TWELVE
GREAT PASSIONS
GIFT OF
A. P. Morrison
TWELVE
GREAT PASSIONS
The author is indebted to the Amalgamated Press, Ltd., for
kind permission given to reproduce such of these stories
as originally appeared in *' Every Woman's Encyclopedia."
First Published in 1912
THE NUN LUCREZIA
Photo by Alinari of head of Virgin from painting by Filippo Lippt
'WELVD
GREAT PASSIONS
J-A-BKETiDON
Wttk JUustratiwis
OF
• ••«,••••••• • • •
PREFACE
JN apology, an explanation — both are owing by
way of preface.
They may seem to be a strange, hetero-
geneous collection of romances, the stories
which compose this book, compiled in an utterly hap-
hazard manner. At any rate I hope so, for I have
deliberately chosen my subjects with this aim in view,
making them representative of as many minds, as many
ages, and as many nationalities as possible. And this I
have done not merely further to corroborate the thread-
bare truth that human passion is the one thing which
is the same the world over, and which never changes ;
not merely to show again, as often has been shown, how
very small and very human are the greatest of us, but
also to explain how really and supremely important a
factor in the lives of all men is the accident of their
affections.
I may be accused, and, if so, shall rightly be accused,
of placing the love influence in these stories wholly out
of perspective to surrounding influences. But this, of
course, is unavoidable, and in making the error, I main-
tain I have erred on the right side, for these stories do
not presume in any way to be a contribution to
v
R92815
PREFACE
biography ; they are merely romances, romances woven
around now accepted facts. Hence, if they do any-
thing to make the great persons who figure in them
appear more real, more human and more comprehensible
than can the calm, clear light of orthodox biography,
they will fully serve their purpose, for that is their
purpose — to reveal the man, not merely his career.
And which is the more important ? The answer is a
matter for individual opinion. None the less, it cannot
be denied that a great man's personality survives him-
self as a subtle influence which is as powerful and often
more lasting even than his achievements. And that
personality surely is shown nowhere more clearly than
in the light of love affairs, those curious happenings
which seem to have the power of changing destiny,
raising some men, degrading others, the inspiration of
desire, success, and failure.
After all, the man in love almost invariably is the true
man. And he is the man in love whom here I have
endeavoured to reveal.
That is at once my explanation and apology.
J. A. BRENDON
LONDON, 1912.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. FRA FILIPPO LIPPI AND HIS MODEL, THE NUN
LUCREZIA . . ... 3
II. THE SECOND MRS. SHELLEY . 27
III. THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN NATALIE OF SERVIA . 63
IV. NADIR SHAH AND SITARA, THE HINDU SLAVE-
GIRL . . ... 95
V. ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK . . 123
VI. THE MARRIAGE OF VICTOR HUGO . . .151
VII. SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON . . -179
VIII. DANTE AND BEATRICE . . . .219
IX. LEON GAMBETTA AND LEONIE LEON . . 247
X. THE HUSBAND OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE . .273
XI. KING GEORGE III AND HANNAH LIGHTFOOT . 295
XII. THE STORY OF PRINCESS AMELIA . . . 329
vn
ILLUSTRATIONS
The Nun Lucrezia . . . Frontispiece
TVT TTT 11 r 1-11 FACING PAGE
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley . . . . 27
Percy Bysshe Shelley . . . . . 38
Queen Natalie . . ... 62
Nadir Shah . . . ... 95
Madame Schumann . . . . . 122
Victor Hugo . . . . . l<Ji
Sir Richard Burton (1848) . . . .179
Lady Burton (1887) . . . . . 212
Dante . . . . . . 219
Gambetta . . . ... 247
Charlotte Bronte . . . . . 272
George, Prince of Wales . . . . 295
Hannah Lightfoot . . ... 304
Princess Amelia
329
ix
Fra Filippo Lippi
and his Model, the Nun Lucrezia
Twelve Great Passions
i
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI
AND HIS MODEL, THE NUN LUCREZIA
JNCE upon a time there lived a man ; and, as
is the way with men, he loved a woman. But
the world had forbidden this man to enjoy the
gift of love. Also it had forbidden the woman.
And they — for the man was a good man, and the woman
a good woman — strove to their utmost to obey the
world. But this they could not do ; they found the
power of love stronger than mortal ordinances. So they
yielded to love. And in consequence great sorrows
befell them. But, just as they loved nobly, so also
they suffered nobly. Sorrow did not kill their love ;
on the contrary, it strengthened it. In the end, there-
fore, the world repented of its harshness ; forgave the
man his disobedience and blessed his union with the
woman.
It is a charming story ; and well might it be told as
3
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
a^fairy taje.: JsTop does it lack a moral. Sincerity and in-
tegrity of* purpo.se, soipetimes are rewarded — even on this
\That: is :tfij& n^bral. Is it a very wicked one?
Of course, Fra Filippo Lippi and the Nun Lucrezia had
no right to fall in love with one another. Indeed, it was
very wrong of them, for both had taken the vow of
celibacy. Still, they did fall in love ; and a more
beautiful and noble love than theirs rarely has been
known. Perhaps, then, if only for this reason, one can
condone it, even as Pope Pius II, incidentally one of
the best of all the Popes, at length condoned it.
Besides, it happened many, many years ago ; in the
fifteenth century, in fact — an age when manners, morals,
customs, all were very different from those in vogue to-
day. It happened, moreover, under a radiant Italian sky,
and at a time when a new ideal was dawning in the minds
of men. Europe at last was breaking free from the
shackles of classic orthodoxy, seeking a truer and more
natural life, a life of colour and of beauty. And Lippi,
ever more of an artist than a priest, was at once a child
and herald of this movement.
He was born in Florence in the year 1406, in a little
street called Ardiglione, which ran behind the Convent of
the Carmelites. His father kept a butcher's shop there ;
and, so it seems, kept it none too well, for, when he died,
he left his son, then a lad some seven years of age, en-
dowed with nothing save an immense imagination.
Thus, until the Church offered him a home, little
Filippo was forced to eke out a miserable existence in the
4
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI AND HIS MODEL
gutters of his native city, friendless and a pauper. It was
a wretched childhood. Robert Browning has made him
tell the hapless story for himself. And the poet's words
baffle imitation. Thus it is he makes the artist speak : —
" I was a baby when my mother died
And father died and left me in the street.
I starved there, God knows how, a year or two
On fig-skins, melon parings, rinds and shucks,
Refuse and rubbish. One fine frosty day,
My stomach being empty as your hat,
The wind doubled me up and down I went.
Old Aunt Lapaccia trussed me by one hand,
(Its fellow was a stinger as I knew)
And so along the wall, over the bridge,
By the straight road to the convent. Six words, there,
While I stood munching my first bread that month :
1 So, boy, you're minded/ quoth the good, fat father
Wiping his mouth, 'twas refection time, —
' To quit this miserable world ?
Will you renounce. . . . ' The mouthful of bread ? thought I,
By no means ! Brief they made a monk of me."
They made a monk of him — made a monk of him.
That explains everything. Lippi did not seek the
Church ; the Church sought Lippi, and, at first, sought
him reluctantly. For a long while, in fact, the good
friars despaired of turning to any useful purpose this
small waif whom they had rescued ; he seemed likely to
become neither scholar nor ascetic.
Yet, despite this, Lippi had his talent, a tremendous
talent too ; and at last his benefactors found it. The
5
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
boy was born to be an artist ; in time he would become
a great artist. And the friars were very glad ; they
needed an artist. Lorenzo Monaco belonged to the
order of the Camoldese. The Dominicans could lay
claim to Fra Angelico. But the Carmelites — whom had
they to decorate their chapels ? They had no one. Ah !
but they would soon have Fra Filippo.
So they implored the boy to dedicate his work to them ;
to live with them ; to paint for them. They offered
him wealth ; they offered him peace. And Lippi — for
in those days he had no thought beyond his art —
accepted their offers unquestioningly, and with his lips
cheerfully renounced the world, not realizing how great
a sacrifice he was making to his genius. But with his
heart he could not renounce the world, for in his heart
he loved the world, and life to his eyes was full of
beauty.
Doctrines such as his, then, — doctrines acquired,
it may be, from the great Cosimo de' Medici, who later
became his friend and patron — could not be confined
within the narrow limits of priestly dogma.
Still, he was a good man was Lippi, despite his way-
wardness ; and he strove hard to perform his duties
worthily. What is more, he did so perform them, and,
as " the Glad Friar," won the love and confidence of
almost every one with whom he came in contact. But his
easy-going ways made for him also many enemies.
Now in 1450, one of them, prompted, no doubt, by
malice, charged him with misappropriating funds — a
6
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI AND HIS MODEL
serious accusation for a priest to face ; and Lippi, under,
pain of torture, confessed that he had been guilty. But
guilty he was not ; of this there can be no doubt, despite
his confession. The latter, in fact, counts as nothing.
Men often have preferred to bear for ever even the
stain of crime, rather than endure the torments of the
rack.
Nor, would it seem, did Lippi confess readily,
for, as a cripple, he carried with him to the grave
the marks of torture. So soon as he had confessed,
moreover, he recanted, swearing his innocence and de-
manding a fair trial. But the Vicar-General of Sant'
Antonio refused to sanction the appeal ; he had good
reasons. This even the Pope was shrewd enough to
see, for, although he deprived Lippi of his spiritual
functions — no alternative was possible — he specially re-
served for him the revenues.
And then, a few years later, the artist was appointed
to a post at Prato, as Chaplain to the Convent of Santa
Margherita. Chaplain to a convent — such a position
surely is not often offered to a priest guilty of forgery,
however great may be his talent as an' artist.
ii
Now, shortly after he had taken up his new duties,
Lippi set to work to paint a panel for the chapel, a
picture of the Madonna, commissioned by the Abbess.
The artist undertook the work eagerly ; to perform
it was the ambition of his life. The picture, he
7
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
resolved, should be incomparably his greatest painting ;
and the central figure a Madonna such as never before
had been conceived in the mind of man. She should be
no mere form, statuesque and cold, gazing upon the
world through hard, unsympathetic eyes as were the
Madonnas of a bygone age. Nor should she be a life-
less, lovely figure as were the Madonnas of Fra
Angelico.
No — she should be at once woman, mother, wife ; a
woman to whom frail mortals instinctively would turn
for sympathy ; beautiful and pure, but bearing un-
mistakably the stamp of sex. In short, she should be
ideal, his ideal, the perfect woman, the perfect wife — an
ideal, perhaps, incongruous in a friar. But Lippi, in
whom had breathed the spirit of the Renaissance, was
seeking to break away from the cut-and-dried rules of
the past, and, for this reason, has been accused in com-
mon with most great men of having lived before his
time.
But to find the model — that was his difficulty. For a
long while he sought throughout the length and
breadth of Italy, but sought in vain. One seemed too
worldly ; another, too sad ; the third, too frivolous ; the
fourth, too shallow. But at last he found the very
woman he had been seeking, one who realized to the
full the perfection of spiritual and physical beauty, and
he found her where he had begun his search, at Prato —
in the Convent, too. He saw her there one day, praying
in the chapel.
8
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI AND HIS MODEL
Her name was Lucrezia.
Now the worthy Abbess was very reluctant to allow the
girl to sit as Lippi's model. Had the artist chosen one
of her other charges, she might not have hesitated, but,
in the case of Lucrezia, she regarded with grave mis-
giving so unusual, nay, so dangerous a practice, for the
child — and in mind Lucrezia was still a child, despite
her three-and-twenty years — did not appear to have found
that spiritual contentment which a nun should find ;
although hidden from the world, she remained of
the world. And sometimes this troubled the good
Abbess. Still, to Lippi, she felt, she could safely entrust
the girl. She liked the man, and, despite his un-
conventional ways, knew him to be of sterling worth.
