends used
to throw the ball of conversation from one to the
other, working themselves up into a great state of en-
thusiasm, which was quite entertaining to their two girl
admirers.
Mr. William Morris was their rara avis ; they
eulogised his work in the most extravagant manner, from
the poem " The Earthly Paradise/' down through wall
papers, chintzes, and old furniture, till they arrived at
the internal and external decorations of his shop in
Oxford Street. In everything they lauded Morris
to the skies, and allowed no one else to get a word
in edgeways.
But, if Miss Hardy and I were interested in what
they said, and their way of saying it, I think Lady
Hardy and my mother became rather bored. Now,
as I have said elsewhere, my mother was always an
admirable listener ; she was repose personified, and I
had been that very evening contrasting her quiet,
dignified manner with the animated volubility of some
of the other ladies. I must here mention that they
never spoke of Mr. Morris's " shop," but called it " the
establishment." I suppose this puzzled my mother,
for she at last asked :
" What is the establishment ? '
246 In the Sixties and Seventies
They explained.
" Oh, you mean the shop in Oxford Street," re-
turned my mother.
" You may call it a shop, but it is always spoken of
as the establishment."
" But why not call it a shop ? ' said my mother.
" I thought goods were displayed in the window for
sale"
" So they are. Mr. Morris has some beautiful
Louis XV. chairs and cabinets that are in the window ;
but for all that one would not like to say he keeps a
shop/1 This was said in the most reproving tone.
" But what nonsense when he does keep one ! '
replied my mother, then added, <c Is he not a
Socialist ? '
" Oh yes, he believes every one ought to be equal,
and all that kind of thing ; but I don't think he would
like to be considered a tradesman. I know he does
not consider himself one."
" Fancy calling William Morris a tradesman !
exclaimed a young lady in an awed voice. " He's a
giant — a reformer. No one would dare to say he
keeps a shop."
" The place in Oxford Street is a shop," returned
my mother determinedly, " and I shall call it a shop."
This put an end to the discussion and so damped
their enthusiasm that they said no more. But all these
ladies looked in anything but a friendly manner at
my mother, and a young lady, whose name I have
44 Establishment " versus " Shop " 247
forgotten, but whose " principal feature was eye, and
greatest accomplishment gush," evidently considered
her a Philistine of the most dangerous and rampant
kind.
It struck me at that time — I was not then used to
the inconsistencies of people — as very odd that these
ladies should admire a man for his socialistic opinions,
and yet be so far from taking him seriously as to
declare he would be false to his tenets by being ashamed
of calling himself a tradesman, or a shop a shop. I
had yet to learn that there are people who hate above
all things to call things by their right names ; who
like to pretend and cheat themselves into believing that
things are not as they are, or what they are, but
something infinitely better and less prosaic. I had
illusions of my own — very many — but it puzzled
me to imagine why " establishment ' should sound
grander, or more poetical, than " shop." " Estab-
lishment " gave me the idea of a gloomy, uninteresting
building, of the warehouse or public baths sort, while
a " shop ' was an artistic, brilliant, and beautiful place.
In telling this little anecdote to my father, and
making him laugh at the indignation and contempt
these ladies showed for my mother's down-right
speech and manner, I expressed my wonder at Mr.
William Morris's views, as represented by his friends.
" Morris has none of that snobbishness about him,"
said my father; "and if he heard it, would be the
first to say ' preserve me from my friends/
248 In the Sixties and Seventies
I was always sorry my mother had insisted on the
word ct shop," as it ended the conversation, and
seemed to offend the coterie of aesthetic ladies. I
said so to my father ; he agreed, and remarked that
people seldom relish the truth.
Talking of truth reminds me of an anecdote of
Dr. Richardson and my father. When Dr. Richardson's
book, Hygeia, the City of Health, was published, my
father said to him one day chaffingly :
" What do you mean by telling us that all our
houses are unhealthy and insanitary because we have
paper on our walls, and because we haven't our
kitchens in the attics ? '
" Ah, Friswell," he replied, " if you want people to
notice you, it's no use telling them the truth ; the
thing is, to start a thundering big lie — then they'll
believe in you."
CHAPTER XXI
MR. JOSEPH ELLIS — SNOWED UP ON THE LINE — AN OLD ENGLISH HOME
-" ORION '* HORNE — MR. DALLAS — MISS ISABELLA DALLAS GLYN—
MISS GLYN ON MARRIAGE — AN EVENING PARTY AND AN AMUSING
INCIDENT — A NEW VERSION OF PETRARCH AND LAURA.
ONE of the most remarkable men I knew was
Mr. Joseph Ellis. He was a gentleman of
the old school ; his manners were punctilious, and his
dress was eccentric. He always wore a frock coat
and a large silk cravat, which was tied in a loose bow
with flowing ends, and was generally of some brilliant
colour ; the sleeves of his coat were made very long
and lined at the wrists with velvet ; he then turned
them right back and they formed a cuff; his shirt
and collar were of very fine linen and seemed to
have little stiffness in them. In the country and
sometimes in Brighton, he wore short Wellington or
riding-boots, his trousers tucked in the tops ; his
felt hat had rather a high crown ; he had keen, bright,
kindly eyes under overhanging brows, a bald head,
long iron-grey hair, and a bushy beard. His father
had built and kept the old Star and Garter Hotel
at Richmond, and he had known many very famous
people in his day. Mr. Joseph Ellis was the elder
349
250 In the Sixties and Seventies
brother of Sir John Whittaker Ellis, and the cleverest
of a large family who were all successful men of
business. Mr. Ellis was not only a first-rate man
of business, but had great good taste in both literature
and art. He was not bitten by the vulgar money-
at-any-cost mania, but was absolutely fond of literature
and art, not as an investment, but from pure love.
In this he was greatly in advance of his family and
friends, who were all very charming and amiable
people, but, with one or two exceptions, did not at
all appreciate the beautiful things which he collected
around him, nor the clever people he often invited
to his house. He was, too, a poet, and his books,
Ctesar in Egypt, Constanza, Columbus at Seville, and
others, contrasted well with much that was written
then and is written and published now.
The first edition of Columbus at Seville came out in
1869, the second in 1876, before Tennyson's Columbus,
which was published in 1880. A copy of the second
edition of Columbus at Seville was sent by the
author to Tennyson. Both the poems, Columbus at
Seville and Tennyson's Columbus are in monologue,
the difference being that one is a soliloquy, the
other an objurgation ; but, admitting some differences,
there are many similarities, as there no doubt must
be when two poets take the same subject. Hence
the author of Columbus at Seville is on his defence,
and says in his preface to the third edition that " he
can scarcely be unconscious how, without explanation,
Mr. Joseph Ellis 251
he might be accused of paraphrase, or at least of
reverberation," and any one who reads them both will
grant this.
It was during my Christmas holidays that I first saw
Mr. Ellis, who came one snowy winter's day to Great
Russell Street and carried me off in a cab to Victoria
Station, where we entered a train bound for Balcombe
in Sussex. I was provided with a footwarmer and
a carriage rug ; the latter Mr. Ellis tucked well round
me. Then he took off his soft felt, high-crowned
hat, pushed back his long hair, and donned a black
velvet smoking-cap, and, tucking a rug round himself,
proceeded to fall asleep. Three old gentlemen in the
carriage did likewise, and I was left to my own
reflections, which as the train sped on into the darkness
were anything but pleasant.
I did not know Mr. Ellis's family, and felt nervous
at going among strangers ; the weather was not genial,
and I seemed to be travelling far away from London
into quite an unknown country. My companions
were all, with the exception of Mr. Ellis, white-
haired and pallid ; he was pale, and his hair and
beard were streaked with grey. They all looked
ghastly in the dim light of the oil lamps ; the noise
of the train prevented my hearing their breathing,
and I thought they looked as if they were dead.
The idea was appalling — I tried not to think, not to
look at them ; but I grew more and more nervous,
my feet were like ice, and my teeth began to chatter,
252 In the Sixties and Seventies
I was so concerned at the look of my four com-
panions that I had not noticed how the train had
slackened speed ; but I became conscious of the
windows of other carnages being let down with sundry
bumps, and of a great deal of whistling. At last with
a jerk the train came to a stand ; the three old
gentlemen, like so many Rip Van Winkles, began
slowly to rouse themselves and feel their ellebows and
£-nees, and Mr. Ellis opened his eyes and stared
at the white-faced, terror-stricken girl before him.
" Why, Miss Laura, Miss Laura ! ' he said, and
then, " God bless me ! ' he cried, " what are we
standing here for ? '
Up he jumped, down went the window with a bang,
out went his head.
" Porter ! porter ! ' he shouted, " why don't you
answer ? What the devil are you about ?- -blocked-
train blocked ? — stuff ! — snowstorm ? — fiddlesticks !-
line covered ? — well, make haste and clear it then ;
don't keep us here all night."
Up went the window again, Mr. Ellis making
a peculiar blowing noise with his lips, which made
me think he was very cold, but which when I knew
him better I found was only a curious habit he had.
My courage was quite restored ; the sound of his loud
and resolute voice brought much comfort to me.
Down he sat, and leaning forward took hold of my
hands, unbuttoned my gloves, pulled them off, and
began to rub my hands.
"Snowed Up" 253
" That's better," he said ; " why, I began to think
you were petrified — poof, poof !- -what should I have
done with a statue ? ' Then turning to the old
gentlemen, he remarked, " What a scandalous line
this is ! "
The three Rip Van Winkles agreed, and even sat
up, with sundry groans in the process, and talked in
a rather ghoulish way of snowstorms and accidents
through trains being snowed up, also of snowstorms
during mountain climbing. Some of those tales were
weird and wonderful, and quite dramatic as they were
told to the accompaniment of flashing lights, hoarse
shouts, and continual vituperation from some of the
passengers in the other carriages. Mr. Ellis was very
restless, and showed it by frequently letting down the
window, when the drifting snow and icy blast would
rush in ; he also insisted on some one coming to
report how things were getting on. Once he induced
me to look out, and I saw an animated and curious
scene — a band of men with picks, shovels, and in-
numerable lanterns, whose light fell on a great mound
of snow, while the firelight from the engine lighted up
some of their faces, and the engine itself puffed and
snorted like some live thing in impatience and pain.
It was an hour before the line was cleared and we
could proceed.
We were both so cold that we could scarcely walk
up the long flight of steps that led from the platform
at Balcombe Station to the road ; there we found Mr.
254 In the Sixties and Seventies
Ellis's brougham waiting. I stepped in, but my host
elected to walk, so we went along the snowy road at
a walking pace, Mr. Ellis talking to his coachman,
and now and again coming to the window to speak
to me. No vehicle passed us on the road, nor were
there any shops or houses : except where the carriage
lights shone on the snow all was darkness and desola-
tion, and to a girl used to the lights and noise of
London and the country town of Watford it seemed
the end of the world. From the road we turned into
a long avenue, and at last drew up at " Monks,'1 a
quaint house that had once been a monastery.
I entered a large roomy porch, and was taken
through the hall to the drawing-room — a long, low
room with an organ at one end of it, a piano near
the fireplace, the walls covered with water colours,
round them quaint old furniture of the Sheraton
period ; a modern chair or two and a settee covered
in chintz stood out in the room. Mrs. Ellis and
her daughter came forward and welcomed me, making
me take a low chair in front of a glorious fire, built
up of largt logs placed across dogs. I knew then
what was the cause of the curious pungent smell I
noticed directly I entered the house — it was the
smell of the wood ashes. There were no grates,
except in the bedrooms, and in all the rooms wood
was most generally burnt.
" Monks ' was an ideal old English home, for
Mr. Ellis farmed his own land, brewed his own beer
Dallas of "The Times" 255
and made his own bread. I was delighted, and never
tired of looking at the churning, brewing, and baking ;
though I never saw Mr. or Mrs. Ellis in either
brewery, dairy, or bakehouse. One was in the library
reading or writing, the other in the drawing-room
discoursing most excellent music on organ or piano.
A year or two after, in Mr. Ellis's house in Brighton,
I met Mr. R. H. Home, the author of Orion, a
magnificent poem published at the price of one farthing,
to show at what a price the Philistine Englishman,
in the author's opinion, appraised true poetry. He
was a little old man, full of quaint sayings and pungent
satire ; he was generally known as " Orion ' Home,
and had been, I believe, a great friend of the
Brownings, of whom he delighted to talk.
It was at Brighton too that I met Dallas, a leader
writer on The Times, and husband of Miss Glyn, a well-
known actress and reader of Shakespeare's plays. I
remember going into the dining-room in Hampton
Lodge, and seeing Mr. Ellis showing a very good-
looking man some fine pictures which hung on
the walls. I was retiring with a murmured apology
when Mr. Ellis called me and introduced me to
Mr. Dallas.