Surely then, while under his care, no harm could
befall Lucrezia. So she argued with herself. Then she
yielded ; for she wanted the picture greatly ; and no
model, the artist had declared, could serve his purpose
other than Lucrezia.
Now she, when she heard of Lippi's wishes, felt
strangely elated. The woman in her was strong, and,
as the Abbess suspected, she valued admiration highly.
The thought, then, that she from among all women had
been chosen as a great artist's conception of the perfect,
flattered her vanity. This, surely, was but natural.
The sight, moreover, of the lovely robe he had
sent to clothe his Madonna, the robe which she was to
wear, thrilled her every sense most wonderfully, arousing
within her the dormant consciousness of womanhood.
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
And with the robe came other rich apparel, and soft
linen garments, linen such as she had never seen before ;
the mere touch of it against her skin sent rushing to
her mind forbidden thoughts, which, though she did not
understand them, terrified her.
A new and very marvellous world seemed suddenly to
be opening out before her, a world of life, of beauty and
of danger. True, she had but a part to play in it. Yet
that, even that, she found inexpressibly delightful — or
very wicked ; she knew not which. Her sensations
bewildered her.
Not a demure little maid, then, such as he had seen
praying in the chapel, but a woman, proud and radiant,
entered the room in which the artist already had arranged
his easel. Lippi was astonished when he saw her. Her
beauty, the dignity of her bearing, her self-assurance
overwhelmed him ; and he was tongue-tied — he, " the
Glad Friar," who would fight a duel of wit with any
man. The aged Sister, who accompanied Lucrezia,
observed his shyness and was glad to see it, for, so she
thought, it had been caused by pious modesty. She was
an unworldly old woman.
As Lippi became absorbed in his work, however, his
self-confidence returned. The picture — he was sure of
it now — would surpass his wildest dreams ; it seemed to
him she was the very Madonna herself who stood
before him. Never before had he had such a model ;
her expression, it varied at his will.
He soon ceased to think of her as a nun, and talked
10
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI AND HIS MODEL
gaily to her, of the great world outside to arouse her
interest, of the Medici Court to impart to her face a look
of wonderment and pleasure. And his words filled
Lucrezia with amazement ; she forgot herself utterly ;
her whole being ached for life. Then he talked to her
of the new learning and of friendship. They were
beautiful doctrines, it is true, but dangerous. The nun
looked sad. So Lippi sang to her to restore her cheer-
fulness, sang songs of love and passion, which stirred her
soul in its very depths and made her eyes to shine with
sympathetic understanding.
But the words of his song aroused the Sister who had
been acting as duenna. Till then she had been dozing
quietly in a corner of the room, and, being slightly
deaf, had paid no heed to Lippi's conversation. But, as
he sang, his voice reached her ears only too clearly ; she
could not allow him thus to sing of love, even for the
sake of art. So she rose hastily to her feet, and rebuked
him.
Then Lippi realized what he had done. But, for
the present, anger triumphed. He resented the good
Sister's interference ; never before had he been able to
paint as he had painted then. And now — the spell had
been broken. Petulantly he threw down his brush.
He would paint no more, he said ; the sitting must
close.
Then the Sister, sad at heart, led Lucrezia away. Had
she done wrong, she wondered ?
But she had not done wrong; and Lippi knew it.
ii
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Indeed, no sooner had Lucrezia gone than he repented
having spoken of matters which he had no right to
mention. Already, it may be, he saw the rocks ahead ;
saw whither he was drifting. He tried, therefore, to
forget, and to help the woman also to forget. Accord-
ingly, he busied himself with other duties, and made
such progress with the picture as he could without
another sitting, working on the background and the
other figures. In this way a week elapsed, two weeks,
three, a month. But it was impossible for him to do
much while the central figure remained blurred and
indistinct. A second sitting became imperative.
Besides, priest though he was, Lippi longed again to
see Lucrezia.
Now, at the second sitting, not only did Lippi talk ;
Lucrezia talked also, telling the artist of herself, her life,
her hopes, her interests. Nor was there anybody to
restrain her, for the good Sister who had been appointed
as duenna, sorry for her former interference, discreetly
left the room, determined not again to interrupt the
progress of the picture. And she felt quite justified in
doing so, for, like the Abbess, she herself had come
now to think that Lucrezia, in spite of all, could not be
left in safer hands than Lippi's.
So the girl talked freely ; and as she spoke, Lippi's
respect and admiration for her grew apace. And soon,
another new bond sprang up between them, the bond of
sympathy, for her life story, so it seemed, closely
resembled his. Her father, Francesco Buti, had been a
12
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI AND HIS MODEL
merchant, but he had died when Lucrezia was only
seventeen years of age, and had left the girl and
Spinetta, her sister, dowerless and orphans.
Now in mediaeval times, at any rate, the world was a
dangerous place for unprotected girls. Lucrezia, there-
fore, following her sister's example, had fled to a convent,
the Convent of Santa Margherita, and there sought
safety. There was nothing else she could do. For-
saken by the world, she had left the world — hoping to
forget. Nor, she maintained, had she had occasion to
repent her action. Indeed, the Sisters had been very
kind to her ; so kind that in return she felt she could
never show them gratitude enough.
Still, despite these words, regret mingled with her
speaking. Nor did Lippi fail to notice it ; and, in his
mind, her regret raised infinite and awful possibilities.
She had left the world, hoping to forget. But had she
forgotten ? Had she forgotten ? He wondered. And
as he wondered, those doctrines of Plato he had so
lightly preached crumbled to nothingness, unable to
survive the test of fact.
This the third sitting proved. It was a long sitting,
and already the shades of evening were falling fast
when Lippi moved forward to raise his model from her
chair. And she needed help ; sitting in one position
had cramped her limbs. So the artist begged forgiveness
for his thoughtlessness. He had detained her over-
long, he said ; and wearied her. Then he bent down
to place upon her brow a light, Platonic kiss to show
13
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
his gratitude. But Lucrezia — this was more than she
could bear. Suddenly the woman in her triumphed ;
she raised her lips to his, and Lippi's met them.
It was the first kiss of love ; and the picture, the
" Madonna of the Girdle," was left for another man to
finish.1
in
On the following morning — it was the first of May
— a bright and balmy day in the year 1456, Lucre-
zia crept stealthily and fearfully from the Convent, and,
like the buds around her, opened her timid eyes upon
the world.
At last she was safe, free now to live and love ; and
the sensation amazed her with its wondrousness. She
had no fear in herself; all she had feared was detection.
But now — now nothing mattered. She was free. An
ecstasy of happiness flooded her heart.
Even the birds, in songs of rapturous bliss, seemed
to rejoice with her ; whilst the very lights and shadows
danced with glee. She had never known the world to
be so beautiful.
Then Lippi met her — Lippi in his most joyous, radiant
mood. This dispelled all her waning doubts, and the
past and its restrictions faded, like some forgotten
memory, utterly from her thoughts.
And surely in such a mood many another mortal has
thus crossed the Rubicon of life. At such times, to
1 The picture, now in the Municipal Palace, Prato, was finished by
Diamante.
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI AND HIS MODEL
live only in the present appears to be so easy and so
beautiful that fear seems futile. None the less, though
one may live in the present, it is the past which governs
one's life. One cannot suppress the past ; forget it,
of course one can — but only for a while.
Together, then, heedless of everything save the joys
of the present, Lucrezia and Lippi set out through the
flower-strewn fields towards St. Alessandro. There
Lippi found for the girl a place of refuge, which he
could visit every day ; and there for several weeks they
lived, playing like two foolish children — this strangely
mated pair, the woman young and beautiful, the man
fat, crippled, fifty years of age ; autumn wedded to
spring, and living an idealistic dream in defiance of all
the laws of nature and of man.
But of these happenings the world was sublimely
unaware.
That Lucrezia had disappeared was, of course, known
at the Convent, where, needless to say, it caused much
consternation. But that she had run away with Lippi
not a soul suspected. Indeed, the girl's unhappy dis-
appearance seemed to worry the Chaplain more than
anybody else. He acted his lie to perfection, and for
the present, though he hated the task, continued to be
punctilious in the performance of his duties.
Still, there was a future for him to consider, a future
full of difficult and anxious problems. He and
Lucrezia, as now he realized, had taken a bold and,
maybe, foolish step. The likely consequences of their
15
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
action afforded him much food for meditation. And,
apart from that, there remained also to be solved the most
elementary problem of existence.
What was he to do with Lucrezia ? The question
was no easy one to answer. Lippi was not a rich man ;
except for such money as he derived from the Convent,
he had no income. And as for his savings — they were
non-existent ; like most artists, he had been a notorious
spendthrift.
Some years before, however, during an affluent period,
he had bought a house in Prato which, although he had
furnished it, had never yet been occupied. As mistress
of this house, he proposed now to install Lucrezia.
The girl approved of the idea. But the house was big ;
she feared she might be lonely in it.
At Lippi's suggestion, therefore, she wrote to Spinetta,
confessing all, and begging her sister to come and
live with her. The Chaplain himself delivered the
letter. And Spinetta, because she loved her little sister
very dearly, yielded to the request, consenting for her
sake to keep secret Lippi's wicked action. Besides, by
living with Lucrezia, she hoped perhaps to be able to
prevent further misfortunes from befalling her.
So it came about that the two missing nuns took up
their abode within a stone-throw of the Convent. And,
if only because of its brilliant audacity, a more effective
place of concealment could not have been devised.
Nobody suspected the identity of Lippi's two mys-
terious tenants. The secrecy of their movements, it is
16
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI AND HIS MODEL
true, aroused some comment, as also did the landlord's
frequent visits to the house. Still, even idle curiosity
was not persistent, for ... well, surely the artist's
connection with the Convent was enough alone to
disarm suspicion.
For eleven months Lucrezia lived thus at Prato ;
they were happy months too, gloriously happy, but,
even so, they contained their full complement of
sorrows. In the first place, the secrecy of the life was
hateful to Lucrezia. She had fled from the Convent
hoping to find freedom, but instead — she found herself
a slave to a still more inexorable master, a slave to
convention.
And then again, the fact that she had placed herself
beyond the pale of the Church's blessing distressed her
greatly. Why, she asked herself, was she forced to be
ashamed of this beautiful new love which she had found ?
Why could not the Church sanction it and bless it ?
But in vain she sought for comfort in such questions ;
she knew the answers to them only too well. Nothing,
not even her lover's tender care, could still the voice
of conscience ; relentlessly it harassed her ; and, as
Easter drew near again, a great desire, so strong as to
be irresistible, seized hold of her to confess everything,
and plead for absolution.
Without telling Lippi, therefore, of her purpose, she
sought out one day an aged priest, and to him told all
the truth, reserving nothing. Nearly a year had elapsed
since last she had confessed, and now, terrified by the
c 17
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
awfulness of her wrong-doings, she stumbled pitifully
through her sorry story. From behind the grating of
his confessional the priest — for he was a kindly old
man — did all he could to help her, listening with patient
sympathy while she spoke. When she had finished,
however, he told her firmly that she must renounce
immediately both Lippi and his love. Till she had
done that he could offer neither hope nor consolation ;
and even so, he said, he would have first to refer the
matter to the Bishop ; so great a sin he himself was
powerless to absolve.
The answer was inevitable ; the priest could give
none other. But, renounce Lippi, renounce her love, this
Lucrezia could not do. She said so. The man who loved
her, she declared, was more dear to her than very life.
" More dear than your Saviour ? " asked the priest.
And Lucrezia was silent. So the confessor continued.
" Consider my words carefully, my child," he said, " and
return to me to-morrow. I shall expect you."
Then Lucrezia rose and went. But on the morrow
she did not return. She could not renounce her love
for Lippi.
Yet when religion wars with love the strife must be
inevitably bitter ; and that which now had begun to rage
in Lucrezia's mind was indeed very bitter. From the
first encounter, love, it is true, emerged victorious. That
victory, however, was merely a Pyrrhic one ; the supreme
struggle was still to come, and love then was forced to
take the field, robbed of its most powerful weapon.