" This is Hain Frisweirs daughter," said Mr. Ellis.
"Why, she's like " began Dallas, but I was
gone before the sentence was finished.
We were Dante's Beatrice * and Petrarch's Laura
* Miss Ellis's name was Beatrice
256 In the Sixties and Seventies
down at Brighton, and that was bad enough ; I did
not want to hear about an unfortunate Queen.
Not long after I was introduced to Mr. Dallas I
met Miss Glyn, or Isabella Dallas Glyn, as she was
called. I had heard her in Anthony and Cleopatra,
and did not like it — which no doubt was bad taste
on my part, as she was considered very clever ; but
I am not very fond of hearing a play read, and I
thought Miss Glyn too big for Cleopatra, whose
mummy I knew well in the British Museum.
Miss Glyn stayed several days at Hampton Lodge
whilst I was there ; she took a great liking to me
and used to come into my bedroom, which was a
very large room, and sit by the sofa while I was
lying down ; or she would pace up and down the
room talking and telling me anecdotes, till Mrs. Ellis's
maid would come to dress me for dinner, and then
away she went to don some gorgeous apparel, of which
she always asked my opinion. She was a fine, stout,
handsome woman, with a bright complexion, and very
long dark hair. She used to talk in an abrupt manner,
and criticised her host and hostess and their friends
in the most free-and-easy style, which made me
boil with indignation, for I was very fond of Mr. and
Mrs. Ellis and their family, and Balcombe and Brighton
were almost like my own home. The first time I
had any conversation with Miss Glyn she began :
u Well, so I hear from Ellis that you have seen
Dallas — what did you think of him ?
Miss Glyn on Marriage 257
44 1 did not think anything of him," I replied, too
astonished at her address to consider my answer.
This reply tickled her hugely ; she threw back her
head and laughed.
" Bravo ! you know he's my husband, I suppose ? '
I did know, but had forgotten it, and was over-
whelmed with confusion ; fortunately she was too
fond of talking to notice that I failed to reply.
" He's a handsome man — every one must admit
that- -but, the temper of a fiend — so we parted ; and
now take my advice and don't marry — but there,
what's the use of my saying that ? With your hair,
eyes, and complexion do you think the men will let
you escape ?--no, of course not."
I was glad she answered herself. She took a turn
or two up and down the room, and then, stopping
abruptly near me, said :.
" You have a beautiful voice ; why don't you go on
the stage ? '
" I should like to be a ballad singer," I replied.
" Concert singer — nonsense ! Go on the stage ; I
should love to teach you elocution."
I almost said that my father would rather see me in
my grave than an actress, but I refrained in time and
told her I should like it, which was true. Several
times she renewed her offers of teaching me elocution,
but my father would not hear of it.
"Do anything but marry," was her advice to me
when she and I left Brighton and travelled to London
258 In the Sixties and Seventies
together. Hearing I was collecting autographs, she
sent me a great many.
When the British Association met at Brighton
Mr. Ellis would collect round him most of the well-
known men who came down to lecture or speak, and
entertain them right royally, throwing his house open
and giving luncheons, dinners, and conversaziones. At
the latter he turned out all his art treasures, and the
house was like a museum. Another time he had a
stage and sloping seats erected in the library, and he
was made up and dressed for the part of Columbus
and recited his own poem.
He read and recited very well, but in rather a
monotonous tone ; however, as the poem, Columbus
at Seville, is a soliloquy, perhaps it was as well to make
it mournful and somewhat stilted. Mr. Ellis looked
very well in a long black velvet garment ; he was
dressed after a print in the British Museum, and was
certainly very like it.
The room was packed, and the recitation proceeded
for some time without interruption ; it is a long poem
in blank verse.
" I told them I was serving God and Queen,
And forward must they with me to the end,"
said Columbus, and then continued for some thirty
lines more, till in a fine burst he said :
" At earliest break of dawn they shouted ' Land ! '
Delightful thought ! when first I lifted hand
And kissed ."
An Amusing Incident 259
" Sh-should like to kish shure hand," said a thick
voice.
" What ! what ! what ! answered Columbus
testily. " What is that you say ? '
" Sh-sh-should like to be the Queen and kish
shure hand."
An audible titter ran through the room, but 1 am
glad to say it was instantly suppressed, and many
people glared savagely at the man, who was the
culprit, and who, with bloodshot, twinkling eyes and
Bardolphian nose, sat just behind me. I, with one
of Mr. Ellis's sons, was in the front row of seats,
and we both suffered considerably in trying not to
laugh, for the descent from the stately Columbus to
the irritated poet was so rapid and so characteristic.
For my own part I could have slain the man, I was
so sorry the incident occurred, so sorry for Mr. Ellis ;
for, with the fondness of the ordinary biped for jokes,
all serious thought of the poem was forgotten, and
after it was over every one talked of the man's in-
terruption and Mr. Ellis's want of presence of mind
in answering.
I used to feel very proud, but also somewhat
embarrassed, when Mr. Ellis read his poems to me.
I was very fond of poetry and used even then to read
Keats, Pope, and Coleridge, as well as my beloved
Longfellow and Tennyson ; but I felt I was not
competent to criticise any one's poems, and one day
in my ignorance I said so to my host. It was a fine
260 In the Sixties and Seventies
spring morning, and I was getting rather tired of
sitting in the library, with its windows of tinted glass,
that only looked upon stuccoed walls which were a
few feet off — for Brighton economises space even in
its best streets and amongst its largest houses.
I fancy I can see the sombre room, lined with
books ; the poet verging on old age, the girl on the
threshold of womanhood ; it was Petrarch and Laura
over again, but v/ith a difference — one might say with
many differences, for to my <c old knight," as Mr.
Ellis used to call himself, I was only a child, and when
he read his poems to me it was only for lack of
some one older and more appreciative to read them to.
I knew it, knew it all the time, and used to do my
utmost to understand and appreciate, and to please
him, for I was very fond of him, and I knew well
the longing for appreciation and interest that all authors
feel. He wrote some charming sonnets, and those
I liked to hear him read ; but on the particular sunny
morning of which I am thinking he was reading
Ctfsar in Egypt, and, if the truth must be known, I
always hated Anthony and Cleopatra, and pitied Caesar.
Then the sunshine called me — and I loved the sea
intensely and could fancy how it sparkled in the sun ;
so when Mr. Ellis paused in his reading and looked
at me, instead of praising the passage, I said :
"I — I really don't think I am competent to judge
of "
" My dear Miss Laura," broke out the poet, " I
A Modern Laura 261
don't want your criticism ; I am only reading to amuse
you."
I felt very much ashamed of myself, and yet had
a strong desire to laugh. Mr. Ellis sighed and looked
at me, half closing the book. I wanted to say, uDo
go on, I am interested," but the sea and the sunshine
called me, I longed to be on the beach. While I
hesitated the door opened and Mrs. Ellis stood in
the doorway.
<c I want Laura to come for a drive ; it's too bad
to keep her in this bright morning, Joseph."
" Take her away, / don't want her," replied Mr.
Ellis sharply, and I, with burning cheeks, escaped.
CHAPTER XXII
AT FRAMPTON COURT — THE HON. MRS. NORTON AND HER SONS — TWO
AMUSING MISTAKES — BEXLEY HEATH — THE VILLAGE AUTOCRATS—
THEIR OPINION OF THE AUTHOR OF "THE EARTHLY PARADISE."
IN the memoir of my father I have told how he
went down to Frampton Court to stay with Mr.
Richard Brinsley Sheridan, and to meet Motley, the
author of The Dutch Republic, and that he was taken
with a fit of coughing at dinner, and found he had
broken a blood-vessel on the lungs. He left the
table, went into the library and rang the bell. A
footman answered it, and he requested him to send
for a doctor and then to assist him to bed, but on no
account was he to alarm or disturb the company.
My father was so pale and spoke with such difficulty
that the man was too frightened to remember what he
was told, and rushed into the dining-room exclaiming,
" He's dying ! he's dying ! the gentleman's dying ! '
Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan, the Hon. Mrs. Norton,
and several people came to my father, who begged
them to go back to the dinner table, and not to be
alarmed. All he wanted was to go to bed and to
take ice or vinegar to stop the bleeding till the doctor
262
At Frampton Court 263
came. My mother was telegraphed for. I so well
remember the telegram coming late at night, and the
awful look on my mother's face. She and my grand-
mother were up all night ; my mother could not sleep,
and wandered about the house while my grandmother
looked out trains and packed up. In the cold, grey
morning my mother started, and soon after a telegram
came for me to go with her, but it was too late.
My father was most seriously ill — in fact, he nearly
died. My mother never left him for ten days, and
Mr. and Mrs. Sheridan and Mrs. Norton used to
write and send up to her numbers of little notes.
They spent a very dull Christmas, having to put off
all the mummers and other village festivities. My
father and mother were over a month at Frampton
Court, and a lasting friendship was thus cemented
between them, the Sheridans, and the Hon. Mrs.
Norton, who was Mr. Sheridan's sister, and grand-
daughter of Sheridan the dramatist.
On Sunday afternoons in the season Mr. and Mrs.
Sheridan, often accompanied by Mrs. Norton, would
come to our house for an hour's chat ; M. Van-de-
Weyer, the Belgian Minister, himself an author, would
drive up in his carriage and stay to tea, and other
well-known people, artists, actors, editors, and poets
would drop in. Mrs. Norton was a most charming
old lady, still handsome, with bright dark eyes and
beautiful white hair ; her granddaughter was a girl of
about my own age, her grandson, Richard Norton,
264 In the Sixties and Seventies
now Lord Grantley, a handsome boy a year or two
younger.
My father and mother often went to luncheon with
Mrs. Norton in Chesterfield Street, Mayfair, and now
and then I was especially invited, she always writing
and speaking to me as " Marie Antoinette."
I well remember the first time my father and mother
took me to luncheon with her. Except for her grand-
daughter she was alone. It was on Academy Sunday,
so my father and mother left to visit some studios,
promising to return for me. Then we adjourned to
Mrs. Norton's pretty drawing-room, and we girls sat
on a rug at her feet, while she told us stories of her
youth. I can recall the scene now — the beautiful old
lady, the pretty room, the bright fire, and the pale
sunlight that, struggling through the rose-coloured
blinds, threw on sofas, chairs, cabinets, and old china
a mystic glow. One anecdote I remember ; it was
about her sons — she had three, and one day she was
talking to them, telling them that when they grew up
they would have to get their own living. She told
them how great a thing it was to grow up an honest,
brave, true-hearted man, and she illustrated her little
lecture by giving instances of some of the great men
who had fought for the good of mankind in the Army,
the Church, Law or Science. When she finished she
asked :
" Now, boys, what would you like to be ? and
they cried with one voice :
At Frampton Court 265
" Freebooters, mamma, freebooters ! '
After the anecdotes I sang to her, amongst other
songs, her own " Juanita." I remember she sat close
by my side, and told me how to say u Nita !- -Oo —
anita ! ' in a very staccato manner, and she paid my
voice a great many compliments. Then we returned
to the fire and she told us stories of her home, of her
sisters Lady Dufferin and the Duchess of Somerset.
When my father and mother returned for me and we
at last emerged into the street, I felt as if I had come
from the Old World into the New, and it seemed
not half so pleasant as that in which those three lovely
women lived. But I had heard nothing of troubles ;
the rose-coloured light of that pretty room had
coloured the stories, and I was only conscious of a
vague sadness in Mrs. Norton's face and voice.
I think here I must tell a rather good story which,
though it has nothing whatever to do with Mrs.
Norton, I yet always think of when she comes into
my mind.
Not many years ago I was calling on some people
who lived on Wimbledon Common. It was an At
Home day and the room was fairly full. As I sat
down near the tea table my hostess said to a lady
at my side :
" Let me introduce Mrs. Myall to you ; she is
the daughter of a well-known literary man, the
late Mr. Hain Friswell — of course you know his
books ? "
266 In the Sixties and Seventies
<c Ah, yes — er — let me see." She paused an im-
perceptible moment, and then, looking at me with
a beaming smile, said, " He is the author of The
School for Scandal^ is he not ? '
Of course, as ill luck would have it, there was a
lull in the conversation, and it seemed to me that
this unfortunate statement echoed round the room.
All the company appeared to await my answer, and
I was as red as a peony and covered with confusion ; I
wanted to cover her mistake, but could think of
nothing for what seemed a long time, although in
reality the pause was very slight before I said :
" Sheridan wrote The School for Scandal ; he died
before my father was born, but I knew his grand-
daughter, the Hon. Mrs. Norton ; she was a very
old lady when I knew her."