18
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI AND HIS MODEL
So far as Lucrezia was concerned, no longer did the
issue lie solely between Lippi and her God. A new
element had entered the fray ; it cramped and impeded
the inclinations of her love.
In short, the woman now found herself standing on
the threshold of the greatest crisis in her life, the
threshold of motherhood. Then suddenly she realized
that, unless she could first make her peace with God, her
child perforce must be born and reared a pagan. By
returning to the Convent and renouncing all that she
held dear, alone could she save his soul.
But this — could she do this ? It would be an awful
sacrifice for her to make ; and by making it, as she saw
only too clearly, she would rob her child of that which
nothing could replace, the gift of a mother's love.
The choice was a hard one. And Lippi — he for his
part was powerless to advise or help. However — and
may this stand always to his credit — when finally
Lucrezia yielded to the voice of conscience and
decided, in obedience to the mandate of the Church,
to sacrifice her love to duty, he made no endeavour to
dissuade her. Bravely she made the sacrifice. Bravely
he sought to make it easy for her. And thereby surely
they atoned for everything.
Thus, for the sake of the unborn infant who had
come between them, with smiles upon their lips and
anguish in their hearts, the lovers parted. They
resolved never again to meet alone. So Lippi went his
way, and left Lucrezia to await the coming of the child.
19
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
He was born in August, 1457 — little Filippino who
subsequently became an artist almost as great as his
great father — and, but a short year later, the mother,
true to her promise, returned to the Convent, where
in due course she took her vows and became a nun.
Thus, she had been assured, alone could she hope to
make atonement and find consolation. Nor was that
consolation withheld from her.
The man, however, found it harder to forget. He
turned to the world — there was nothing else he could
do — and so sought peace in work and in devotion to
his son. But the world is a cruel place, and men,
naturally intolerant of others' failings, are ever ready to
misunderstand their actions. And Lippi's, though they
did not know the truth, men misunderstood most woe-
fully ; whilst conscience, which makes cowards of us
all, oppressed the unhappy artist always with a hideous
sense of shame, leaving him wretched and forlorn.
For three years thus he existed.
in
And here, no doubt, this romantic story would have
ended, had it not been for the fact that a certain Messer
Ignotus of Prato happened to dislike intensely the Pro-
curator of the Convent of Santa Margherita, a certain
Ser Piero d'Antonio di Ser Vannozzo.
Now in 1461, hoping to crush his enemy, Messer
Ignotus issued an anonymous accusation, casting asper-
sions on the morals of the Procurator ; and, so as to
20
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI AND HIS MODEL
substantiate the charge, coupled his name with that of
the Chaplain, who, he declared (for during the past
three years vague rumours had been circulating freely)
had had a son by one of the nuns in the Convent,
Sister Spinetta.
This was a very serious charge, certainly one
which could not, under any circumstances, be ignored.
Accordingly the Ufficiali di Notte e Monasteriiy a body
of magistrates, whose duties included the supervising
of ecclesiastical institutions, summoned Lippi to appear
before them.
But the Chaplain denied the accusation brought
against him. It was true, he confessed, that he had
had a son ; it was true, moreover, that the mother was
a nun. But her name was not Spinetta. Nor, he main-
tained, was it either right or necessary that the mother's
identity should be disclosed, for she had repented and
been restored to her order.
The magistrates looked thoughtful. They would
have liked to pardon Lippi, but this they could not
do. So grave an offence nothing could condone, al-
though it had been committed now three years ago,
although during that time the friar had proved his
penitence, acting as nobly as a man could act. Deprive
Lippi of his chaplaincy they must at any rate. The
magistrates had no alternative.
So they passed sentence. It was a just and lenient
sentence too. This Lippi could not deny. Still it
filled his heart with bitterness that the crown of hateful
21
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
notoriety should be the sole reward of his repentance.
To be robbed of his livelihood, branded with shame,
forsaken by friends — even had he not renounced
Lucrezia, worse happenings could hardly have befallen
him. Besides, had she remained with him, he might
have escaped ere now to some place where they were
not known and could be living happily together.
Was his great sacrifice, then, all to be in vain ? Was
there to be no escape from the consequences of his
broken vow ? Justice seemed to him most wickedly un-
just. The sense of his misfortune preyed upon his mind,
killing his wit and former cheerfulness. Even his art
forsook him. Paint he could not now ; the inclination
was no longer with him. His hand and eye seemed
somehow to have lost their cunning ; and not even the
encouragement of friends and patrons could spur him
on again to good endeavours.
The Glad Friar, in fact, went out from the court
of law into the world a sadly altered man.
Cosimo de' Medici, however, who had watched the
developments of this romance with interested amuse-
ment, now really was moved to sympathy by his
friend's genuine distress. Accordingly, unknown to
Lippi, he seized the first opportunity of interceding
with the Pope on his behalf.
Now Pius II was a broad-minded man, charitable, and
withal an intense student of human nature. The artist's
hapless story, therefore, aroused his interest, and, as no
doubt the Medici had foreseen, he forthwith summoned
22
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI AND HIS MODEL
Lippi to his presence. He wished to learn for himself
if the facts of the case really were as they had been
represented to him, and, if so, to right a manifest and
grievous wrong.
But Lippi obeyed the mandate with grave misgiving.
His worst fears, he thought, would now be realized, for
he knew nothing of the Medici's action. Expecting,
then, some further persecution, with trembling, anxious
footsteps he entered the Pontiff's presence. Meet the
Pope's gaze, he dared not. So, kneeling low, he kissed
the ring held out to him, then stood, with head bowed
down, to await the sentence.
To his surprise Pius spoke with kindly gentleness,
bidding him tell in full the story of his unfortunate
entanglement.
Lippi glanced up ; and a new hope sprang suddenly
into his heart. The Pope was smiling at him. And so,
without reserve, he told the truth, trying neither to
excuse nor justify himself. Indeed, he even dared to
say that, despite his penitence, his love for Lucrezia
was as strong now as ever it had been.
After the conclusion of his narrative, for a moment there
was silence, a moment which to Lippi seemed eternity.
That the Pope would forgive him he dared not
hope, and yet — certainly, it seemed, he had listened
to the story with sympathetic understanding. What,
then, would he say ? The artist wondered anxiously.
And as he wondered all his old fears returned, harassing
and tormenting him.
23
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
But the Pope said nothing, The crackle of parch-
ment only broke the silence. Lippi again looked up.
The Pope was holding out a document to him.
Mechanically the artist took it in his hand, unrolled it,
and read. . . .
But surely his eyes had deceived him. He read the
document again. Then he glanced at the Pope.
And that one glance sufficed to tell him that what
his eyes had read was true ; that he and Lucrezia had
been absolved from their vows, and were free now to
become man and wife.
For a moment Lippi stood as one bewildered, over-
come by joy and gratitude. He knew not what to
think, or what to do or what to say. But the Pope
wanted no words ; he bade the artist go and claim his
bride.
And Lippi went. Nor did he delay a minute, but
rode, rode like a boy, despite ill-health and age, in hot
haste for Prato.
Thus ends this story. There remains nothing to be
told, since in those days marriage ceremonies were
deemed unnecessary ; for a man and woman to be free
to marry and to have lived together — that was sufficient
proof of wedlock. Besides, henceforth the chronicler
is silent. All we know is that, from now until his death
in 1469, Lippi's genius shone as it had never shone
before, and that in 1465 was born a daughter who
strengthened still further the bond between Lucrezia
and himself.
24
The Second Mrs* Shelley
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY
From the drawing by Reginald Easton by permission of the
Bodleian Librarian
II
THE SECOND MRS. SHELLEY
SUCH mud has been thrown at the name of
Shelley. It was thrown freely during the
man's lifetime. It has been thrown freely
since his death. Still it is being thrown.
And quite an unfair proportion of this mud found the
mark, and stuck there. In fact, it has become orthodox
even for comparatively tolerant critics to denounce
Percy Bysshe Shelley either as a very bad man, or, at
the best, as one of those incomprehensible, abnormal
individuals whose warped sense of right and wrong
renders it impossible for them to be placed in any
ethical category.
And yet Shelley was not really very bad ; he was bad
only in that he was abnormal ; and he was abnormal
mainly because it was natural for him to be as other
men are not. After all, he had but one small vice, and
that a vice which, incidentally, is the chief virtue of the
little hero of Kensington Gardens. Shelley refused to
grow up ; he could not grow up.
Now, children — that is to say, normal children — have
one distinctive quality — presumably it is the survival of
27
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
some primitive instinct — they detest authority ; they
detest existing institutions, and regard discipline as
a gross infringement of man's natural liberty, instituted
merely to annoy. In the child such thoughts are par-
donable, even in the youth. In the man they become a
crime ; education should have taught him the wisdom
and advantages of discipline.
Shelley, for his part, however, learned none of these
things. He hated discipline. He hated authority. He
hated intolerance. And, from the day of his birth to
the day of his death, he warred relentlessly on each of
them, while circumstances aided and abetted him.
But posterity surely should be grateful to those cir-
cumstances. Indeed, but for their help, Shelley, as is
befitting to the son of an old county family, the heir to
a baronetcy, and a man with almost unlimited wealth at
his disposal, would probably have grown up to become
a respectable bishop, to hold a minor position in some
Tory Ministry, or even to prove himself a conscientious
though probably incompetent Colonial governor. And
what a tragedy that would have been !
The world is not so rich in literature that it can
afford to lose the genius even of one poet.
Now Shelley's violent hatred of authority dated from
his very earliest years. It was, in fact, the only quality
he shared in common with other boys ; it, and a
passionate liking for sensational literature. For the
society of his fellows he had no use ; he much pre-
ferred solitude and his own imaginings ; whilst for
28
THE SECOND MRS. SHELLEY
games, skill in which is the golden road to schoolboy
favour, he had no physical, and still less mental
aptitude.
To elderly people, he thought, games perhaps were
to be commended, for such people seemed often to
be afflicted with cares and troubles which recreation
was able to dispel. But for young' folk to spend
several precious hours of every week pursuing a ball
and one another wildly round a field, young folk who
had no cares, no troubles, nothing to do, in fact, save
think and fancy what they would — well, it seemed
nothing short of the ridiculous.
This attitude, needless to say, did not find favour
for him in the eyes of other boys. Hence, unpopular
though he made himself at his preparatory school,
at Eton he made himself still more unpopular. The
masters hated him. The boys, for the most part,
regarded him as an object for contempt. They could
not understand him ; it was inexplicable to them how
Shelley, who time after time proved himself a "funk"
in the playing fields, could show such audacious daring
in his resistance to authority ; how he, who could not
bring himself to stand up fairly and fight another boy,
yet had the courage to conceal an elaborate electrical
contrivance in a master's desk so as to cause that
gentleman severe physical discomfiture, and later, when
summoned to his study to be punished, could pour
corrosive acid on the carpet by way of protest against
chastisement.
29
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
A recent writer denies that Shelley was expelled from
Eton. No doubt he is right, but the statement can be
based on very little more than a technical distinction.
Still, perhaps it is wise to compromise, and say that the
boy left the school under a cloud. This certainly he
did, and from Eton he went to Oxford.
Now at Oxford, where he found himself freed from
most of the petty annoyances of his childhood, where phy-
sical prowess was not demanded of him, where philosophic
imaginings were encouraged, and where discipline was
comparatively lax, Shelley was able to divert his great dis-
content into wider channels. Accordingly having hurled
opprobrium at his various dons, tutors, and professors,
having denounced the government of the University
and its whole system of education, he found time to
turn his attention to such considerations as politics,
ethics, and religion, until at last he evolved and published
an amazing treatise entitled The Necessity of Atheism.