" Ah, indeed," said my neighbour in the coollest
way — she had not turned a hair. " I read a great
deal, but I never know who writes the books."
A little more than a year ago another curious
mistake occurred. I was at a large literary and
journalistic soiree, and was talking to a lady, the
wife of an editor of one of our great daily papers.
We had only met twice before, and she was recalling
this.
" I remember you quite well," she said ; a we met
at the dinner of The Institute of Journalists- -your
name is Hain Friswell, and you are the daughter of
Hans Christian Andersen.'
At Bexley Heath 267
" You have made a mistake," I replied. " Hans
Andersen was never married."
She looked at me quite resentfully, and tried to
argue the point, and I left her only half convinced.
After my father's serious illness at Frampton Court
he was delicate for a long time— in fact, he was never
perfectly well again, and though he lived for eight
years he was practically an invalid. In the summer
of 1 870 he took a small house at Bexley Heath, in
Kent, and we divided our time between that place
and London.
The little village of Bexley is on the loop line
to Maidstone, a line that takes Time not by the
forelock, but by the hindermost part, and never by
any chance hurries itself; so, though only twelve
miles from Charing Cross, it seems farther than
Brighton, one is so long getting there : added to this
Bexley itseJf is in a hollow, and is not considered
so healthy as Bexley Heath, where people are said
to live to a patriarchal old age. " The Heath," as
the inhabitants call it, is nearly two miles from Bexley,
and to get there, either riding or walking, it is necessary
to climb a very steep hill. When you are there the
view over fourteen miles of country is very beautiful,
but the Heath itself is an eyesore, a blot on the
landscape — it consists of a medley of houses, shops,
and St. John's Woodian villas, built along the Dover
Road, one of the old Roman roads over which
the coaches used to run when Bexley Heath was the
268 In the Sixties and Seventies
resort of highwaymen. Indeed, there are remarkable
stories told to this day as to how the inhabitants of
the Heath made their money. But that part of the
Dover Road is like so many of our old Roman roads,
now disfigured with tram l^nes and the hideous
overhead wires. One almost wonders that the ghosts
of passengers, drivers, guards, and highwaymen do
not join issue and rise up in judgment at such
sacrilege.
Our habitation was a low, double-fronted cottage
standing in a beautiful and prolific garden, with trees
which screened it from the road. My father called
it u Bayard Cottage," and it still retains the name ;
but when he took it it went by various names, and
we were very much amused when we went shopping
to find that our local habitation had no name of its
own, but was always spoken of as u next door to
Bullman's."
The inhabitants of Bexley Heath consisted at that
time of middle-aged ladies and gentlemen who had
avoided the married state, retired military men who
grumbled at everything, and young married people
wrapped up in themselves and their children. My
eldest brother was with Mr. Norman Lockyer, and
lived in town ; and we at BexJey Heath found
that " happy village ' deadly dull at times. Fortun-
ately we were all fond of reading, writing, painting,
music, and gardening, and we were much amused at
the people who called upon us. Their ideas of artists,
At Bexley Heath 269
authors, and actors were of the most crude kind ; they
seemed to have the old-fashioned notion that they
were "vagabonds." Like most of those who live in
a narrow sphere, they understood little outside it,
and they told some preposterous stories and made
some wonderful statements.
I remember one of the autocrats of the Heath
calling and making some astounding statements about
William Morris, who had built a house in the place.
His chief offence appeared to be having tea parties
on Sunday. I was generally silent, but on this
occasion I was roused, and was soon in dire disgrace
for taking up the cudgels on his behalf. I said
plainly, I thought Bexley Heath should be proud that
such a man as the author of u The Earthly Paradise '
had lived there. I was promptly told " little girls
should be seen and not heard." This was adding
insult to injury, for I was by no means a little
girl. I can remember well my father's amused smile,
which grew into a laugh when the lady asserted that
she " had heard, and felt sure it must be true, that
Mrs. Morris had been in a circus ; no one could
ride and manage a horse so beautifully but a
performer."
My father explained that this rumour was quite false,
but the autocrat refused to be convinced, and said,
" That was not the worst ; the man Morris was quite
a heathen, for it was well known down there that he
was married in his drawing-room, the ceremony being
270 In the Sixties and Seventies
of a most curious character, and afterwards he had
it painted upon the wall."
This was such an astounding statement that we
were very much puzzled, and asked ourselves what
preposterous story had got about, and how had it
been arrived at ? It was some time before we dis-
covered the origin.
The house Morris built was called the Red House.
It stood in a quiet country road ; was surrounded
by a very high red-brick wall, in which were large,
high wooden gates. The garden was not very
extensive, and was very prim, the trees in some
instances being cut into shapes. The house itself
was substantial, but decidedly gloomy-looking ; the
windows were long and narrow, the roof very steep,
and the chimneys charming. Inside it looked cold
and gloomy, but when I went over the house it was
empty. The rooms were lofty, the windows so high
that no one could see out of them ; there were red-
brick hoods over the fireplaces, which consisted of
a hearth and dogs ; there were no stoves. In the
drawing-room was a musicians' gallery, and round the
walls were frescoes, one representing a mediaeval
marriage. This was the picture which had caused
such silly stories to be spread abroad most likely by
ignorant servants ; but that people with any education
or sense should repeat them was astounding.
CHAPTER XXIII
MY FATHER'S ILLNESS — RICE'S IDEA OF WIT — A RUSH FOR THE DOCTOR
-I GIVE MR. RICE A FRIGHT BY WAY OF REVENGE — ALONE AT
BAYARD COTTAGE.
MY father had taken Bayard Cottage by the
year ; we therefore spent the summer out of
town, but in the August of 1870 a novel of my
father's (One of Two) began as a serial in Once
a Week) and he had so much other work, he said he
must come to London for a time. He therefore lent
the cottage to a friend, and we all came up to town.
My mother was much against this, as my father's
health was so delicate she was always anxious about
him, and took especial care that he should not take
cold. She found that he was better in the purer and
more invigorating air of Bexley Heath, where he had
few friends, and there were neither theatres nor clubs
to entice him out in the evening air.
Early in September our friend gave up Bayard
Cottage, and my mother went down to see that it
was ready for our occupation. The evening of the
day my mother left Mr. Rice called, and I wished he
had not, for I felt sure he would take my father to
271
272 In the Sixties and Seventies
a hot theatre or club, and there was the risk of his
catching cold coming home. I have said that we all
liked Mr. Rice very much ; he was an exceedingly
pleasant man, but not one a girl would care to ask
a favour of ; so it took some struggle for me to
make up my mind to go out into the hall and speak
to him before he went upstairs to the study. Directly
I came into the hall the servant left, and after I had
shaken hands with Mr. Rice I said :
" If you please, if my father wants to go out, say
you would rather not — say that you would rather stay
in the study."
Though Rice knew how ill my father had been,
he evidently did not realise how delicate he was ; he
therefore looked at me with what he considered a
fascinating smile, and answered in this enigmatical
manner :
" Won't his mother let him out ? '
I could make nothing of this speech. I supposed
it was meant for a joke, but it appeared to me quite
meaningless ; and so terribly in earnest was I that I
grew hot with nervousness and anger, tears coming
into my eyes, because I knew that I was being treated
as a child — being laughed at, in fact. I drew myself
up, and answered with dignity :
" I do not in the least know what you mean, but
I shall be obliged if you will do as I ask you. Hot
rooms are bad for my father, and the wind is cold
to-night.7'
Rice's Idea of Wit 273
I thought this would settle the matter, but not a
bit of it. Mr. Rice, still smiling, took out his large
pocket-handkerchief with a flourish, and seemed to
scatter Ess Bouquet all over the hall, while he said :
<c And can't his mother trust him, then ? '
For one moment I wondered if he were drunk, then
I looked at him and replied angrily :
" Trust my father ! What do you mean ? '
"You would like to knock me down, I verily
believe," he murmured in an amused tone.
" If I were a man I would ! ' I retorted, as I looked
him straight in the eyes and clenched my hands.
" Oh, you little spit-fire ! I believe you would} for
you're not a bit like a girl."
I left him to have the last word, which a man so
dearly loves. With my head up I marched towards
the dining-room, while he mounted the stairs very
slowly, with many a backward look at me.
In about half an hour my father and Rice came
down into the dining-room, where we were sitting.
My father said they were going to the Savage Club.
My grandmother murmured some remonstrance, but
I spoke up, and said, " The wind is very cold." I
hoped Mr. Rice would have had the sense then to
suggest staying in and playing cards ; but he said
nothing, and only stood smiling at me. My father,
with a laugh, told me not to put on such an anxious
face — he was all right.
We spent anything but a pleasant evening, for I
18
274 In the Sixties and Seventies
could see my grandmother was very much worried.
The next morning she told me she had been up half
the night, my father's cough was so bad. At ten
o'clock haemorrhage came on and some one had to run
for ice (we were short of a servant, the housemaid
having gone for a fortnight's holiday). I had to go
for a doctor, and I well remember running out of
the house and down the street, struggling to get my
arms into my jacket, and saying aloud, " It's come, it's
come ! it means death this time ! O God, don't kill
my father ! don't let him die ! '
I tore down the street, and reaching Southampton
Row rushed at the first four-wheeler, trying with
my weak hands to open the door, but I could not
manage it. When the old driver came up and saw
the state of mind I was in, he exclaimed :
"Why, missie, missie, whatever is the matter?'
" My father's dying ! — put me in ! ' I cried, and
he lifted me into the cab. I gave him the address.
" Drive as fast as ever you can ! ' I said.
"All right — don't take on so, missie," he replied
as he banged the door. He scrambled on to the
box, and away we went at a gallop.
I had never been in a cab by myself in my life.
I was so alarmed about my father that for the first
few moments I could not see, and then when I looked
out of the window I failed in my excitement to recognise
the streets and houses. I knew the way quite well,
but in my hurry it seemed twice as long — was the
A Rush for the Doctor 275
cabman taking me wrongly ? Should I find myself
in some slum ? If I did not return, what would my
grandmother do ? — would she send for the nearest
doctor, and so not let my father die ? Oh, I hoped
and prayed she would ! I felt as if I must open the
cab door and jump out ; I thought of rapping at the glass
and shouting at the cabman, but what good would
it do ? I knew I had worked myself into a frenzy,
and so I sat still, with my hands and teeth clenched,
until we stopped at the doctor's door. The old
cabman thundered at it, while I, with great perse-
verance, opened the cab door, then jumped out, rushed
right past the cabman and servant, straight into the
consulting-room.
"Come at once — my father's dying!' I said, seizing
the doctor's hand.
Mr. Sellwood was a little man, with iron-grey
hair which stood almost on end. He had known
me since childhood. He wore spectacles, and he
glanced at me from over the top of his glasses,
saying :
" Nonsense — nothing of the sort," in the most
determined tone ; then he added severely, " Just
sit down and calm yourself; and now tell me all
about it."
His tone had calmed me, and I was able to give
him a clear account. As I talked he washed his hands
and collected several things which he put into a little
black bag ; then he made me drink some wine, and
In the Sixties and Seventies
taking my hand led me out to the cab. He gave
the man the address.
" Drive like the wind ! ' was all he said as he got
in.
I think Mr. Rice was troubled about my father,
for later that morning he came to see how he was.
" He is not very well," I said calmly, but I did not
tell him that he was in bed ; my father had expressed
a wish to see him if he called, and I merely asked
Mr. Rice to go up to his room. He went, but
returned in about ten minutes looking ghastly. He
sank into a chair and asked for some water. I rang
for some ; I thought he would have fainted. I sat
and watched him, but said nothing. For some time
he could not speak ; when he could he murmured
some excuse for the trouble he was giving me, and
said :
" I cannot endure the sight of blood — it always
turns me."
Still I did not speak ; I was glad he had had such
a fright, I thought it served him right. Finding I
would not speak, he said, in a pathetic tone :
" Oh, Miss Friswell, do you think this my fault ? '
" Why did you take him out last night ? ' I asked
severely.
" I did not propose it," he replied.
" But you never tried to prevent his going, as
I asked you."
Then you think I am to blame ? You are cruel."
cc
Mr. Rice Explains
277
Mr. Rice looked so pale and spoke so earnestly
I began to feel sorry for him.
" If your father dies, you will put his death at
my door/' he continued.
" I suppose he would have had this attack," I said
reluctantly ; " but it was a bad night, and then you
need not have insinuated that my father drank."