This was altogether too much for staid, academic
Oxford, and — Shelley was " sent down." He had dis-
graced his university. His university, therefore, dis-
graced him. But since his death — perhaps because he
died tragically — a memorial has been erected to his
honour within the walls of University College.
This is an action typical of Oxford, still more typical
of England. It is a graceful manner of confessing
mistakes, the mistake in this case having been made
by a number of intellectual old gentlemen who
hounded Shelley from their sight because, as a boy of
30
THE SECOND MRS. SHELLEY
eighteen, he ventured to deny the existence of a
God.
Had the poet been allowed to stay there, Oxford
might have saved him from himself, and have enabled
him to become a useful member of society, within the
accepted meaning of the phrase. But Oxford did not
allow him to stay. Shelley was "sent down." And
that decree confirmed and established for ever his hatred
of intolerance. It was an event of supreme im-
portance in his life.
All the while he had been at Oxford — indeed, be the
truth known, even before he had left Eton — Shelley
had been in love with his cousin, little Harriet Grove,
a pretty, dainty girl of his own age. They were not
actually engaged to be married ; though there was a very
definite "understanding" between them, recognized,
nay, encouraged, even by their elders ; that is to say,
recognized until Shelley was " sent down " from Oxford.
This altered everything. Harriet's parents, his own
parents also, ordained that the companionship must
cease immediately ; that he and Harriet must never
meet again ; that there must be no more letters, no
exchange of messages, not even an explanation. And
Harriet, for her part, obeyed their orders gladly.
Greatly alarmed by this hideous thing which had
happened, as disclosed to her by her parents, such
affection as she bore for her lover had turned to horror,
almost to hatred.
But Shelley — " I swear," he wrote, " and as I break
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
my oath may infinity, eternity blast me — here I swear
that never will I forgive intolerance. . . . You shall
see — you shall hear how it has injured me. She is no
longer mine. She abhors me as a sceptic. . . . Oh,
bigotry ! When I pardon this last, this severest, of
thy persecutions, may Heaven (if there be wrath in
Heaven) blast me."
And so, robbed at once of life's two most gentle
influences — Oxford and a woman's love — this dog with a
bad name — went up to London, took rooms in Poland
Street, and thence set out to wage war on society
and its conventions.
ii
Now, Shelley found his earliest disciples in this, his
crusade against intolerance, among his own three sisters.
Themselves suffering under the relentless tyranny of a
boarding-school regime, they welcomed his doctrines ;
in fact, were immeasurably proud of their brother, this
eloquent, aesthetic young reformer, with the face of an
angel and a manner as tender as a woman's, who aspired
with one stroke to sweep away centuries of man-made
institutions, and restore to the world its primaeval
innocence and freedom.
Miss Harriet Westbrook, too, became a ready convert.
She was a friend of Shelley's sisters, and, like them, a
pupil at Mrs. Fenning's " Select Academy for Young
Ladies." Being the daughter of a retired coffee-house
keeper, who had saved some money, she had been sent
32
THE SECOND MRS. SHELLEY
to Mrs. Farming's school at Clapham to be transformed
into a lady.
But the process of transformation, it would seem,
she found to be utterly distasteful. At any rate, she
hated intensely both Mrs. Penning and Mrs. Fenning's
school. No wonder, then, she threw her sixteen-year-
old self, heart and soul, into the campaign instituted
by Shelley against oppression. Besides, instinctively,
almost unconsciously perhaps, she realized immediately
in her commercial little mind the possibilities of friend-
ship with such a man, a close friend of the Duke of
Norfolk, the heir to a baronetcy. Her sister certainly
did.
The sister was older, fifteen years older ; she
warmly encouraged the acquaintanceship. So also did
Shelley's sisters. The schoolgirl's love for romance
was strong within them ; and this they thought romance
indeed. They used to send Harriet, therefore, to their
brother's rooms with little gifts of money — his father
had cut him off with the customary penny — and
messages and notes.
And Harriet went gladly. She felt like the heroine
of a penny novelette, a feeling she had always longed
for, and thought much more of what she believed to be
Shelley's admiration for her than she did of Shelley's
cause ; whilst he, for his part, delighted with the apparent
enthusiasm of his first real convert, persuaded her to
commit all manner of gross insubordinations, for which
Mrs. Penning punished her most fearsomely.
D 33
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
But Harriet rejoiced in her martyrdom ; rejoiced in
being denounced as the friend of an atheist. She had
no idea what an atheist might be, but found it very
delightful to be able to go to one with the story of her
woes ; to hear him breathe words of hope and consola-
tion in her ears, and promise to stand by her whatever
might happen. This, needless to say, Shelley did ad-
mirably. What more, then, could a vulgar and romantic
schoolgirl want ?
So, for a while, the " cause " prospered splendidly,
until, in fact, Shelley gradually began to realize that
Harriet was falling in love with him. Then he became
greatly alarmed ; he wished he had never seen the girl ;
for, although an admirable disciple, he really could not
bring himself to love her ; her manner, even her particular
form of prettiness, offended all his refined susceptibilities.
And yet — how very silly of him ! — he had promised to
stand by her, whatever might happen ! What was he
to do ? Shirk his responsibilities ? That was out of
the question. He could not be false to his first real
convert. Nor, on the other hand, could he bring him-
self to marry her. Hence, hoping that absence, perhaps,
would help her to forget him, he escaped from London
for a while, and went to Wales, there passing the time
among the mountains, meditating and writing pro-
digiously long letters to Miss Elizabeth Hitchener,
a more recent and much more satisfactory convert,
who complained that nobody understood her, and who
had, therefore, a real grievance against life.
34
THE SECOND MRS. SHELLEY
There could be no doubt as to her sincerity. Be-
sides, she happened to live too far away to be able
to meet Shelley often, was eight years his senior, and
plain. In her case, then, there seemed to be but little
danger of sentiment intruding upon business. Thus
Shelley felt that he could call her his " soul's sister "
with impunity. And this he did ; he could not help him-
self, for Miss Hitchener wrote charming letters which
gave him infinite pleasure.
But, while he dallied thus, he did not succeed, as he
had hoped he would, in freeing himself from Harriet
Westbrook. Indeed, forsaken by the man whom she
had thought to be her lover, she promptly went into a
decline, and wrote Shelley piteous letters. Life at home,
she said, had become intolerable; her father was tor-
menting her, and had told her that she must return to
the school which Shelley's doctrines had taught her to
detest. What, then, was she to do ? Return to school
and die ? Resist her father ? Commit suicide ? Or,
what ? Let Shelley only tell her, and she would do it.
Shelley, really distressed by the girl's apparent un-
happiness, forthwith wrote to Mr. Westbrook begging
him to be gentler with his daughter. Mr. Westbrook,
however — for already he had decided that one day he
would become the father-in-law of Sir Percy Shelley,
Bart. — remained obdurate. So Harriet, no doubt to her
elder sister's knowledge, then wrote to Shelley, imploring
him to elope with her.
This was too terrible. Shelley had no desire to be
35
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
eloped with. Still, he felt he must do something in
the matter. So, without delay, he took coach to
London, intending there to talk to Mr. Westbrook
seriously.
Instead, Mr. Westbrook talked seriously to him, and
Harriet talked to him still more seriously. Shelley found
her lying on a couch, looking pale and worn and ill, and
so greatly was he perturbed by the picture of her misery
that — well, he shall tell the whole story himself as he
told it to Miss Kitchener.
" I arrived in London," he wrote. " I was shocked
at observing the alteration of her looks. Little did I
divine its cause. She had become violently attached to
me, and feared I should not return her attachment.
Prejudice made the confession painful. It was im-
possible to avoid being much affected ; I promised to
unite my fate to hers. 1 stayed in London several
days, during which she recovered her spirits. I had
promised, at her bidding, to come again to London.
They endeavoured to compel her to return to a school
where malice and pride embittered every hour. She
wrote to me. I came to London. I proposed marriage,
for the reasons which I have given you, and she
complied. Blame if thou wilt, dearest friend, for still
thou art dearest to me; yet pity even this error if thou
blamest me. If Harriet be not at sixteen all you are at
a more advanced age, assist me to mould a really noble
soul with all that can make its .nobleness useful and
lovely."
36
THE SECOND MRS. SHELLEY
It was in August, 181 1, that the young couple set out
from London. They had decided to fly to Scotland. It
was easier to be married there than in England. In
fact, to get married in England seemed nigh impossible,
for Mr. Wcstbrook, although quite prepared to see
Harriet a titled lady, would, as Shelley knew, protest
emphatically against her marrying a penniless pros-
pective heir, at any rate until the latter had obtained
some satisfactory and very definite assurance from his
father.
And this, of course, never could have been ob-
tained. Timothy Shelley, indeed, had said repeatedly
that he would support illegitimate children cheerfully,
but would never forgive his son should he marry
a woman his inferior in rank. And Shelley, now
that he had just been reconciled to his father, had
no desire again to quarrel, especially for so slight
a cause as Harriet, seeing that from the recent recon-
ciliation he was still benefiting to the extent of a
small, albeit very useful, quarterly allowance. Secrecy,
then, was undoubtedly of great importance.
So to Scotland he and Harriet set forth. But in those
days the journey was a very long one, and expensive.
Shelley was hard put to find the necessary money, since
it still lacked a week to quarter day, and in consequence,
as perhaps is not surprising, his available resources were
non-existent. Still he contrived somehow to borrow
£1$. That seemed ample for his immediate require-
ments. And so it was. At any rate, it took Harriet
37
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
and himself so far as York in comfort. There he
wrote to his friend Hogg. "We are in a slight
pecuniary distress,*' he said. "We shall have seventy-
five pounds on Sunday, until when can you send ten
pounds ? "
Hogg sent the money. Shelley and his bride then
proceeded on their journey ; and eventually arrived at
Edinburgh, but arrived absolutely penniless. Un-
daunted by this, however — Peacock has declared in his
"Memoirs" of the poet — "they took a lodging, and
Shelley immediately told the landlord who they were,
what they had come for and the exhaustion of their
resources, and asked him if he would take them in
and advance them money to get married and to carry
them on till they could get a remittance. This the
man agreed to do, on condition that Shelley would treat
him and his friends to a supper in honour of the
occasion."
Of course Shelley accepted the terms. Necessity left
him no alternative. And a very cheery feast that
supper must have been. The revels continued long
after the bride and bridegroom had retired ; in fact, far
into the night, when suddenly the poet was aroused from
his slumbers by a tapping on the door. He got out of
bed, struck a light, and moved to the door to see who
knocked. There he found the landlord confronting
him, and the other guests arrayed in single file upon the
staircase.
Mine host proceeded to explain the nature of his
38
II
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
From the painting by Amelia Curran
THE SECOND MRS. SHELLEY
mission. " It is customary here," he said, "at weddings
for the guests to come up in the middle of the night
and wash the bride with whisky."
" Indeed ! " remarked Shelley calmly, and the landlord
nodded in a foolish, drunken manner; but when he
found himself gazing down the barrels of a brace of
pistols, he began to appreciate Shelley's opinion of the
startling custom he had innovated. In fact he fled
precipitately down the staircase, tumbling over himself
and the other guests, who eventually all lay at the
bottom in a confused and huddled mass.
In this way, Mr. and Mrs. Percy Shelley began their
married life.
in
But that marriage — what a hideous mistake it was.
How could it have ended in anything other than disaster ?
Not love, not even affection, it was merely a misguided
altruism which had led Shelley to join himself to
Harriet. In his heart he disapproved of the union
most utterly, even as he disapproved of the whole
system of wedlock.
Matrimony, he remarked once in a letter to Miss
Hitchener, is " the most horrible of all the means which
the world has had recourse to, to bind the noble to itself."
Yet Shelley married twice ! So also did William
Godwin, who converted him to this belief. Philo-
sophers are not the best exponents of their own
philosophies.