Rice gazed at me in horrified amazement. " I
never thought of such a thing," he said ; "your father
is a most abstemious man."
" Then what did you mean ? ' I asked earnestly,
and Mr. Rice was obliged to explain that he was
only joking, and that " won't his mother let him out ? '
and " can't she trust him, then ? ' were catch phrases
at one time.
He looked very contrite and so hurt at my not
understanding his jokes that I there and then gave
him a pot of Morella cherry jam, which was to have
been sent to him, as it was something of which he
was very fond, and was made of the Bayard Cottage
cherries. He carried it away as a peace offering.
That same afternoon my brother and I went to Bexley
Heath to send up my mother. I think we did our
best to cheer her ; but when she had started and
the carriage was out of sight, how melancholy we
were ! We were very young, and complete cockneys
— we were all alone, and knew little of the people or
the place.
CHAPTER XXIV
J. S. RICE AS AN EDITOR — THE OFFICES OF " ONCE A WEEK " — A RECIPE
FOR FALLING HAIR — "THE MORTIMERS" — A WONDERFUL REVIEW
-MR. RICE'S DELIGHT THEREAT — RICE ON LITERARY WOMEN.
MR. RICE had bought Once a Week^ and appeared
to be editor, proprietor, staff, and manager,
all in his own person. We were not so Americanised
in the seventies as we are now, but were more quiet
and less pretentious. Newspaper offices were not
ornamented outside and on the staircases with coloured
tiles, reminding one of public-houses. The offices
of weekly papers were not palatial, nor were there
Oriental carpets, modern Chippendale and Queen Anne
furniture, as one sees now. Typewriting and its
attendant nymphs were unknown, or I am sure
Mr. Rice would have had a staff; but I do not think
he would have consented to their adapting other
people's ideas, and making patchwork novels for his
paper, as some firms are so strongly suspected of
doing now. Grammar, if not style, was considered
then, and proprietors of papers thought something
of the prestige of their paper ; they took a certain
amount of pride in having good, well-written stories
273
An Editorial Office 279
and articles, and did not go in so much for the
" cheap and nasty ' -in fact, they prided themselves
on knowing and getting a good thing when they saw
it. They were more artistic and less commercial ;
they were not slaves to show, and did not think so
much of fine buildings, servants in livery, motor-cars,
and other luxuries ; and this being so, the papers
were not turned and twisted and spoilt because their
owners only thought of the large incomes to be
squeezed out of them.
But we are told there is a happy medium in all
things, which Mr. Rice evidently did not believe ;
for, in spite of his fashionable dress, he was very
careful of his money, and the offices of Once a Week^
which were in Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, were
dismal in the extreme. From the street you entered
a small shop, which was very neat and tidy, the
paper being piled on shelves, while a youth of twelve
stood, not in a glass cage, but behind a small counter,
and politely asked you your business. Having stated
your wish to see the editor, he did not thrust a
small printed form beneath your nose, and request
you to write your name and business, but, after saying
" I will see if he is disengaged," he came from behind
the counter and went to a door opposite the shop
door, and disappeared, reappearing after a few moments
to show you into the editor's sanctum. There, in a
small, dreary back room, whose walls were lined with
pigeon-holes full of dusty, yellow papers? and whose
280 In the Sixties and Seventies
window looked into a suicidal backyard, sat Mr.
Rice at a table, with a blotting pad and pen and ink
before him. Though I called several times with my
father, I never saw him writing, reading, or with any
papers lying about, as though he had been busy.
We sat upon cane chairs of the plainest description,
and while my father and the editor talked I con-
templated those yellow, dusty piles of manuscript.
When had they been written ? Who had written
them ? — and how long had they been there ? Were
they accepted, or rejected <c addresses "? — who could
tell ? Did Mr. Rice read them ? Somehow I could
not imagine his doing so.
One day when we went in the editor was very
melancholy. We thought the sale of the paper had
suddenly stopped — but no ; his hair was " getting
thin on the top, and he had only discovered it that
morning ! Could my 'father tell him what to do ? '
My father, with the most solemn face, gave him a
wonderful recipe, in which cayenne pepper, cod liver
oil, paraffin, and many other incongruous things, were
mixed. Before writing it down, Mr. Rice looked
from my father to me ; but I was equal to the occasion,
and never smiled. Afterwards I made my father
laugh, by saying disgustedly, " Fancy thinking of
your hair, when there are manuscripts to read ! ' Mr.
Rice always declared he tried the mixture ; he certainly
published the recipe in Ready Money Mortiboy.
I could never imagine Mr, Rice as an editor, and
Two Heroines 281
certainly not as an author ; he seemed to me to belong
to the City and the Stock Exchange, of which he
was so fond of talking. I did not know then that
he would become one of our most successful novelists,
nor that he would honour me so far as to make
me (so I was told on very good authority) the
model of two of his heroines — Phillis, in The Golden
Butterfly, and Laura Collingwood, in My Little Girl.
Such is the ingratitude of woman, especially of a young
woman — I read the books, but did not feel at all
flattered ! I did not think that either of these heroines
was particularly well drawn — they both seemed to
me so simple, not to say stupid. I hoped I had not
given people such an idea of simplicity, and so I said
to Mrs. McCarthy, who was my authority. She
laughed, and replied :
" You are the most simple, down-right girl I know ;
and Mr. Rice tells me that, with the exception of
making your hair dark brown, and your eyes brown,
the description of Phillis in The Golden Butterfly is you
to the life ; why, in both books even your dress is
described — do you mean to say you don't know it ? '
" 1 should not have noticed it, had you not told me."
"Then Rice need not have been afraid/' said Mrs.
McCarthy, with a laugh ; " and now do you feel
complimented ? '
" I never whistled a tune in my life — I can only
whistle a dog," I said resentfully ; " and I learnt to
read so long ago I can't remember itf"
282 In the Sixties and Seventies
Mrs. McCarthy laughed again.
"So that is it- -you resent Phillis's late education ;
but, my dear child, a novelist must make his heroine
peculiar in something ; of course she is not an exact
copy of you — almost, not quite. You can't whistle,
she can ; but then see what a mimic you are, so is
Phillis ; and you are so independent — more like a boy
than a girl, Mr. Rice says."
" So he told me, once," I replied, and added,
" I wish to goodness I was more like other girls- -I
do try to be."
"Then for mercy's sake don't! " was Mrs. McCarthy's
smiling reply.
Mr. Rice's first novel appeared in Once a Week,
and was called The Mortimers, A Novel with Two
Heroes. It is illustrated by H. K. Browne, and is
not a particularly well-written story. Many of the
pictures, and not a few of the scenes, have a strong
Dickensy flavour about them. In neither one case
nor the other is this remarkable, as " Phiz ' (H. K.
Browne) illustrated Pickwick, and Rice was a great
admirer of the novelist, and his sense of humour was
decidedly Dickensian. In Mr. Golightly, the Adven-
tures of an Amiable Man, one can see a likeness
to Verdant Green, and this I remarked when I
reviewed it on its appearance in book form.
It came out in 1871, and the title was somewhat
changed, it being called The Cambridge Freshman,
or the Memoirs of Mr. Golightly, by Martin Legrand.
My First Review 283
My father did not wish to review the book ; and
as at that time I sometimes acted as his secretary,
he gave a copy to me and said :
" Read this, and write down just what you think
of it, clearly and concisely.'*
It was my first attempt at reviewing ; I was rather
appalled at the importance of my office, but I did my
best. My father found no fault, except telling me I
must not make jokes ; but as the remark was rather
witty he would let it stand, though I was to remember
that reviewing books was too important a matter
to joke over ; but he looked so amused when he said
this that I thought him only half in earnest.
I have part of the review before me now, for Mr.
Rice was so mightily pleased with it he put it first
of all those quoted from the Press ; but, unfortunately,
he has left out the joke, and I cannot recall it ; I
only know it was something about St. Martin's Le
Grand, a play upon the author's pen name. His
pleasure was genuine, for he did not know who wrote
the review ; and how I came to witness his delight
was due to my father, who brought him into the
drawing-room, one afternoon, where I sat at work.
"I have been telling your father, Miss Friswell,
what a good review I have had in the . It is so
well written I made sure I had to thank him for it,
but he tells me I have not, and I am rather glad,
for it's doubly good to get a review like this from
a stranger ; it was something in the style made me
284 In the Sixties and Seventies
think it your father's, but so many people imitate
him now- -not that they succeed, they flounder
egregiously."
Mr. Rice seemed excited and restless, and walked
about as he talked, while my father sat and looked
at the fire with a smile on his face.
" You are sure you did not write it ? ' said Mr.
Rice, pausing close to me, but addressing my father.
"Quite sure," returned my father, looking very
much amused ; but as he always had a very bright and
cheerful expression, the merriment in his eyes roused
no suspicion in the breast of the novelist.
"Sit down, sit down, Rice, and read us this
wonderful review."
" Would you really like me to ? exclaimed Rice
boyishly, his face quite beaming with pleasure.
u Of course," said my father, " of course."
Mr. Rice put his hand into his pocket and drew
out a very smart pocket-book, and opening it took
out the review, returning the book to his breast-
pocket.
" Glad to see you wear it next your heart," said
my father ; " it should be written by a young lady."
" A woman ! ' returned Rice in a contemptuous
tone ; " no woman could have written //tzV--when did
you find a woman with a sense of humour, or who
would appreciate it ? Now Golightly is a humorous
book ; a woman would not have seen it, or if she
had would have written something scathing. But the
A Wonderful Review 285
reviewer actually makes a joke ; that in itself is a
proof it is not written by a woman — don't you
think so ? "
My father shrugged his shoulders, and gave me a
merry look, which I was afraid Rice would see. I
felt rather indignant with the novelist, for he always
had something to say against women, and I should
have liked to take up the cudgels in their favour
and cry aloud, " A girl wrote the review you
think so fine — a girl who is not considered in the
least clever"; but I knew my father would not
wish me to tell him, that if it was to be told he
would do so himself. While I was thinking Mr.
Rice was reading my review, laying particular stress
on some of the passages that he thought were like
my father's. When he had finished he said almost
defiantly :
" I consider that a well-written and just review.
That passage about the new author seeking to do
for his generation what Cuthbert Bede did for his
is good and true. I don't think much of the joke
about St. Martin's Le Grand, but reviewers will try
to be facetious, and — well, it's not so bad, it's rather
witty ; but what I like best is, you can see the critic
has read the book."
" Yes," said my father, tapping the fingers of one
hand upon the knuckles of the other. " Yes, I should
say the book has been read."
" And by a 'Varsity man too."
286 Jn the Sixties and Seventies
" I should not like to say that," replied my father,
with a reflective shake of his head.
"But I'm pretty certain of it. My first idea was
that it was you because of the style, but now I think
it's one of the clever young men who come up from
Oxford and Cambridge ; there are so many now in
journalism."
" Yes, worse luck ! ' interjected my father.
" Ah, but they would understand a book of this
kind ; it would appeal to them, as it would not and
could not to others — to the same extent, of course,
I mean — and that's why a woman could not have
written this."
"I don't see that, Mr. Rice," I ventured.
" Don't you ? But you don't know much about
literary women, do you ? '
Before I could answer he continued : " Literary
women ! I abhor them ! They are as plain as can be,
and their natures have been warped and soured
because men will not notice them."
My father laughed aloud, while 1 was too
astonished to speak ; when 1 found my voice I began
indignantly :
" Literary women are not ugly- -Mrs. Lynn Linton
isn't "
" No, but she — she has no husband," returned
Mr. Rice.
<f All people don't want husbands," I retorted. " Be-
sides, that's nothing to do with it ; women can be
Rice on Literary Women 287
pretty and clever — it's nonsense to think that women
who write are ugly and slovenly in their dress. Writing
is a gift, and "
" Don't you take to it, you are far too pretty,"
returned Mr. Rice hastily.
" That's just the kind of horrid, unjust, and absurd
speech "I began, when my father rose, and putting
his hand on Rice's shoulder, said :
" You have done it now — you had better come into
the study with me."
I knew from my father's manner that he did not
wish Mr. Rice to know who had written the review,
and was afraid I was going to confess.
" Won't you congratulate me ? This is the very
best review I've ever had," said Rice.
c< Oh, I do ; but I believe a woman wrote it," I
added mischievously.
Mr. Rice shook his head, and gave me a look as
if he pitied my ignorance ; and then the door closed
upon me, and I was left to enjoy a hearty laugh.
Rice never discovered the authorship of that review,
for my father, who had meant to tell him, that we
might all laugh together, when he found how much
he thought of it, refrained from doing so — but I
had many a temptation when I heard literary women
sneered at.