39
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
But Shelley's first marriage most certainly was hor-
rible, an act of folly which nothing can excuse ; not even
the fact the joint age of bride and bridegroom was only
thirty-five. None the less, that error once committed,
no one can justly blame them for or wonder at the con-
sequence. Indeed, how could so ill-mated a pair possibly
have lived happily together ?
In the first place, Harriet was a very silly little girl,
endowed, one must confess, with a very vulgar little
heart. Of course, she cannot be held to blame for
this ; it was not her fault ; it was merely Shelley's
misfortune, and the tragedy lies in the fact that, despite
her vulgarity, probably because of it, she tried to appear
intellectual, and insisted on reading aloud to her hus-
band, in season, out of season, even on the honeymoon,
learned works which conveyed absolutely no meaning
to her.
One can imagine, then, how she read them ! And,
poor child, she hoped in this way to please her husband!
Instead — although, as Francis Gribble has declared,
" not the least distinguishing of his characteristics was
his desire to see women study " — her persistence
goaded the unhappy man almost to frenzy.
Then again, the poet's penniless, adventurous ex-
istence soon lost its charm for Harriet. She made no
endeavour to understand her husband, or those ideals
which were his guiding principles; if the world was
content to be oppressed by tyranny, that, she main-
tained, was no concern of hers. On the contrary, as the
40
THE SECOND MRS, SHELLEY
wife of a 'gentleman,' she chose suddenly to hanker
after the fleshpots of luxury, squandering Shelley's
scanty earnings on jewels and rich apparel, and de-
manding that he should open for her the magic portals
of Society and so enable her to take her place in the
world as a great lady.
Now these requests must have awakened Shelley very
rudely from such dreams as still he may have cherished
at the time of his marriage — Shelley, the man who,
mainly for Harriet's sake, had allowed himself to be
ostracized by his kinsfolk in order that he might
struggle to uproot those very institutions which Society
held dear.
Perhaps one could almost forgive him had he been
deliberately cruel to her. But this he was not. Accord-
ing to his own views, he did his best to provide for
her wants ; and to be kind to the little girl whose life
he had so foolishly taken into his keeping.
Still, the fault by no means lay only on Harriet's side.
Shelley, in fact, could not have been an easy man to live
with, for he was quite unlike anybody other than
himself, and held in contempt every single known con-
vention. He wore ridiculous clothes in a ridiculous
manner, chose to sleep when other men were awake,
to work when others slept. Nor would he even eat
his meals in a rational manner ; he preferred to walk
about in the open air, munching the bread and raisins
which he carried in his pockets.
Now this sort of behaviour must have been ex-
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
asperating to a girl of Harriet's temperament — a girl
who aspired to pose as a " real lady," and give extrava-
gant banquets to her husband's high-born relatives. She
hated his eccentricities.
Yet, even in spite of this, the misery of her married
life might have been less utter and complete had Shelley
not insisted on having his friend Hogg to live with
him ; and she, her elder sister, Eliza.
The latter was the real cause of all the trouble — a
disagreeable, interfering, middle-aged woman, possessed
of all the discordant characteristics which belong to the
proverbial mother-in-law. Her presence in the house
was poison to Shelley, since she spent her time alternately
accusing him of carrying on a low intrigue with Eliza-
beth Hitchener, and Harriet, of unfaithfulness to him
with Hogg. Perhaps, then, it is not surprising that he
should have endorsed entirely the latter's opinion of the
woman.
" I had ample leisure," Hogg wrote soon after Eliza's
arrival, " to contemplate the addition to our domestic
circle. She was older than I had expected, and she
looked much older than she was. The lovely face was
seamed with small-pox, and of a deadly white, as faces
so marked and scarred commonly are ; as white, indeed,
as a mass of boiled rice, but of a dingy hue, like rice
boiled in dirty water. The eyes were dark, but dull,
and without meaning ; the hair was black and glossy,
but coarse ; and there was the admired crop — a long
crop, much like the tail of a horse — a switch-tail. The
42
THE SECOND MRS. SHELLEY
fine figure was meagre, prim, and constrained. The
beauty, the grace, and the elegance existed, no doubt, in
their utmost perfection, but only in the imagination of
her partial young sister."
The society of Eliza Westbrook, thus forced upon
him, must very soon have shattered Shelley's hopes of
connubial bliss — and very completely. Such fine hopes
too ! Indeed, after his honeymoon, when he took rooms
in York, at 20 Coney Street, he announced his intention
of living there "for ever" with Harriet and Hogg —
he wished Miss Hitchener also to join them — and
aspired to spend his days presiding at an unending in-
tellectual stance^ at which should be considered only
such subjects as the immortality of the soul, the exist-
ence of a God, and the rights of man.
It was indeed an amazing, ludicrous idea — a feast of
reason in a dingy lodging-house, on an income hardly
able to meet the rent, in the company of the unscrupu-
lous Thomas Hogg and a daughter of the retired keeper
of a Clapham eating-house.
Even had Miss Hitchener joined the party, instead
of Harriet's sister, Shelley surely would have found
himself still very, very far from his Utopia. Indeed,
that even he ever should have hoped to reach it, seems
utterly incredible. Still, he did hope, until of course
Eliza arrived, and brought death to his ambitions.
Then he set out for Ireland, full of missionary zeal,
to preach emancipation to mankind — an enterprise,
incidentally, to which Miss Hitchener alone lent warm
43
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
encouragement, but which Shelley found infinitely pre-
ferable to the society of his wife's sister.
" I certainly hate her with all my heart and soul," he
once declared. " It is a sight which awakens an inexpres-
sible sensation of disgust and horror, to see her caress
my poor little lanthe1 in whom I may hereafter find the
consolation of sympathy. I sometimes feel faint with
the fatigue of checking the overflowings of my un-
bounded abhorrence for this miserable wretch. But
she is no more than a blind and loathsome worm that
cannot see to sting."
Poor Shelley — has there ever been a man so much
afflicted with undesirable, unwanted relatives as he ?
Under the circumstances, then, perhaps it is a matter
for no small amount of wonder that he should have
tolerated the atmosphere which pervaded his home circle
for so long as he did, especially seeing that he had
learned from his friend William Godwin, the philoso-
pher, that the sanctity of marriage existed only while
the tie of wedlock proved itself a supreme satisfaction
in the lives of the two people whom it joined together.
Now this belief, lofty, no doubt, though it be in
theory, in practice always proves to be, at any rate,
extremely inconvenient, as even Mr. Godwin began to
realize when he found Shelley contemplating a spiritual
divorce such as he himself had advocated, and making
love to his (Mr. Godwin's) own fair daughter.
1 lanthe was the first of Shelley's children by Harriet. She was born
in 1813.
44
THE SECOND MRS. SHELLEY
Forthwith he retracted all his teaching, and sought
earnestly to reconcile the Shelleys. But this could
not be. Nor do I believe could any power on earth now
have kept the poet and Mary Godwin long apart. If
ever there have been affinities, they indeed were ; and the
love they bore for one another, despite such censures
as one perforce must pass upon it, in the end proved
itself to be at any rate as sincere as the love of man and
woman can be.
Mary Godwin was quite a child when first she came
into Shelley's life — seventeen years of age, in fact, but
older in mind, beautiful, sensitive, with artistic tastes,
and possessing just those traits of character which one
would expect a man of the poet's temperament to have
found attractive in a woman. She had acquired her
father's unorthodox and liberal views on life, and had
inherited from him that love for learning and philosophy
which was essential to the woman who hoped for any
length of time to command the respect of Shelley.
" Every one who knows me," he once told Pea-
cock, must know that the partner of my life must be
one who can feel poetry and understand philosophy.
Harriet is a noble animal, but she can do neither."
Poor little Harriet !
And then again, from her step-mother, Mary had
learned those very lessons which had embittered Shelley
to the world, for the second Mrs. Godwin was a shrew,
a tyrant who delighted in tormenting the daughter of
her husband's former wife. Now, the first Mrs.
45
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Godwin had been none other than the brilliant Mary
Wollstonecraft, one of the sweetest women who ever
lived. She had died in giving birth to Mary. And
Mary adored her mother's memory ; it remained with her
always the most pure and sacred influence on her life,
giving her that wistful melancholy which appealed so
irresistibly to Shelley.
She and the young poet often used to meet in
the twilight by her mother's graveside in Old St. Pan-
eras Churchyard — it was a quiet, peaceful spot in those
days, though now it is a slum through which a railway
makes its way amid the roar and dirt of a great
city — and there sit talking ; not of love ; they were
not lovers yet, these children ; they were bound
merely by a boy-and-girl companionship of mutual
understanding, for Shelley, be it remembered, although
a married man, was still a child in mind. Such he
always remained. He and Mary, then, would talk of
philosophy and poetry, and lament together all the sin
and ugliness which marred the fair beauty of God's
beauteous world. They were both very young. And
Shelley still had ideals.
All this happened in the spring and summer of 1814.
Mr. Godwin, it would seem, was then passing through
one of his frequent financial crises, and Shelley, ever
generous, had undertaken to try to help him. This,
of course, made it necessary for him to go to London.
And to London he went, leaving Harriet in the country.
She, therefore, knew nothing of his doings.
46
THE SECOND MRS. SHELLEY
But in London, attracted by the person of Mr.
Godwin's daughter, Shelley tarried no doubt overlong.
Meanwhile his friendship with Mary Godwin grew
and ripened. His friendship — Shelley did not purpose
ever to make it more, until one day, distressed at
hearing fresh news of Mrs. Godwin's tyrannies, he, too,
unburdened his mind of its great discontent, and begged
Mary to come and live with him. He saw no reason
against such a proposal; and was quite astonished, or
admirably feigned astonishment, at the objections raised
by Mr. Godwin ; still more astonished at Mrs. Shelley's
protests.
Intolerance again ! Was it impossible for men and
women to live in the world as they wished to live ?
Shelley could not, would not, see that it was impos-
sible ; how futile was his struggle against the mandates
of society.
But hatred of intolerance came now to him and
Mary like a serpent showing them where grew the
tree of knowledge of good and evil. They loved one
another. They realized it now ; and they loved with a
love which could not be strangled simply in obedience
to the orders of convention. And they would not
strangle that love. So Shelley said. Mary Godwin
was unhappy; he was unhappy. They would go away
together then. He wanted her. He insisted.
Then — exactly what happened it is impossible to
say. Did Harriet leave Shelley ? Did Shelley leave
Harriet ? Biographers differ. Indeed, the whole
47
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
history of these events l is shrouded deep in mystery ;
and Mary, who alone, perhaps, could have thrown light
upon it, declined to do so.
"This is not the time to tell the truth," she wrote,
by way of preface in her edition of the poet's works,
" and I should reject any colouring of the truth. No
account of those events has ever been given at all
approaching reality in their details either as regards
himself or others ; nor shall I further allude to them
than to remark that the errors of action committed by
a man as noble and generous as Shelley was, as far as he
only is concerned, may be fearlessly avowed by those
who loved him, in the firm conviction that, were they
judged impartially, his character would stand in brighter
and fairer light than that of any contemporary."
One must be content, therefore, merely with con-
jecture. But one fact, the important fact, is indisput-
able.
Some time in 1814 Harriet and Shelley separated,
and soon afterwards the poet fled to France with Mary
Godwin.
And with them went that little imp of mischief,
Mary's half-sister, Jane Clairmont. The latter insisted
on accompanying them. Apparently she made it the
price of her connivance ; and Mary encouraged the
idea, maybe because she was woman enough to think
1 In justification of Shelley's action, it has often been maintained that he
was goaded on by his wife's unfaithfulness. But the evidence is quite
insufficient.
48
THE SECOND MRS* SHELLEY
Jane's presence would mitigate the outrage she herself
was about to commit against propriety.