CHAPTER XXV
SIR WALTER BESANT — THE INCORPORATED SOCIETY OF AUTHORS-
i JOIN THE AUTHORS' SOCIETY — AN INTERVIEW WITH BESANT-
HE DISCOURSES ON HIS FAVOURITE TOPIC — " THE GENTLE LIFE "-
AND ITS PUBLISHERS — A LETTER FROM LADY LYTTON.
REMINISCENCES of J. S. Rice naturally re-
mind me of Sir Walter Besant — older, more
practical, and even more level-headed, I should say.
Though Mr. Rice gave me the idea of not being
very poetical or imaginative in the days when I knew
him, yet I have heard it said that most of what there
is of poetry and humour in the Rice and Besant novels
was due to him.
Sir Walter Besant will not, perhaps, go down to
posterity as a great novelist, but rather as a philan-
thropist— the friend of the poor, and especially of the
poor literary man ; and this will be greater fame;
for great as it is to be the master of your art, I think
it is even greater to be the promoter of two such in-
stitutions as The Incorporated Society of Authors and
the People's Palace.
Speaking of the Authors' Society, it is no small
thing to start a society for the benefit of people in
your own class. So much is done for the " poor,"
288
Besant and the Authors' Society 289
so little for the great middle class — thousands of whom
have a very hard struggle to make a living at all,
thousands of whom exist in penury, if not in absolute
want ; and no one knows, nor cares, because the
gently nurtured amongst the middle class are inde-
pendent, and do not grab all they can like some of
the rich, nor fawn and whine as do so many of the
lower class ; yet theirs is often the harder fate, for
being between the two stools they not infrequently
come to the ground.
The troubles and quarrels of authors have filled
books, for the position of literary people has always
been most unsatisfactory ; therefore it is no wonder
that murmurs of discontent were always to be heard.
That discontent, as Sir Walter Besant says in his
autobiography, "may be traced back, for a hundred
and fifty years, simply by the continuous, beaded
string of epigrams in which they have relieved their
angry souls." To break out into epigram may be
clever and amusing, but it is not so businesslike as
starting a Society with these three objects : (i) The
maintenance, definition, and defence of literary copy-
right ; (2) the consolidation and amendment of the
laws of domestic copyright ; (3) the promotion of
international copyright. This was the intention the
Authors' Society started with ; and though it was
hoped it would not cause offence, it certainly did so,
in the minds of many publishers, and even of authors
themselves,
290 In the Sixties and Seventies
I was born and bred within a literary circle,
and had heard much of the sharpness of publishers
(not from my father, who had quite an affection for
S. Low & Co.) and the poverty of authors ; and
still it seemed to me, from what I had heard and
seen, that authors worked as hard as, or harder than,
others, and yet were treated so differently. One
of the things I could never understand was why people
should expect an author to give away his books ;
and even seem to think that they were paying
the author compliments by asking for copies of his
works ; yet not one of these same people would
have thought of asking a merchant friend for a
bale of cloth, or a doctor to visit him for nothing.
But there was a silly feeling that it was beneath the
dignity of letters to go into the business side of the
question. Authors and their families were, I believe,
supposed to live on flattery and fame ; but if so,
it was a very poor living, for fame never paid butcher,
baker, or tax-gatherer, and I never knew a tradesman
go without his money for the honour and glory of
serving Mr. So-and-so, the well-known novelist. A
doctor, barrister, actor, or indeed any member of
the other professions, was not considered mean and
grasping, nor was he reproached, for looking after
the business side of his profession, and growing rich
if he could ; but, to quote again Sir Walter Besant,
" if for a moment any author begins to make a practical
investigation into the monetary value of the work
Two Values in Literary Work 291
he puts upon the market, a hundred voices arise,
even from those of his own craft, as well as from
those that live by administering his property." This
arises from a confusion of ideas. There are two
values in literary work, which cannot be considered
together : the first is the artistic value, which has
to do with the construction, accuracy, and style of
the work, and on this the author's literary reputation
depends ; but it is quite apart from the second, the
monetary value — in fact, in these days especially, it
is not always the literary masterpiece that sells ;
and as publishers and editors are prone to look at
literary work merely from the monetary point of
view, the unfortunate author who has to live by
his pen is told that he must write " what the people
like ' -which, by the way, is not necessarily what
the people like, but what the editor, or the manager
of a limited company, thinks they like, or can buy
cheaply, and can manage by advertisement to force
down the unsuspecting Public's throat.
1 have heard publishers complain that authors " are
too sharp now," and there is no doubt that some
writers get very high prices indeed ; but it is only
in a few cases, and does not alter the fact that author-
ship is very precarious and badly paid. Besides this,
the legitimate author now has to contend with all sorts
and conditions of people who rush into the profession.
There are the titled people whose restlessness must find
a vent ; there are the rich women, generally the wives
292 In the Sixties and Seventies
and daughters of bankers, judges, or members of
Parliament, who delight to show their culture and
learning (?) by writing articles in the daily papers,
and weekly or monthly magazines — such articles !
A rich, titled woman is of course quite competent
to tell the small housewife how to manage her
"general," " how to keep house on ^100 a year/1
or " how to marry on five and twenty shillings a
week." These " curiosities of literature ' would be
very entertaining reading, if they did not remind one
of how the Press has fallen, and of how the large
army of amateurs has come in and helped to swamp
the market.
Most of our great authors have written to provide
themselves with the necessities of life ; but the art
of writing, as I understand it, is not to let this
necessity to live by one's books become too apparent ;
for a true artist, while he is writing, thinks only of
his work, and not of what it will fetch ; yet, when
the book is once finished, it is foolish if the author
does not turn into the man of business, for if he
does not, and is not acquainted with some idea of
its monetary value, he will probably be over-reached-
and it is here that the Authors' Society steps in and
helps those who will apply for its able and efficient
aid.
My first introduction to Sir Walter Besant was
through the Authors' Society. Soon after it was
started, I wrote to ask what kind of Society it
The Authors' Society 293
was. Mr. Besant, as he was then, very kindly
answered me, and also informed me that he had
nominated me as a member. I felt it was a great
honour, and one that 1 little deserved ; nor was I
at all sure that I wished to be a member, for I had
abandoned " the thorny path of literature ' for the
equally prickly one of marriage ; and as I had very
strict ideas upon the duty of a wife, I was immersed
in domestic affairs, which means I did, as so many
of us much abused women do, nearly all my own
work, and stayed at home in the exemplary manner
(so men tell us) of our grandmothers. I do not
quite believe about our grandmothers* self-sacrifice ;
I know some who have had much more cheerful
lives than their descendants — but that is not on the
tapis just now.
I did not know what to do about the Authors'
Society ; I had written at my husband's suggestion,
but I was not sure that he would approve of my
joining anything that was in the nature of a club,
for so I understood the Society to be. However,
when I spoke to him about it he urged me to go
and see Mr. Besant, and I went.
The offices of the Authors' Society were then in
Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn, and there, in a pleasant
room on the second floor, I found a short, sturdy
man, with iron-grey hair and beard, a bright com-
plexion, and most kindly eyes, which beamed at me
through gold-rimmed spectacles; such was Besant.
294 In the Sixties and Seventies
Before I entered his room I had paid my guinea to
Squire Sprigge, who was solemnity and politeness
personified, and who impressed upon me the honour
I had had conferred on me. I felt duly impressed,
and so when I entered Mr. Besant's presence I was not
so cheerful as before my interview with Squire Sprigge ;
I felt nervous, and began to wish I had not come,
and that I was not a member of the Authors' Society.
But Besant's pleasant manner soon reassured me.
He shook me heartily by the hand, said he " had
only once or twice seen my father, but he knew his
books well, as who did not ? that he had heard of
me, indeed of us all, from Mr. Rice." He then
began talking of The Gentle Life Series, of their great
success — " phenomenal for books of essays," he added.
He asked if I could give him any information as to
the number that had been published ; I said I could
not ; he then suggested my asking S. Low & Co.
There was no Sampson Low then. The old gentle-
man, whom I remember as a tall, kindly old man,
was dead ; so were his sons. Mr. William Low, the
only one I knew well, was a man I always liked- -he
seemed so straightforward and sincere ; but the Lows
were not, it would seem, a very strong family, for
Sampson Low, Junr., was an invalid and always lived at
Brighton, and William Low was a martyr to headache.
Besant asked me to get for him some statistics of the
sale of The Gentle Life* from Mr. Edward Marston,
* The first volume of the Series.
Besant on his Favourite Topic 295
for he was amazed to hear from me that my father
received only seventy-five pounds for the copyright.
" Do you mean to say that the firm never gave
your father anything more — not when they found
what a great success it was ? Why, it has sold like a
spelling book for over thirty years ! ' said Besant, with
great emphasis, his bright, keen eyes fixed on my face.
I told him that when Queen Victoria so much
admired the book that by her permission and desire
an edition was dedicated to her, some essays were
taken from the first two volumes and called " The
Queen's Edition," and Messrs. S. Low & Co. and
my father shared equally the profits on that edition,
which did not, however, sell like the first two books
of the Series.
Besant reflected a moment, and said, " When your
father died, did they do nothing then ? '
" No," I replied, rather astonished at his vehemence :
you see my father sold the copyright."
Oh, they were not obliged to, I know ; but the
Lows have made a fortune by that one book alone ; *
don't you realise that ?
* The Gentle Life Series was translated into several languages,
while the first two volumes were bound in a special binding for the
Army and Navy. I have heard Mr. Sampson Low himself say that
these two books must have materially helped to advertise the publishing
firm all over the British Empire; and yet when Mr. Marston wrote
an account of his house in The Publisher's Circular, some few years
ago, and gave a list of his authors, he strangely left out the name of the
author of The Gentle Life, who must have brought them so much
custom.
<c
cc
296 In the Sixties and Seventies
" Yes," I said ; then I added, " I think publishers
are like butchers and bakers — they make their good
customers pay for their bad/1
Besant did not smile ; he looked very serious.
There was silence for some moments, and then
I said, " We did not expect anything from them, all
we wanted was the books well advertised, but they
never advertised them enough, and when, shortly after
my father's death, I went with my mother and sug-
gested their putting advertisements into various papers
one of the partners asked me if I would have them
advertise The Gentle Life Series as if it were Pears' Soap
or Holloway's Pills."
" And what did you say ? '
" Yes, certainly; that was what I called advertising."
" Quite right," said Besant ; "it will come to it yet."
We then talked about Mr. Rice, of whose family
Besant seemed to know little, for he asked if we
knew his mother or any member of his family. I
said we did not, and then he remarked, "What a
curiously reticent man he was ! ' He told me about
his death, and spoke very nicely of him ; and when
I rose to go he again urged me to get him statistics
of the sales of The Gentle Life Series, and spoke very
strongly on the subject. I tried to make excuses, and
as Besant shook hands he said :
" What a friend you are to publishers ! ' and then
he added sarcastically and somewhat bitterly, c' I
am glad you are so fond of them."
How to Advertise 297
I made no reply, but as I went downstairs I wondered
if I had offended Mr. Besant by trying to say what
I could on the other side. No one knew better than
I, who had, as Mr. Whiteing once graphically put it,
" been born in the purple," how hard authors work,
how small their profits.
But here I had better explain to the uninitiated that
The Gentle Life Series is a " collection of essays on the
formation of character," brought out in several books.
Four large editions of the first volume in its six-
shilling form were sold in the first four years, and
this was an unprecedented success for a book of essays,
especially in those days, when the reading public,
though more educated and refined, was not so large
as now. To my father the sale was of little pecuniary
advantage, for he sold the copyright — not at first, but
when the book had begun to sell to an extent he
could not have realised — the publishers, Messrs.
Sampson Low & Co., paying the small sum of seventy-
five pounds for it.
When I published the Memoir of my father, I wrote
to Mr. Marston and asked him for statistics of the
sale of The Gentle Life. He kindly answered me to
the effect that some books he had kept for about
forty years had, " in the choppings and changings of
this mortal life," disappeared, " and it is in these
that the first arrangements with your father are
recorded."
As The Gentle Life Series sold for over thirty years,
298 In the Sixties and Seventies
and the first volume was in its thirty-eighth edition in
1892, it would have been interesting to know how
many went to an edition, especially as I was informed
by a well-known bookseller and publisher that they
regularly stocked the Series by the thousand.
There is nothing morbid or weakly religious in The
Gentle Life Series ; all the books are strong and manly,
while there breathes a spirit of hope, common sense,
cheerfulness, and love of humanity, which is very char-
acteristic of all my father's work. Kingsley, in a letter
to him, remarks upon this. He says : " I am glad to
find you are a man. Men who care for the gentle
life, without being superstitious or hysterical, are
growing more and more rare." My father was
essentially — what people called the Canon — " a muscular
Christian." He hated all sham, hypocrisy, and snob-
bishness. Queen Victoria, in a letter to my father,
said she wished the essay on " The Servants within our
Gates ' could be written in letters of gold, and read
by all her subjects. Lady Lytton, the wife of Lord
Lytton, the novelist, writes as follows :
" There can be no doubt that if we English ever did
consider the feelings of others, I should evince my
gratitude to you for the delightful, evenly delightful
week you have enabled me to pass. First, by renewing
my acquaintance with your most charming Gentle
Life, which ought not to be an Elzevir Edition, but
one printed in golden type. Oh ! how true is all you
say upon ' Gentility ' -it is the curse and canker of
44 Gentility "
299
this country, and the eternal straining of all classes to
be what the lower and middle orders elegantly term
' genteel/ that makes the English the most vulgar
and vulgar-minded people in the whole world. I quite
agree, both with you and Victor Hugo, upon the
perniciousness of success ; still, I think it very ungrate-
ful, both of you and of him, to promulgate this axiom,
seeing what immortal crowns that god of this world
has woven for you both."
CHAPTER XXVI
A DINNER AT THE AUTHORS* SOCIETY — I FIRST SEE SIR H. M. STANLEY —
HOW I WISHED HE HAD NOT FOUND LIVINGSTONE — MY LAST
INTERVIEW WITH SIR WALTER BESANT — HIS ADVICE ON NOVEL
WRITING.
IT was at the Annual Dinner of the Authors' Society
that I first saw H. M. Stanley. He was stand-
ing quietly at the side of his wife, who was talking
to some friends, and who looked a head and shoulders
taller than he- -indeed, she seemed quite to overshadow
the little, great man, while the author of Esther Waters
(George Moore), whom I very much wished to see,
stood near, looming large and fair, with a great
avalanche of white shirt front, hands thrust in pockets,
and a cynical smile on his bright red lips. Not far
from the group was the new-made Sir Walter and his
son.
It was after dinner ; the heat was excessive. There
was a regular babel of sound, for every one was talking,
it seemed to me, but Stanley and myself. He was
looking decidedly bored, and I was watching him.
I looked at the red-faced, white-haired little man with
a mixture of admiration, amusement, and pity — he
300
H* M. Stanley 301
seemed so out of place. His bored glance wandered
from the different groups, scarcely resting a moment
on any one, and yet his eyes would pause now and
then (fine eyes they were, and keen) as if he were
making mental notes, as no doubt he was, of the
scene and the people.
I looked at him so earnestly that twice his eyes met
mine, and in another moment I should have introduced
myself to him, for I should have liked to tell him
an amusing story ; but as I hesitated I lost him,
for Lady Stanley made her adieus, and like a good
and affectionate husband he followed in her wake.
First I was disappointed that I had not gone up to him,
that I had never shaken him by the hand, never let
him know how much perplexity and weary work his
first book gave me. Then I felt glad — perhaps my
story would not have pleased him ; and yet I think he
would have laughed, had he known that when first
my eyes rested on his familiar face, I said to myself :
" Ah, so there you are, Mr. Stanley ; I see you at
last in the flesh, and I have a bone to pick with you.
I am glad you are married and settled down, and
enjoying a well-earned rest, and I hope you will live
long, after all you have been through. You are a very
wonderful man ; I wonder what you are thinking of
now. Is it of your meeting with that great man
Livingstone, or is it of Darkest Africa — that awful
forest, of those pigmy men and women ? Do we
literary people, who think so much of ourselves, seem
302 In the Sixites and Seventies
pigmies to you ? No, I don't think we do ; I fancy
you are a little bit afraid of us, and a great deal
bored by us/'
Here Stanley looked at me as if I had spoken, and
Sir Walter Besant, following his gaze, looked at me
also, and immediately turned his head another way ;
and at that I asked myself, " Does he think I am
going to ask him to introduce me to Stanley ? — as if
I had not every right to speak to him and to introduce
myself if I chose, considering the trouble I had with
his dreadful manuscript."
Then the years rolled back, and I saw, as in a vision,
a very good-looking, grey-haired man turning over a
bulky manuscript, which was written in a small,
rather cramped hand, and corrected in many places ;
I saw a tall girl standing at his side.
" This," said the grey-haired man, laying his hand
on the manuscript and looking at the girl, " is Stanley's
great book, How I found Livingstone. Low & Co.
are going to bring it out, but Marston writes me that
it wants great revising, that it will never do as it is ;
and he's about right there — it's not well written, it's
ungrammatical, and ill-spelt. I fear it will be a great
task."
The handwriting is not very legible," said the girl.
That is a small matter compared with others. It is
wanted in a hurry ; I wrote to say I would not under-
take it, but Marston says I am the only man they
care to ask. Now what I want you to do is to read
u
u
"How I Found Livingstone ' 303
it carefully through, and correct all the grammar and
spelling."
The girl bent over the manuscript and read out a few
sentences ; then she stood up and looked at her father.
" Can't you send it back ? ' she said.
<c I want to oblige the publishers ; besides, they
will pay well- -I shall charge a hundred pounds."
The girl took up the manuscript with a faint sigh,
and, going to the other side of the table, commenced
her task. She was considered a champion grammarian
at school, but was always in hot water over her
spelling. She had her own original way, and so
had H. M. Stanley ; and what with hers and Stanley's,
she had endless recourse to the dictionary, till between
the three she was so hopelessly befogged and muddled,
that she has never quite recovered, and does not
know how to spell to this day.
She wrestled with the grammar, spelling, and com-
position of that book for many days- -in fact, till the
days ran into weeks ; but even then it was quickly
done. Once she lost patience, and, feeling a grudge
against Stanley, The New York Herald, and Living-
stone, she flung the manuscript across the table,
exclaiming, " I wish he'd never found Livingstone ! '
Her father laughed. " Others have said they don't
believe he is found," he said.
" I don't believe he wanted to be," returned the
girl, and, though a girl no longer, she still retains
that opinion.
304 In the Sixties and Seventies
My father often saw Stanley, and liked him. All
the proofs of that book passed through mine and
my father's hands. There is an entry in his diary
on Monday, September 2nd, 1872 : "Go to meet
Stanley. Read proofs of his book." The manuscript
was greatly cut and altered, and when it came out
the critics were, I believe, somewhat surprised at the
clear, concise style in which it was written ; they
would have spoken differently had they read, as I
did, the manuscript.
The last time I saw Sir Walter Besant was at
Messrs. A. & C. Black's, in Soho Square, not long
before his death. I had written a letter to The Author
on "Piracy," as a number of letters on the subject were
appearing at that time in the Society's Journal. I
had been very much victimised, especially as regards
children's stories, and I had given some of my ex-
periences. My letter was not put in, as Sir Walter
had been advised to stop the correspondence, but
he asked me to come and see him and give him the
exact details. So I found myself one sunny afternoon
sitting in the old-fashioned window seat in Messrs.
Black's shop, glancing through some books, and
looking up every now and then at the plaster cast
of a statue of Sir Walter Scott. There he sat,
looking perpetually calm and untroubled ; but how
hard he worked, what a harassing time he had when
his publishers fell into difficulties, and what a fine
sense of honour ! Was there an author living who
Sir Walter Besant 305
t
would have done the same ? I thought there were
several ; my father certainly would, and so would
have Sir Walter Besant. As I sat thinking of the
first Sir Walter, the second came in and passed
slowly by the statue and up the stairs. With a shock
I realised that he looked much older and greyer than
when I had seen him last ; but I knew he had not
been well, and I hoped he would recover his alert,
bright manner as the weather became finer, for I did
not know the cause of his illness.
In a few moments I was shown into his room, and
sitting by his desk I gave him the details for which he
asked ; then we talked of the Authors' Society and
the Authors' Club. I told him that women should
belong to the latter, as there should be no sex in
literature. He quite agreed, but said it had been
put forward before the Club was started, and it was
thought that the subscription was too heavy for
literary women. I said I had seen something of the
sort in The Author, and thought it a singular idea ;
I also remarked that the entrance fee and sub-
scription should not be too heavy for either men
or women, for literary people were not rich as a
class.
" But men are paid in that, as in everything, much
better than women," said Sir Walter.
I knew this was true, but felt annoyed, for it is
so scandalously unfair, and I said so.
" It is the same in Government offices, and every-
20
306 In the Sixties and Seventies
where : women are underpaid — they can live on less
than men."
" Because they are less extravagant than men, it
is no reason why they should take less money for
the same work, especially as I have heard it said that
they often do their work more conscientiously/'
Sir Walter admitted he had heard the same thing,
but that did not do away with the fact that women
were underpaid.
" It only aggravates it," I returned, and then I
said that the Authors' Club could not be considered
a representative club when it excluded women from
its membership. To this he agreed, and said he had
thought the same, but there were difficulties ; however,
he " was glad to hear a woman's views on the subject
and he would see what arrangement could be made ;
for, as the Authors' Club was an offshoot of the Society,
it certainly should admit the women members."
We then talked of novels, of the difficulties young
authors have of getting a publisher to take them up,
and the curious way readers have of overlooking good
books — or so it would seem, from the stories one
hears of such books as Vanity Fair being rejected
five or six times. He told me Rice and he published
Ready Money Mortiboy themselves, and he spoke very
highly of a Mr. Burghley, a publisher to whom he
advised me to go if I wanted to publish a novel.
He gave me much good and kindly advice, and
said :
Sir Walter Besant
" You can write, and well. Put plenty of love
in your stories : novels are principally written for and
read by women, and women like it — they can't do
without it." He paused and looked at me, but as
I did not speak, he said, " Now don't you think so ?
I did not think so, and do not now ; but I did
not say so. I said :
u You agree with Byron, that * Love is of man's
life a thing apart ; 'tis woman's whole existence ' ? '
" Yes," he replied, " yes, I think that is true, and
if, as you say, you are writing for a living, you must
put plenty of love in your stories."
" It is the part I like writing least."
a And reading most ? ' he added.
I laughed.
" Ah ! Now you are convicted, and now you will
admit that women cannot do without love — it is their
sole existence."
I had risen to go ; we were both standing, and I
hesitated; there was so much I should have liked to
say on the subject, but I was afraid of taking up
Sir Walter's time, and I had another appointment,
so I only smiled and held out my hand to say good-
bye. Sir Walter Besant shook hands in his sincere
and hearty manner, and accompanied me to the door
His last words were :
" Mind, plenty of love in it, plenty of love."
CHAPTER XXVII
WE GO TO LIVE AT BEXLEY HEATH — REMINISCENCES OF ARTEMUS WARD
—JOSEPH HATTON — ARTHUR SKETCHLEY — SARAH BERNHARDT'S
EXHIBITION IN PICCADILLY — A FASHIONABLE WEDDING — GLADSTONE
AND SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT.
WHEN we finally settled at Bexley Heath my
father seldom went to town except on business,
or to some literary dinner, and my mother, who cared
little for society, and who was always anxious about
my father's health, practically gave up visiting. This
was very unfortunate for a girl on the verge of woman-
hood, and I began to find life in the country very
dull indeed. To us young people it was social
banishment, and very hard to bear, especially as I
was not allowed to wander about the woods, fields,
and lanes by myself, and was told, if I grumbled,
that it would not be safe, and I must be content with
the garden.
How I missed Mr. and Mrs. McCarthy, their young
people, and their pleasant At Homes ! How I missed
our own parties and our cheerful five o'clock teas, at
which some author or actor used to drop in daily !
How we all missed the visits of Irving, Creswick*
308
Joseph Hatton 309
Joseph Hatton, E. P. Kingston, Rice, and others !
Joseph Hatton was then a young author, full of
enthusiasm, and had just published his novel Clytie^
which was very successful. He was a good-looking
man, with plenty of push and go in him ; I think
his first novel was one called Bitter Sweets, for I
have a letter before me in which he speaks of my
father's sympathy with him over the treatment which
the book received "at the hands of a certain critic
on a well-known literary journal." Mr. Hatton says
" it could only be the offspring of spite." My father
had suffered from the same critic, for the letter
congratulates him on " taking the bull by the horns,
and fighting him so thoroughly, ably, and success-
fully."
Mr. E. P. Kingston was a great friend of Artemus
Ward's ; he had become acquainted with the humorist
in America, and liked him so much that he became
his business manager. Kingston was a very pleasant,
genial man, short of stature, and with a long brown
beard. The first evening he spent with us he taught
us to play u Poker," and he told us- many funny
stories of Mr. Charles Browne (Artemus Ward), of
whose singular humour, originality of style, and
eccentric spelling every one was then talking.