Thus, at the age of twenty-two, Shelley, a married
man, found himself in France in the company of one
woman whom he could not marry and another woman
who could not be his sister-in-law, for the very reason
that the other could not be his wife !
The situation surely is unique, one in which Shelley,
ever the plaything of eccentric fate, only could have
found himself.
IV
Now Mary, although only seventeen years of age, was a
woman of the world. She knew well what she was doing
when she ran away with Shelley ; knew what the result
must be. But she loved the man, and because she felt
herself to be his proper complement, cheerfully faced the
future, confident that she had acted rightly.
And surely she justified her action. In spite of all,
the story of the eight years which lay still before her
and Shelley is a love idyll as unassailable as any that
ever has been told in prose or verse. And those were
not happy years as the world gauges happiness. In
turn, every form of affliction, of poverty, sickness, and
distress, assailed the lovers. Yet their love proved
stronger than all those things, and at last led them to
the haven which they sought.
Shelley had made a failure of his life. He began to
see it now, at the age of twenty-two ; began to see that
E 49
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
he never could regain the place proper to him, which
he had lost in the esteem of his fellow-men. So he
sought to escape from them, and to hide from the
world. And escape he did. And Mary went with
him, to comfort him in his retreat.
Nor — though he failed utterly to appreciate its
magnitude — was he unmindful of this, the self-sacrifice
she made on his behalf ; she, the woman who worshipped
him, and in whose society he changed from an agnostic,
oppressed by the bitterness and cruelty of the world,
into the bard who sang rapturous songs in honour of
his God, the perfect poet of beauty, love, and joy.
And he loved Mary the more for her unselfishness.
" How beautiful and calm and free thou wert
In thy young wisdom, when the mortal chain
Of Custom thou didst burst and rend in twain,
And walk as free as light the clouds among.
* * * *
" No more alone through the world's wilderness,
Although I trod the paths of high intent,
I journeyed now."
But before this day came, there were many difficulties
to be faced and overcome. When he fled from England,
Shelley had made absolutely no provision for the future ;
nor had he any money either due to him or in his pocket.
True, his watch realized £% 55. and he contrived
somehow to borrow £60 in Paris. Still, under the
most favourable circumstances, to travel with two ladies
on the Continent is not a cheap amusement. This
50
THE SECOND MRS. SHELLEY
Shelley very soon discovered. Perhaps then it was not
surprising that, before they had been away long, he,
Jane, and Mary should have been forced to return
home with unseemly haste to that very England which,
when they left it, they declared they would never see
again.
After numerous adventures they arrived at Gravesend
towards the end of August, arrived, moreover, with-
out even a cab fare in their pockets. None the less they
took a cab, and drove round London until they could
find a landlady prepared to give them lodgings and long
credit. This done, Shelley continued to drive until he
could find a cab fare. He was compelled eventually to
borrow it from Harriet. Then he returned to the
lodgings.
And there during the next few months, Jane, Mary,
and himself had more than ample leisure to repent
their hasty action and contemplate the stern realities
of life, for, in addition to the taunts of friends and
relatives, the most dire poverty afflicted them. Indeed,
often they were forced literally to beg their daily bread
in order to solve the most elementary problem of ex-
istence, and, at that time, they had very few friends from
whom to beg.
Life, therefore, soon resolved itself into a game of
hide-and-seek with brokers* men and bailiffs. And this at
the time when Mary was expecting the birth of her
first child ! Surely even the humour of the situation
could scarcely have relieved its sordid tragedy.
51
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
What would have happened ultimately it is impos-
sible to imagine, had Shelley not been Shelley. But,
being Shelley and therefore quite irresponsible, Fate
took compassion on him. In short, early in January,
1815, his grandfather died, leaving him a parcel of land
which his father, who now succeeded to the baronetcy,
took from him in return for the payment of all his
debts and an annual allowance of ^"1000.
This, of course, solved immediately and for ever
the poet's financial difficulties. But it did not bring
all his troubles to an end. On the contrary, worse ones
were still to come. . . .
It was only when Shelley had gone from her that
Harriet fully realized the greatness of her loss ; of
how much she had robbed herself by her callous intoler-
ance. And it was too late then for vain regrets. She
had already chosen her path and left herself with no
alternative other than to follow it. Shelley asked her
to return to him. But this she could not do. Live
with her husband and the woman who had supplanted
her in his favour — of course she could not; pride
forbade her. So, for a while she tried to lead an idle
life of pleasure, dallying in tawdry gaiety ; and Shelley —
this at least stands to his credit — provided her with
every penny he could spare for her to squander.
But Harriet had not the temperament of a bad
woman, nor the charm necessary to an adventuress.
The world had dealt very cruelly with her, and now,
so it seemed, had nothing more to offer. She was
52
THE SECOND MRS. SHELLEY
not one of those women able to soar above the mean-
ness of adverse circumstance. And so at last, betrayed
by her follies, she allowed despair to enter her soul,
and in the early hours of the morning of November 9,
1816, drowned herself and all her sorrows in the
waters of the Serpentine.
For some weeks her disappearance remained a mystery;
nobody, not even her parents, knew what had become of
her, until, on December 12, a paragraph in " The Times "
at last made known the truth : —
" On Tuesday a respectable female, far advanced in
pregnancy, was taken out of the Serpentine River and
brought to her residence in Queen Street, Brompton,
having been missing nearly six weeks. She had a
valuable ring on her finger. A want of honour in
her own conduct is supposed to have led to this fatal
catastrophe, her husband being abroad."
But her husband was not abroad. Shelley, in fact,
was at Bath when he heard of the tragedy, and the
news shocked him profoundly. Forthwith he hastened
to London to attend the funeral, though still he declared
his feelings to be those only of sorrow, not of remorse.
He denied that he had been in any way the cause of
Harriet's death.
Yet posterity, I think, may, in turn, deny his denial,
for the picture of his first wife's hideous end remained
in his mind, poignant and vivid till his death. "It was,"
wrote Leigh Hunt, " a heavy blow to him, and he never
forgot it." Whilst even Peacock, Harriet's friend, de-
53
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
clared that "her untimely fate occasioned him deep
agony of mind, which he felt the more because for a
long time he kept the feeling to himself," adding that he
then determined to " take a great glass of ale every night."
" I shall do it," he said, " to deaden my feelings."
The death of little Harriet, however, made it possible
for Shelley now to take Mary Godwin as his wife.
This he did six weeks later. Then, repudiated by his
relations, scorned by the world as the murderer of
his wife, forbidden in the Law Courts ever again to be
a father to her children, he set out for Italy with the
one woman in the world who really understood him.
And there, despite his misfortunes, despite those
periods of melancholy which darkened his later years,
he lived a life of perfect happiness, free and untrammelled
from the follies of the past. Amid sunshine and sub-
limest of Italian scenery, the old Shelley ceased to exist ;
a new one came into being ; a Shelley who, in the com-
pany only of those who understood and were able to
appreciate him as the genius which he was, soared to
the dizziest heights of poesy, exemplifying to the full
the truth of his own lines : —
" Most wretched men
Are cradled into poetry by wrong,
They learn in suffering what they teach in song."
And Mary — she too found happiness in Italy, though
hers — and how could it have been otherwise ? — was a
happiness tinged both with sorrows and regret.
54
THE SECOND MRS. SHELLEY
Much has been written about Mary Shelley's lofty soul
and poetic aspirations, but most of it is gross exaggeration.
The author of " Frankenstein," though cultured and
appreciative of art, was not herself a genius ; she was
merely a middle-class English woman who, though
content with lesser things than Harriet, found the
wild Bohemianism of her husband's life utterly dis-
tasteful. She had no wish to escape from the world
and bury herself in the solitude of oblivion. On the
contrary, although she never dared admit it, the one
thing she desired was to reinstate herself in Mrs.
Grundy's favour ; and she hankered ever longingly for
those tea-parties and other conventional monotonies,
so dear to women of her class, which were denied
to her in Italy.
Shelley, of course, could have moved in any social
circle that he wished ; could have become, in fact,
a leader of fashion, as Byron did, for a man with his
name and his reputation would have been regarded as
an acquisition by any English community — on the
Continent. And, no doubt, had he taken the trouble
to do so, he could have opened the doors of the most
exclusive houses also to his wife. But this he would
not do ; deliberately he shunned society as a some-
thing evil. And on her own merits only, Mary, a
tradesman's daughter, who had been her husband's
mistress before she became his wife, could not be
received, save only by such people as Shelley chose to
know, Trelawny's friends and the intimates of Byron.
55
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
They were people, very few of whom paid much heed to
the conventions.
And then there was Jane Clairmont — she proved her-
self a sorry trial to Mary, not only on account of her
blatant indiscretions and seeming disregard for all
morality, but because of her relationship with Shelley.
Mary could not convince herself as to its innocence,
suspicions harassed her, for, in matters of the heart,
she knew her step-sister to be as reckless as she was
irresponsible.
Besides, there were other women too — Jane Williams,
for example, Emilia Viviani, and the fair unknown who
followed the author of " Queen Mab " from England,
and died at Naples of a broken heart, because her love
still remained unrequited.
This was the second cause of Mary's sorrow — that
green-eyed monster, jealousy.
Still, there is another side to the picture.
" My greatest content," Shelley once wrote, and at
a time, moreover, when Mary's baseless fears were
most acute, "would be utterly to desert all human
society. I would retire with you and our child to
a solitary island in the sea, and shut upon my retreat
the flood gates of the world. I would read no reviews
and talk with no authors. If 1 dared trust my imagina-
tion, it would tell me there are one or two chosen
companions besides yourself whom I should desire.
But to this I would not listen — where two or three are
gathered together, the devil is among them. And
56
i
THE SECOND MRS, SHELLEY
good, far more than evil, impulses, love, far more than
hatred, has been to me, except as you have been its
object, the source of all sorts of mischief."
And those were not idle words ; Shelley meant them,
every one of them, and did earnestly wish to seek now
a retreat still more sequestered, and thither to escape
alone with the woman whom he recognized as his good
genius, the only woman he had ever really loved, the
woman who had saved him from himself. But, because
he loved her, he restrained the wish.
" Poor Mary ! hers is a sad fate," he told Trelawny.
" Come along ; she can't bear solitude, nor I society —
the quick coupled with the dead."
In some measure, then, at least, he realized the great-
ness of her sacrifice, and, by showering upon her
treasures from his boundless store of love, did what he
could to compensate her for it. And it was in that
love that Mary found her happiness. Though how
much more she might have found she did not know
till Shelley left her never to return ; then, only then,
when it already was too late, when death had claimed
him, there dawned within her the consciousness of her
own failings.
And that consciousness it was which made her
write : —
" Oh, gentle Spirit, thou hast often sung
How fallen on evil days thy heart was wrung ;
Now fierce remorse and unreplying death
Waken a chord within my heart, whose breath,
57
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Thrilling and keen, in accents audible
A tale of unrequited love doth tell.
It was not anger — while thy earthly dress
Encompassed still thy soul's rare loveliness,
All anger was atoned by many a kind
Caress and tear, that spoke the softened mind-
It speaks of cold neglect, averted eyes,
That blindly crushed the soul's fond sacrifice ;
My heart was all thine own — but yet a shell
Closed in its core, which seemed impenetrable,
Till sharp-toothed misery tore the husk in twain,
Which gaping lies, nor may unite again.
Forgive me ! "
It was in 1822 that Shelley met his tragic end. He
was returning from Leghorn, whither he had gone one
day to meet Leigh Hunt, across Spezzia Bay in a small
boat alone with Captain Williams to his house, the
Casa Magni at Lerici. Trelawny had intended to
accompany him part of the way in Byron's yacht, but
at the last minute was prevented. The small boat,
therefore, set out alone, Trelawny watching its progress
from the yacht, conversing meanwhile with the mate.
The boat was carrying too much sail, the latter said ;
unless Williams and Shelley were more careful they
would find themselves in difficulty.
Hardly had he spoken when his fears were realized.
The storm burst suddenly. Exactly what happened to
the boat the watchers could not see, for soon it was lost
from view in fog ; and, when at length the fog had
cleared, it had vanished utterly from sight.
58
THE SECOND MRS. SHELLEY
Nor were its luckless crew heard of, or seen again,
until a few days later, when, after a period of hideous
suspense for those who loved them, their mangled
bodies were washed ashore on the land which now had
long been Shelley's home, the land of his adoption.
He was only thirty years of age when thus he died.
Mary survived him many, many years, but during those
years her devotion to his memory never wavered once ;
time only strengthened it.
" Do you think that I shall ever marry ? " she wrote
to Trelawny some time after her husband's death.
" Never — neither you nor anybody else. Mary Shelley
shall be written on my tomb — and why ? I cannot tell,
except that it is so pretty a name that, though I were to
preach to myself for years, I should never have the
heart to get rid of it."
And, maybe, there were other reasons.
59
The Tragedy of Queen Natalie
of Servia
QUEEN NATALIE
AT THE TIME OF HER MARRIAGE
Ill
THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN NATALIE
OF SERVIA
LOVE my Servians, and my Servians love
me — they will never betray me," Prince
Michael once affirmed. Nor was this
merely a vain, idle boast. Rarely, indeed,
has a ruler been more popular among his people than was
he. But a Prince, especially be he the ruler of a Balkan
State, should place his trust in something stronger than
the blind devotion of his subjects, for it is possible to
be loved and still to have many enemies. In the Near
East, in fact, if the former is the case, the latter almost
invariably is so.
Now Prince Michael's enemies not only were numerous
but also powerful. And one man in particular, Alexan-
der Karageorgovitch, hated him with all the intensity of
his nature. Prince Michael belonged to the House of
Obrenovitch ; Alexander to a rival family whose dynastic
hopes, though temporarily thwarted, still were very
strong. He was an enemy, therefore, such as no ruler
safely can ignore, for he aspired, and aspired openly, to
seize his rival's throne, and to establish himself upon it
63
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
in his stead. But Prince Michael, heedless to those
intentions, blind to the gathering clouds of treachery,
sunned himself contentedly in the adulation of his people.
And in doing so he greatly erred.
One day, in June, 1869, while walking with three
ladies in the park of Topfschider, his favourite summer
residence, unaccompanied, save only by a footman and
an aide-de-camp, he was met by three men walking
together in the opposite direction. As they passed, the
men saluted the Prince respectfully and loyally.
He returned the greeting in that gracious manner
which had done more than aught else to win for him
his subjects' love. Then he moved on. But, before he
had advanced many paces, the sound of pistol-shots
disturbed the stillness of the summer morning. His
companion stepped aside in horror. For there, stretched
out upon the ground between them, lay Prince Michael
shot foully through the back — dead.
Now the people were not slow to believe that
Alexander Karageorgovitch had been the instigator of
this crime; and, whether suspicion was justified or not,
their love for the murdered Prince burst forth in a
furious flame of loyalty, which soon extinguished
Alexander's hopes. His was but a short-lived triumph.
The Servians, in fact, rallied round his rival's rightful
heir, as, under normal circumstances, they never would
have done, for Milan Obrenovitch was only a cousin to
their beloved Prince, and at that a mere boy, fourteen
years of age.
THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN NATALIE
For a long while indeed, Prince Michael had de-
spaired of finding an heir to the throne in his own
family, for he himself was childless. Then, not
long before his death, he suddenly remembered that his
Uncle Jefrenn had married a certain Marie Catargo,
and that she had given him a son. Jefrenn Obrenovitch
was dead. But where was the boy ? Eventually he
was found at Bucharest. And his mother, who was
leading a licentious, gay and worthless life at the Court
of Prince Kursa, declared herself only too glad to have
the opportunity of shuffling her parental obligations on
to the shoulders of another.
Forthwith she sent her son to Belgrade, and ventured
to express the hope that her nephew would be pleased
with his appearance. Nor was her sarcasm unjustified
or wasted. Indeed, it would have been hard to find,
even in the gutters of Belgrade, a wilder, more unkempt
little ragamuffin than was Milan. He could not read ;
he could not write. He had never been in Servia
before. The language was unknown to him. He had
no manners, and apparently no virtues. Prince Michael
was almost in despair. Was this boy the only heir to
the throne that could be found? The thought was not
encouraging.
Still, Milan's father had been an Obrenovitch. There
must, then, be some good in the child, his cousin
thought. Accordingly he set about to find it. Nor
did he fail. As a matter of fact, there was plenty
of good in Milan. Decent food, decent clothes, and
F 65
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
a decent education soon worked a miracle, and Milan,
in an incredibly short space of time, ceased to be
a hooligan, and developed into a real little gentle-
man and a rare little sportsman. He showed himself
quick to learn, and willing; but in one subject — the art
of war — he refused to take interest. This failing
worried his tutors, for Servia was a troubled State, and
her ruler, ip so facto ^ leader of the army ; it was essential,
then, for him to be a soldier. But Prince Michael, for
his part, still had hopes; the boy, he felt, even yet
would learn.
And so, " I am proud of my successor," he once
declared ; " I shall leave my kingdom and my people in
good hands."
And, a few days later, he left them. The treachery
of the assassin had made Milan, at the age of fourteen,
Prince of Servia.
Now surely, no boy has ever been allowed to gather
the reins of power into his hands under sadder
and, at the same time, happier auspices. Servia lost all
sense of proportion in paying homage to him. Prince
Michael had chosen him to be his heir. That alone
was enough to fan enthusiasm. Whenever he showed
himself in public, the new Prince was hailed with mad,
intoxicating cheers. The Court adored him. The
great officers of State were prepared to sacrifice in his
service their very all. The Ministers were loyalty itself.
But the people — the people regarded their Prince as
but little other than a god.
66
THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN NATALIE
Such acclamations of loyalty and devotion might well
have turned a saner, older head than Milan's. And
Ristisch, Servians most trusty statesman, was not slow
to recognize the danger to which the Prince was now
exposed. Flattery he knew to be an insidious drug ;
so he resolved that, during the days of the Regency,
not only must Milan's education be allowed to continue
as strictly as before, but also that the boy must escape
for a while from Servia and evil influences ; that he
must travel, and so see the world and gain experience.
This, no doubt, was wise and salutary counsel ; but,
when choosing a tutor for his charge, Ristisch failed to
display a similar wisdom.
Professor Huet may have been a clever man, nay,
was ; and a congenial companion. But Milan needed
more than this; he needed as tutor some one able to
keep a firm hand upon him. This Huet could not do.
Education, therefore, defeated its own object. Milan,
in fact, as a result of his visits to the capitals of Europe,
learned more of the subtleties of pleasure and the gentle
art of spending money than of statesmanship. This,
of course, was the very thing to be avoided. His
father, it is true, had been an Obrenovitch, but his mother
—well, his mother was Marie Catargo; and heredity
is not a factor in human life to be despised.
After his return to the Court of Belgrade, then, the
Prince gave many anxious moments to those who wished
him well. Youthful indiscretions, perhaps, are pardon-
able. But there is a limit to such toleration. And all
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
is not well when a man, whose function in life is to lead
others, places pleasure before duty, and allows selfishness
to master his better judgment.
It would be unjust, of course, to blame Milan en-
tirely for his follies. He had been led astray by flattery
and opportunity, two vicious harpies into whose hands
it is only too easy for a prince to fall, a young and
handsome prince with a romantic past. Still, neither
excuse nor justification can lessen the gravity of any
danger. And the danger which threatened Milan was
a very real one, and so acute that his advisers deemed
it necessary to take immediate action to avert it.
But what ? What remedy could be found ? Only
one, it would seem, was possible. Milan must have
a wife, a wife whom he would love and reverence, and
who could turn his eyes from the fickle beauties of his
Court ; a wife, moreover, whom the Servians, too, would
love, and who could share their devotion to her hus-
band. Yes, this certainly was the ideal solution to the
problem. Besides, it might also provide, perhaps, an
answer to the ever-present question of the succes-
sion.
Ristisch, therefore, strongly urged the Prince to
marry. And Milan, for his part, liked the idea. The
thought of having a queen to share his throne pleased
him. He was all eagerness. But unfortunately he was
destined soon to discover that it is no easy matter to find
a suitable bride for a prince whose throne is set on
quicksand ; and that in the Almanack de Gotha mention
68
THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN NATALIE
is made of crowns esteemed more highly in the matri-
monial market than those of Balkan States.
This proved a sorry blow to his dignity. And
when, after pourparlers of phenomenal duration, a mere
Hungarian count rejected him as a husband for his
daughter in favour of a man who had no claim to dis-
tinction other than a very short purse and a very long
pedigree, Milan would have no more to do with bride-
hunting. Mere mention of the word marriage in his
presence was more than he would tolerate.
And so for a while he continued to pursue the
uneven tenor of his way, until one day he happened
to notice a portrait lying on Ristisch's writing-table —
the portrait of a girl, and a very lovely girl. The
Prince's curiosity was aroused immediately, and he
made inquiry as to who she was. Ristisch laughed ;
and then, since he had been given the cue, ventured
again to introduce the forbidden topic.
The girl, he said, was a Russian, and of very ancient
lineage. In fact, he hinted, she would make a highly
desirable parti for the Prince. She was young and rich
—yes, very rich. Her father, moreover, possessed
great political influence. And an alliance with Russia
would ,
ii
But Milan paid no heed to these particulars. He
had forgotten even Ristisch's presence. The beauty of
the girl's portrait had absorbed completely the attention
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
both of his senses and his eyes. Could the original
be anything like so lovely ? Was it possible ? He
must see her immediately. Where could he find
her?
At present, Ristisch told him, she was to be found
in Paris. She had gone there to finish her education,
and was staying with her aunt, Princess Mussuri.
Paris ! Princess Mussuri ! That was enough for
Milan. He decided to leave for France immediately ;
and forthwith sat down and wrote to the Princess
announcing his intention. At last he really was in love
— head over heels in love. It was no mere manage
de convenance that he contemplated now, but romance,
the real thing, an undying devotion — Love.
Under the circumstances, then, perhaps it is not
surprising that he should have arrived at Paris several
hours earlier than he had intended, or even had thought
possible. He had told the Princess that he would
present himself at her house at midday. He arrived
at Paris at four o'clock in the morning. What could
he do with himself in the meanwhile ? How could he
kill time ? He was all impatience.
Then suddenly he remembered that he had a cousin
at the Servian Consulate, one Alexander Konstantino-
vitch, whom he had not seen for a long time. He
decided, therefore, to disturb him now, for, he thought,
he might be able perhaps there to glean some informa-
tion. And he found Alexander only too ready to
gossip. The latter, in fact, also was a love-sick swain ;
70
THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN NATALIE
and could neither talk nor think of anything save the
great passion which was consuming him.
Now this humour suited Milan's mood, and he listened
patiently to a recital of the unknown lady's charms.
She was only sixteen years of age, it appeared, but
lovely, adorable, a dream of all the graces, and, in-
cidentally, the daughter of a Russian colonel.
No, Konstantinovitch said, he was not actually
engaged to her, but. . . Then he gave a significant
shrug of the shoulders which, translated into plain
English, meant "all but." He had an appointment
with her, he said, at ten o'clock that morning. Would
the Prince accompany him ? The lady in question was
really anxious to meet him ; she had said so often.
Indeed — of course, Konstantinovitch did not realize
this, for infatuation had blinded his senses — she had
heard so much of Milan from her ardent wooer that
she had almost learned to love him. Konstantinovitch,
in fact, solely from egotistic motives, merely in order
to enhance his own importance, had laid much stress
upon his connection with that darling of society, the
boy Prince of Servia, who had not only won the hearts
of his own subjects, but had set those of the beau monde
of Paris and Vienna in a flutter.