Artemus Ward himself was a tall, thin man, with
a well-shaped but small head, sunken cheeks, an
aquiline nose, a large, fair moustache, and bright,
piercing eyes. When he lectured he had a panoram^
310 In the Sixties and Seventies
representing The Great Desert, Salt Lake City,
The Salt Lake Hotel, The Great Salt Lake, The
Rocky Mountains, and so on. He wore evening
dress, and as he spoke he never moved a muscle,
but maintained the greatest gravity while saying the
drollest things, which convulsed his audience with
laughter. He was almost in the last stage of con-
sumption, and so painfully thin that he was but
a walking skeleton. His lecture was as curious as
his manner ; it was composed of telling sentences,
each ending with a trap, into which the audience
fell quite naturally, and then extricated itself with
a hearty laugh ; while the lecturer looked mildly
astonished, or affected an expression of indigna-
tion because his remarks were made the subject
of mirth. He acted this so well that there was no
appearance of acting, and in this lay his art and his
charm. He was a very good man, and every one
who had any dealings with him seems to have loved
him. He had great determination and pluck, and
struggled against his mortal illness ; indeed, he lectured
when he should have been in bed, and my mother,
who saw him towards the close of his entertain-
ments and his life, said that he looked dying as he
lectured.
His entertainment was given in the Egyptian Hall,
Piccadilly, which he had hired of Arthur Sketchley,
another well-known entertainer. As he was not
certain of his physical powers of endurance, nor of
Recollections of Artemus Ward 311
how far his entertainment would be appreciated by
the English, " Artemus/' says Mr. Hingston, " re-
frained from making alterations in the exhibition room,
and, to quote his own joke on the humorous pro-
gramme he distributed : " During the vacation the
Hall has been carefully swept out, and a new
door knob has been added to the door." This is
a specimen of his humour, and here is another.
At the commencement of one of his lectures he
walked on to the platform, and, turning up his eyes
and gazing round the Hall, he looked down at the
audience, as if he were about to take them into his
confidence, and remarked in a slow, solemn, mildly
complaining tone, u I wish the Egyptians who built
this Hall had known a little more about ventilation/'
This was so unexpected that after a moment the
whole room roared with laughter, and then there were
loud bursts of applause.
His entertainments ran only seventeen weeks, and
then the lecture-hall closed, never to reopen for
him again. He died at Southampton, having pro-
ceeded this little way on his road home to Waterford
in Maine, where he had left a mother to mourn the
loss of a good son. Mr. Hingston, in his Genial
Showman, gives a short sketch of his life, which was
not a long one, for he was quite young when he died.
The author says c< many attempts have been made to
imitate the manner and style of Artemus Ward, but
none has succeeded in a faithful reproduction,"
312 In the Sixties and Seventies
We also knew Arthur Sketchley (the Rev. Arthur
Rose). I was a school-girl when I first heard him
in his inimitable Mrs. Brown at the Play. My
mother took Miss Wharton Simpson and myself,
and we had seats almost in front of the lecturer.
Miss Simpson (Mrs. William Black) and I laughed
so inordinately that we had pains in our sides, and
could not sit upright. The entertainer was so amused
at watching our appreciation of his humour that,
unconsciously, he kept edging his chair nearer and
nearer to the edge of the platform, till at last one
leg went over, and he almost pitched head-first into
the laps of the audience ! At this there were renewed
bursts of laughter from the two girls at the end of
the second row of seats, and Sketchley, regaining his
balance by a miracle, roared with laughter, so that
the whole room was convulsed.
But to return to Bexley Heath. When we finally
settled there, all these entertainments were practically
over ; however, I used to come up to town in the season,
and then my father's friends, Messrs. Irving, Creswick,
Thorne, Toole, etc., would send me seats (generally
boxes) for the theatre. In this way I remember seeing
Sarah Bernhardt act ; I believe it was when she first
came over, but of that I am not sure. What I re-
member most clearly was speaking to her at her
exhibition in Piccadilly.
My father had an invitation, but did not care to
go, so I went with Mrs. S , a friend of my
7T > •
Sarah Bernhardt 313
mother's, with whom I often used to stay. Mrs.
S- was so full of enthusiasm and delight at the
idea of going to this exhibition that I wondered what
she expected. I did not wish to damp her pleasure,
but I could not help remarking that "of course we
could not expect to see anything so good, either in
pictures or sculpture, as we should at the Royal
Academy/' and then I found out that it was Sarah
Bernhardt herself, and the people she had invited, who
were the attraction.
We went ; we arrived very early, as Mrs. S-
thought there would be a crush. There were only a
very few people there when we made the tour of the
gallery ; and certainly the pictures, and especially the
sculpture, were wonderful for an amateur, and more-
over for a busy woman whose life-work was acting.
As we walked round, having the gallery practically to
ourselves, the great Sarah came in, and after some
talk with the attendants began herself to walk round.
Then said Mrs. S to me, "Now go and speak
to her before the room gets crowded." I hung back,
but after a little persuading I went up to her and we
shook hands, and we discussed a little picture close
by where we were standing. All I can remember
about that picture is that it was very green — too
green, I thought it, and the actress agreed with me, and
told me where and how it was painted. Mrs. S
then joined in the conversation, and we passed on to
the sculptured groups, and Sarah Bernhardt pointecj
3H In the Sixties and Seventies
out a group which I think must have been " After
the Storm." I know Mrs. S and I liked it very
much.
The room began to fill and soon we were hemmed
into a corner. All the celebrities of London seemed
to be there, and still the people came. The great
actress did nothing but shake hands and bow, evidently
enjoying it very much ; and I stood near her and
enjoyed it too. It was there that I saw Gladstone
for the second time. The first time was at one of
the Literary Fund Dinners, at which were also the
King of the Belgians, the Duke of Connaught,
Cardinal Manning, and many other celebrities. Glad-
stone made a most eloquent speech at the dinner,
and I then fully understood how he charmed people.
The last time I saw " the Grand Old Man," as he
was called, was many years after ; it was at the
wedding of Sir Edward Malet with Lady Ermyntrude
Russell, daughter of the Duke of Bedford, in West-
minster Abbey. I am not fond of weddings, and
never go to them ; but as I knew the bridegroom's
brother, and he offered my husband and me tickets,
I could not well refuse.
I shall never forget the crush there was. We had to
leave the carriage and make our way on foot down by
the side of the Abbey towards the cloisters. There
the crowd was even greater, and, as the tickets
were different colours, some policemen kept calling
out :
In Westminster Abbey 315
" Show your tickets ! show your tickets ! Blue
tickets this way ! blue tickets this way ! '
Ours were blue tickets, and I held mine high in
the air ; I had a lady friend with me, for my husband
could not go. We struggled along through the
crowd, fearing for our dresses, and were almost
forced through a gate into the cloisters, where we
found the wedding guests, who were packed like
sardines, or herrings in a barrel ; we could scarcely
breathe, and when the last bridesmaid was thrust in
and the gate clanged to upon her, I whispered to my
friend :
" We might be prisoners in a cell — unhappy wretches
awaiting the sentence of death, instead of the youth,
beauty, and flower of the English aristocracy going
to a wedding."
<c What will our dresses look like ? ' whispered my
friend.
" Thank goodness our chiffons are not chiffons,
but something more substantial ! ' I retorted ; and then
Sir Henry Malet (brother of the bridegroom) looked
at me, and we exchanged smiles ; it was impossible
to shake hands, or even bow- -we were packed too
tightly.
" Reminds one of the black hole in Calcutta," said
a soldierly man in a loud whisper. Beads of per-
spiration stood on his face, but he could not lift a
hand to get at his handkerchief. Just as we were
all declaring the heat was unbearable a door opened
316 In the Sixties and Seventies
at the side of the cloisters, and we were bid to " come
this way. Bridesmaids first." Not all the brides-
maids were there, but those who were, after much
struggling, went first. I was alarmed for their dresses
as I saw them huddling them up to cross a narrow,
dirty yard. The wedding guests followed in a troop,
and we went up a long flight of stone steps, then
through a doorway and up some very dirty stairs, across
a very dusty room which looked like a vestry, down
more stairs, and at last found ourselves in the Abbey,
our seats waiting for us.
" Well," I said, when I was seated, " if this is not
a back-stairs way of getting in I should like to know
what is."
But we all congratulated ourselves that we had
" arrived safely and avoided the crush. It must be
dreadful at the main entrance," we said, and by all
accounts it was.
I think everybody that was anybody was at that
wedding. It was one unbroken line of notable people,
and any one can see from the papers of the time who
was there. What I was struck with was their want
of dignity, their bad behaviour. As soon as the
bride and bridegroom had passed down to the vestry,
every one rushed to get out — some to see the bride
again, to see her enter her carriage, some to go home,
or to the reception, or to some other entertainment.
But without an exception there was a rush for the
doors, and? do what we would, we could not help
The Grand Old Man 317
ourselves, and so we found ourselves carried on with
the crowd, and finally I and my friend were jammed
in the doorway, unable to move. The bride had
gone, but carriage after carriage came up, the horses
prancing and tossing their heads, and one felt afraid
of being pushed under their feet. I remember
seeing one poor little bridesmaid flattening herself
against the wall, her face terror-stricken. I put out
my hand to drag her back, and should have been
forced violently against her, had not my friend seized
my arm and pulled me back ; at the same time I
heard a voice saying :
" It's four o'clock ! it's four o'clock ! We shall
be late for the House, Harcourt ; we must get out."
The speaker was just at the back of me and pushing
dreadfully; but I, grasping my friend's arm, stood
back ; then I turned my head and saw Gladstone and
Sir William Harcourt.
The Grand Old Man was looking very eager and
hurried, and almost panting for breath. I was very
angry, and therefore felt cool and courageous.
" What do you mean by this ungentlemanly
behaviour ? I asked indignantly.
" We are late for the House, madam," returned the
Grand Old Man.
" And is that any reason why we should be killed
by those horses ? If you were men you would keep
the crowd back."
" She's right there," whispered Harcourt ; " we
3i 8 In the Sixties and Seventies
must keep the crowd back. I beg your pardon,
madam/'
Gladstone looked very cross, but did as he was
requested, and muttered something which I took for
an apology. They kept back the crowd ; the brides-
maid got into her carriage, and before ours came
up we passed out, Sir William Harcourt and
Gladstone bowing as they donned their hats and
hurried away.
CHAPTER XXVIII
OLD LETTERS — LADY LYTTON'S CORRESPONDENCE WITH MY FATHER —
SOME ANECDOTES OF BENJAMIN DISRAELI — DISRAELI'S DEVOTION
TO HIS WIFE — LADY BEACONSFIELD — MR. H. D. TRAILL ON REMINIS-
CENCES— THE END.
MOST literary people have a large circle of
friends and acquaintances with whom they
correspond, and my father, who was fond of letter
writing, was no exception to the rule — indeed, I think
in those days, when life was not so strenuous as it
is now, people took more pains with their corre-
spondence ; and though they did not write such long
letters as in the days of Horace Walpole, yet their
correspondence was very different from that which
we indulge (?) in now ; their letters were chatty,
entertaining, amusing, human documents — not so
stilted as those of the generation before, and quite as
interesting.
My father was a very good letter writer ; but
unfortunately I have few of his letters, and when I
was about to write his Life, and advertised in The
Athenxum, I was disappointed at the few that were
sent me ; so many people had, they said, destroyed
the whole of their correspondence, deeming it either
319
320 In the Sixties and Seventies
unsafe, useless, or saddening to keep old letters.
There is perhaps something melancholy in reading the
correspondence of those who have long passed away ;
and yet how much we should have lost, and how
little we should know, of the private histories
of people if it were not for old letters. If we
long
... for the touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still,
as we all must, and do at times, I think we can almost
feel the hand and hear the voice when we read old
letters.
One of my father's most voluminous correspond-
ents was Lady Lytton, the wife of Bulwer Lytton,
the novelist. She would write as often as once a
week, or oftener if there was anything in my father's
answers that called forth her indignation or admiration.
I have most of her letters by me, and had 1 his they
would make most entertaining reading.
From the trend of Lady Lytton's letters, she and
my father appear to have talked over most of the
notable people and popular books of the time, and
to have attacked each other's prejudices and opinions
in no sparing manner. Certainly she attacked many
of his opinions, and occasionally there seems to have
been a battle in which her zeal outran her discretion,
for in no measured language Lady Lytton runs down
literary people, governments, politicians, and institutions,
Lady Lytton 321
and sometimes rails at my father for his "fondness
for the powers that be."
As every one knows, Lady Lytton had been a beauty
in her day, and she was when we knew her a handsome
well-preserved old lady, with a charming manner,
a pleasant smile, and a wonderful gift of repartee.
But her misfortunes (I might use a stronger word,
and say her husband's ill-usage) had made her bitter ;,
therefore her wit was decidedly caustic, if apt.
She lived in a pretty little house in Upper Sydenham
which she called her " prison," or " Tartarus," often?
dating her letters from " Tartarus," and generally
signing herself " Rosina Lytton (alas ! !)." Here she
was surrounded by old Italian pictures, books, bronzes,
and really beautiful wood-carving — in fact, what, as
she said, Mrs. Hudson (the wife of the " Railway
King "), copying Mrs. Malaprop, called her " bigotry
and virtue." But in spite of all these beautiful things
she was very poor, having, she says in one of her
letters, "but £200 a year."
" I do not see," she continues, " why that Blue
Book in breeches, the present Lord Derby, should
not be appealed to, to get a clause inserted in the
poor law amendment for the relief of pauper peeresses,
seeing that it was his father, the late Lord Derby,
who was the inventor of that supererogatory grievance,
the Pauper Peeress — so you see you are not the
only one looking forward to sitting under the shadow
of your own workhouse. I have always thought
21
322 In the Sixties and Seventies
Andrew Marvel a very over-rated man ; cold mutton —
no, nor even cold shoulders either have any terrors
for me ; so here I am and my poverty, continuing
our living experience of inter-mural burial, and I
must say never was sepulchre sweeter, or fresher, or
cleaner, and not the least whited. I have none of
the vulgarising, depressing — aye, and deteriorising too
— surroundings of poverty ; though I have all the
pinching realities in cold, now that coal and all else
is so dear."
The letter I have just quoted is dated 1873. She
first wrote to my father in 1870, and continued to
do so till his death. She was a great admirer of
his writings, and had for many years taken in a
weekly journal simply to read his essays and the
answers to correspondents which he wrote.
" I read and heed you every week," she writes ;
"all I can say is that if you are not a good man
you ought to be hanged ; pardon the if, but it is a
way they have among authors' wives — knowing what
they know, poor wretches — to receive everything fair,
virtuous, lovely, and of good repute, that they meet
in print, cum grano salts as to its being identical with
the writer. However, as it has been truly said that
the best way of doing good is to be good ; and as
you do good, argal you must certainly be good.
Now you may chop this truly feminine logic into any
amount of mincemeat you like."
My father was a great admirer of Disraeli, and
Benjamin Disraeli 323
liked him personally very much. Lady Lytton, who
knew him well as a young man, disliked him greatly,
and was never tired of abusing him, giving him sly
digs, or of telling some amusing but ridiculous story
about him. Here I will quote one of the most
harmless.
" Times are changed with Dizzy since his debut^
when I could not get any one (except old Lady Cork
-who was celebrated for her human menageries —
and old Lord Hertford, who let me bring whom I
pleased) to let me bring him to any salon in London,
from his grotesque appearance and ridiculous dress,
for he had got himself up as an astounding facsimile
of his own young duke — green velvet incompre-
hensibles, white blonde ruffles, and black silk stockings
with broad scarlet ribs ! When he sent me his Young
Duke to read in MS. I told him he could not dress
him in that way. c What ! ' said he, in the only
paroxysm of innocent good faith he ever had in his
life, c don't young dukes dress in that way ? ' — c None
that I have ever seen.' — I asked D'Orsay one day
what he'd take to dress like Dizzy ? c Leave of my
senses ! ' was his reply."
One can scarcely believe that Disraeli could have
dressed himself as Lady Lytton describes ; yet if he
did it was but an error of taste, due perhaps to his
Oriental origin. Even that origin Lady Lytton uses
as a weapon against him.
u As I know you are a great deferrer to and admirer
324 In the Sixties and Seventies
of the powers that be, I congratulate you upon Dizzy's
descent into the peerage. Having the power, I think
he was quite right to confer an earldom on himself —
I confess I should like to see him in his peer's robes ;
he would look such a gorgeous facsimile, all black,
scarlet, and yellow, of c the Black Princely Devil '
in a book of Chinese superstitions that Captain Marryat
once lent me ; but above all I should like to see
his glance of ineffable scorn at his mushroom fellow
peers, for, as I said in a skit I wrote on him years
ago :
" ' Upstart each name that Doomsday Book discloses,
Compared to his \ old as the book of Moses.' ''
It has been remarked by a writer in The Gentle-
man s Magazine, that " all the biographies of Lord
Beaconsfield pass lightly over his home life and
domestic relationship ; and yet these phases of his
career disclose, perhaps, the finest traits in his character."
He and the great Liberal leader, Gladstone, had two
advantages in common — they both had wives who
subordinated every personal consideration, every private
ambition, to the public careers of their husbands ;
and they were alike in being both good husbands.
This served as a bond of sympathy between them.
" There are three things," said Gladstone to Canon
MacColl, a for which I shall always admire Disraeli
— his devotion to his wife, his defence of his race,
and his splendid parliamentary pluck."
Benjamin Disraeli 325
What better character can a man have given him
than this ?
Before Disraeli was a statesman he was an author.
Vivian Grey was the first book that brought him
fame ; and it was doubtless then that he became a
frequent guest in the house of Mr. Wyndham Lewis,
who was a man of wealth, owning some property in
Glamorganshire and a fine house in Grosvenor Gate.
He and Disraeli became colleagues in Parliament for
the borough of Maidstone, and after Mr. Lewis's
death, as every one knows, Disraeli married the widow.
It has been said that this marriage was a " marriage
of convenience." Disraeli himself used to laugh and
tell his wife that he married her for her money ;
but this was mere chaff. His attention and devotion
to her have been called gratitude ; but if so, they bore
a greater likeness to love than much that is called
by that name. I think that they were a model
couple, and that they mutually loved each other.
Certainly from the following anecdote, told to my
mother by Lady Lytton, it would seem to have
been a love match on the part of the Viscountess
Beaconsfield.
" My mother," said Lady Lytton, <c went to call
upon Mrs. Wyndham Lewis, to condole with her
upon the death of her husband. She had no sooner
entered the room than the widow came forward, all
smiles and eagerness. ' Congratulate me, my dear ! '
she said, ' Disraeli has proposed !
326 In the Sixties and Seventies
I have heard admirers of Disraeli call him a hand-
some man ; others have declared he was ugly ; I
myself should call him neither one nor the other,
but I think he had a most interesting face, and
this reminds me of an anecdote I have told in my
father's Life, but which will bear repetition, as it shows
Lady Beaconsfield's opinion.
My father was one day dining at , and at
the close of the evening he took the Viscountess
Beaconsfield down to her carriage. As he did so he
remarked to her :
" Mr. Disraeli spoke most eloquently to-night ; and
how well he is looking ! '
The Viscountess looked up into my father's face
with a very pleased expression.
" Ah ! ' she said, " you think he looks well —
you think him handsome, yet people call him ugly ;
but he is not, he is handsome ; they should see him
asleep."
Lady Lytton also told the following story, which
I have since seen in print. The Viscountess Beacons-
field was fond of going down to the House of
Commons with her husband, though she would never
go in and listen to the debates, as she had made a
vow that she would never attend a debate until Mr.
Disraeli had taken his seat as Prime Minister. One
day, when they had driven down to the House, as
he stepped out and shut the carriage door she put
out her hand and accidentally her fingers were caught
Viscountess Beaconsfield 327
in the door ; she turned deadly pale but never uttered
a cry, for she knew he was about to take part in an
important debate, and feared the knowledge of the
accident woul upset him. When he was out of
sight she called to the servant, who opened the
carriage door and released her fingers. The footman
would have rushed after his master, but she would
not allow it, so they drove as fast as they could
to a doctor's, who attended to her hand. Disraeli
was himself fond of telling this story, being proud of
his wife's devotion and grateful to her for all she
had done for him.
Even Lady Lytton, at whose house they first met,
cannot refrain from giving Disraeli praise for his
devotion to his wife ; and certainly in this respect
he and Gladstone have set an example to their fellow
men that it would be to every one's advantage if
more of them would follow.
" Poor Lady Beaconsfield ! ' writes Lady Lytton ;
" I never thought I should feel her death so much,
but now 1 only remember how kind she was to-
me as a girl, and long after, till she married Dizzy,
when those twin harpies, the World and Ambition —
in the shape of his political thimblerig pal my Lord
Lytton — c intervening/ she was told tofaire voile face.
Poor soul, God be merciful to her ! she was as
severely and cruelly tried by wealth, happiness, pleasure,
gratified vanity, success, and a ceaseless and insolent
prosperity, as I have been by the most brutal
328 In the Sixties and Seventies
persecution, blackest ingratitude, bitter injustice, and
ceaseless misfortune. Though Dizzy only married her
for her money, I'll do him the full justice to believe
that, after having for a time reaped the benefit of
it, had she, by one of those cruel treacheries of fate
so rife in this world, lost all her possessions, he has
sufficient of the Damascus blade of Chivalry of a
true gentleman to have continued equally kind and
prevenant to her, and I am sure now he sincerely
mourns her/'
Here, with the death of the Viscountess Beacons-
field, I will close my book, or I may, like Tennyson's
brook, go on for ever ; for when one begins to
write reminiscences, there seems to be no end,
and I have no wish to tire my readers out. I
will therefore add only one more interview, which
shows how In the Sixties and Seventies came to be
written.
When I published the Memoir of my father, I had
occasion to write to Mr. Traill, editor of Literature^
to correct a careless mistake his reviewer had made
in reviewing the book. Mr. Traill inserted my letter,
wrote privately and apologised, and asked me to call
and see him any time I was passing The Times office.
So one day I called, and was shown into a vast,
gloomy room. In a few moments Mr. Traill entered,
shook me cordially by the hand, and said : u What
an interesting, well-written book yours is ! I wish I
had read it sooner, I would have reviewed it myself."
H. D. Traill's Advice
329
I told him I was extremely sorry he had not
done so.
Then we settled down to talk of the people we
had mutually known, and I told him many of the
stories in this book. He seemed especially interested
in Irving, and much amused at my account of the
first night of The Bells ; he also said that my descrip-
tion of Irving, sitting listening to Mendelssohn's
" Songs without Words," was lifelike.
"You should write your own reminiscences, and
mind and put all the anecdotes in from the Memoir/'
he said ; and when I objected, he replied : " Why
not ? anecdotes are what the Public like ; you have
interested me, why not others? You say you are
writing for your living — well, write your reminis-
cences ; the book will go."
"But reminiscences are so egotistical ; the critics
will say I am vain, and I know not what
else."
" Let them ; what does it matter if the book
pleases the Public ? An author must have a good
pachydermatous skin ; don't you know that ? '
" Is it fair," I asked, " to write about these people,
who have been kind, and petted me as a child ? I
like them all, but I could not perhaps, with truth,
show them all in a pleasant light ; and I should
hate to think that any words of mine had hurt or
belittled them."
" I don't think you will do that if you write the
33° In the Sixties and Seventies
truth, and your own impressions ; and one's youthful
impressions one remembers best. The Memoir, I
tell you, is well written ; the anecdotes are excellent —
there might have been more/'
" The publisher wanted more ; but I was writing
my father's life, not anecdotes of other people, in
which I came in too much ; so I cut the Dickens
anecdote short, and only put in half the Tennyson —
it was too complimentary."
Mr. Traill laughed. " Write another book and
put the whole in, compliments and all, and I'll
review it."
" I think I'll wait till some more of the well-known
people are dead," I said, as I shook hands with him
at the top of the stairs.
" Don't," said Mr. Traill; "I want to review
it."
I came away, meaning to take his advice. But
I delayed — delayed too long, for when the book was
half written I heard of Mr. Traill's death. One
more literary friend, who had known my father,
was gone. I was very sorry, and I locked up my
MS. for several years ; yet I always felt I should
finish it, for Mr. Traill said it would please the Public,
and what author does not want to please the Public ?
besides, I felt the great compliment Mr. Traill had
paid me, for I knew his judgment in literary matters
was considered infallible.
I would only add that I have tried to keep from
A Personal Note 33 T
intruding too much upon my readers, but I fear
I have not altogether succeeded ; therefore I would
remind them, and my critics, that all reminiscences
are bound to be leaves from the lives of the writers,
and, however much one may wish to avoid egoism, it
is not possible in a book of this kind.
THE END
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In the sixties and seventies
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