But of this interesting little fact, Milan, needless to
say, was kept in ignorance. So he set out with his
cousin, not suspecting for a moment whither he was
going. He wanted merely to kill time. And what
more attractive method could be found of doing so
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
than an adventure, especially an adventure in which a
woman was concerned ?
On arriving at the house, he and Konstantinovitch
were shown into the drawing-room. There they were
kept waiting for a few minutes. Presently an elderly
lady entered ; and Milan, following his cousin's
example, rose to greet her. To his astonishment, he
found himself being presented to the Princess Mussuri.
What was happening ? His mind was in confusion.
And before he could collect his thoughts or find his
bearings, the door again opened, and a girl entered the
room, the girl whose portrait Milan had found lying
on Ristisch's table !
But the original was a thousandfold more adorable
than the reproduction. Her eyes, they were expressive
of a thousand moods, and their colour, like the messages
they flashed, changed in lightning succession. Her
manner was the manner of a queen. Her skin, it
put to shame both the painter's and the sculptor's art.
Indeed, her mouth alone seemed to mar the perfection
of her beauty. Even it had a reason ; it was made
for laughter. No other woman surely had such a
smile. Milan, at any rate, it bewitched ; and for a
while he stood gazing at the goddess before him in
speechless wonderment. Then he was dimly conscious
that he was being introduced to her.
"... the Princess's niece, Natalie Ketschko, my
affianced bride." What was Konstantinovitch saying ?
What did he mean ? The words brought Milan's
72
THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN NATALIE
senses suddenly to earth again. Could this be true ?
Was he to be robbed of the woman of his dreams so
soon as he had found her ? The tension in his mind
was terrible. Then something snapped, and joy flooded
his heart. The Princess was speaking.
" 1 think you are mistaken, Monsieur Konstantino-
vitch," she said ; " my niece is not engaged to you."
And Konstantinovitch, thoroughly abashed, had no
alternative other than to pay the penalty of his foolish
indiscretion, and retire. Milan did not accompany
him. He remained ; he remained all day, and in the
evening the Princess entertained him at dinner.
That was the sweetest day in all his life ; and, when
eventually he left the house, Prince Milan walked on
air, for Natalie had promised not only to share his
throne with him, but also to share his life ; never before
had he realized as then the infinite possibilities of love.
The Princess, moreover, had informed him — and this
would spell joy to Ristisch — that her niece's dot^ five
million roubles, would be handed over to him on his
wedding-day.
This did spell joy to Ristisch ; he was unsparing
with congratulations, as also were Milan's other ministers.
And the Prince was wildly happy. Nowhere in the
sky of the future could a cloud be seen. For once
love and wisdom seemed to be really in agreement.
Now the news of the engagement spread like fire.
Servia it delighted, for report had made the charms of
Natalie Ketschko, the idol of the jeunesse dorh of the
73
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
day, well known even in those unfrequented parts.
Europe overwhelmed the happy couple with congratu-
lations. But Paris — Paris went mad. So romantic
an attachment appealed irresistibly to the Frenchman.
Even the beggars in the streets showered blessings
on the happy couple when they showed themselves
in public.
And to Natalie this new-found love came as the
consummation of all happiness. For two things she
had longed throughout her life, romance and power.
Now she seemed to have found both, and, what is
more, to be fulfilling her destiny.
Once, many years before, a gipsy woman had met
her, walking in the grounds of her father's house near
Moscow. For a moment the old hag gazed curiously
into the child's face. Then suddenly she threw herself
upon the ground, reverently kissing her feet and the
hem of her frock.
" Why do you do that ? " asked Natalie.
" Because," said the gipsy, " I salute the chosen bride
of a great lord. A crown hangs above your head, my
child. Slowly it descends — lower, and lower, and
lower. Ah, it touches your head. A great brilliance
surrounds it. It is a royal diadem."
" Tell me more ! Tell me more ! " cried Natalie,
clapping her hands together, eager with excitement.
But for a while the gipsy was silent. Then she
continued : —
" You will be the mother of a royal race. You . . ."
74
THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN NATALIE
" A royal race ! I — the mother ! " gasped Natalie ;
then she laughed.!
At the time she had thought the gipsy mad. But
now, so it seemed, the prophecy was coming true. The
gipsy, however, had said more. She had foreseen
trouble in the future. She had told the child that one
day she would be driven from her throne, and that in
the end she would find herself face to face with misery,
disgrace, and tragedy.
But these ill-omened words had been forgotten.
They lay buried beneath the joys of the present.
Natalie had youth. She had beauty. She had love.
What more could a girl desire ? And soon she was
to become Princess. Princess Natalie — it is a pretty
name. To the feminine heart there must have been
something infinitely attractive in the title.
But to Milan she was already more than a princess;
more even than a queen. And he lavished upon her all
that a lover has to offer, promises, pleasure, jewels,
and those thousand small attentions which, perhaps, are
valued most of all. In her, moreover, he confided all
his secrets, his hopes, ambitions, aims ; he told her
what he had been, what he could be, and what he would
be, now that he had won her. It was an ideal court-
ship. And the wedding should be worthy of it. It
must stand unmatched for brilliance. On this point
Milan was determined; not even the best was good
enough for Natalie; and he spared neither pains nor
money in making the arrangements.
75
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
For various reasons, diplomatic and other, it was
decided that the ceremony should be performed at
Vienna; and the date agreed to was October 17, 1875.
But as the fateful day drew near, Milan was destined to
receive a rude rebuff. No royalties, it was found, could
attend the ceremony, nor could they send even re-
presentatives. Inflexible rules govern the actions of
monarchs and their courtiers, and marriages such as this
are not classed as being worthy of official recognition.
A similar slight even Napoleon III was forced
to endure. But Milan bitterly resented that inflicted
upon him. It was an indignity to his bride, he felt ;
and for a while disappointment clouded his happiness,
leaving him strangely troubled. Why, he could not
understand, but, for some reason, an indefinable fore-
boding seemed to prey upon him, a foreboding wholly
out of proportion to its cause.
And then, a few days before the wedding, a very
curious incident occurred. Just as the Prince was
leaving the house where Natalie was staying, an elderly
woman accosted him.
" What do you want with me, Madame ? " he inquired
courteously.
" A few words with Your Highness," was the reply.
The Prince started. " Then you know me ? "
" By sight, very well," said the woman. " I am in
the service of Princess Mussuri, and I have known
Natalie since she was a child. I implore you not to
marry her."
THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN NATALIE
" But why ? "
" Why ? Because nothing but misery can come of
such a union. You like to rule ; so does Natalie.
And what is more, she will rule. Be warned, there-
fore— and in time."
But Milan merely laughed, and went his way. When
one cannot oneself read the future, it is hard to believe
that others can. In after years the Prince remembered
the woman's words, then he was sorry he had not
heeded them.
in
October 17, 1875. Vienna awoke very early in
the morning. Sightseers flocked into the city, every
one agog with eagerness to see Prince Milan and his
chosen bride, the fame of whose beauty was spread
broadcast. By nine o'clock in the morning the streets
were packed with people. In the Leopold Strasse — at
any rate in the neighbourhood of the " Weisse Lamm,"
the hotel at which the Prince had arranged to receive
his guests — so dense was the throng that all traffic had
to be suspended. And there, throughout the morning,
the crowd waited eager and expectant.
At last the clocks of the city boomed the hour of
twelve. The great moment had come. Thousands of
anxious necks craned forward. Thousands of eyes
riveted their gaze in the direction of the hotel.
Then, before yet the clocks had finished chiming,
punctual to the moment, the carriages — the Imperial
77
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
carriages which the Emperor Francis Joseph had placed
at the disposal of the Prince and his consort — came
clattering along the street.
In the first, by the side of her aunt, Princess
Mussuri, sat Natalie, a vision of loveliness, clad in
a simple wedding-dress of satin. And, as she drove
past, the crowd cheered and cheered until they made
the very walls of Vienna to echo and re-echo their
enthusiasm. Even rumour, it seemed, had not done
justice to her beauty. But Natalie, it may be, never
before had appeared so beautiful, for she was driving
then not only to meet the husband of her choice and
the hero of her dreams, but to be made a princess,
to become Princess Natalie. No wonder she was
radiant with happiness.
And he, her hero, followed in the second carriage
with his mother. That the latter should have been
present is perhaps remarkable, for but little affection
existed between mother and son ; and there was but
little reason for affection. In fact, they had seen each
other only once since the day when Prince Michael had
rescued his heir from the mother's charge, and brought
him to Belgrade ; and at that meeting — it took place in
Paris — they had avowedly repudiated one another.
None the less, in asking his mother to attend the
wedding, Milan did wisely. It was one of those little
acts of statesmanship which marked him early as a
prince of promise, and which render his subsequent
failure the more difficult to understand. A true
78
THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN NATALIE
respect for the Fifth Commandment is a national charac-
teristic of the Servian people. Milan knew this ; and
so saw that anything in the shape of a public recon-
ciliation with his mother would do much to win for
him the favour of his subjects.
But perhaps also he himself sincerely desired such
a reconciliation, for at this time countless good resolu-
tions inspired him, and he solemnly renounced his
youthful indiscretions, swearing to himself henceforth
to live solely for the welfare of his subjects and the
happiness of Natalie. On this day, then, his wedding-
day, the day of days, no discordant note must be struck.
Nor indeed was there. The ceremony was all it
could have been and should have been ; impressive but
simple, sincere but dignified. And the reception ac-
corded in the streets, was it not a splendid augury for
the future ? Milan could not conceal his emotion.
" I wish," he said, when thanking his guests for their
good wishes and congratulations, " that every one of my
subjects as well as every one I know could be as happy
as I am at this moment." That was all. Then he
drove away with Natalie. And surely never have
a bridal pair set forth under fairer auspices. They
were both young, both popular, and they loved each
other dearly. The subsequent and awful dtbdcle not
even the most inveterate cynic could have dared
predict.
A house at Joanka had been lent to the newly-
married couple for their honeymoon, and there they
79
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
passed an ideal time, three weeks of joyous irre-
sponsibility, of freedom from all cares of State, and
from the glare of the limelight which inevitably shines
upon a throne, be it only that of a small Balkan State.
Yet even the return to Belgrade was not without its
compensations. Vienna had cheered ; Belgrade went
mad. A wonderful welcome was extended to the Prince
and his consort. The festivities lasted three whole
days. But it was during the drive to the palace
through the streets of his capital that Milan lived the
proudest moments in his life, and Natalie both the
proudest and the happiest.
Then the palace doors closed upon them. The new
life really had begun. And perhaps it was well that
neither Natalie nor her husband then could read the
future, for already in the far, far distance, barely per-
ceptible above the horizon had appeared that cloud, at
present no bigger than a man's hand, which ultimately
was destined not only to darken the sky of their
happiness, but indeed to wreck their lives.
" You will rule ; Natalie will rule," the bride's old
nurse once had said to Milan. " I implore you not to
marry her." At the time the Prince had laughed.
What did this old woman know of love ? " Nothing
but misery can result from the union," she had de-
clared. Why, the mere thought of such a catastrophe
had seemed ridiculous.
But now — Milan knew not what to think. His wife
seemed to be a woman strangely different from the
80
THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN NATALIE
fascinating girl whom he had learned to love. He could
not understand the change ; it puzzled him. He had
hoped to look to Natalie for help, advice, and sym-
pathy ; but instead, he found only determined opposi-
tion.
And between two opposing wills even love can be
stifled.
The position of consort, it would seem, soon lost its
attractiveness for Natalie. Born a Russian, trained in
an autocratic school, she thirsted for power, for the
power which right had invested in her husband, and,
what is more, she was determined to have it. At first,
perhaps, Milan may have admired her pluck and spirit.
Indeed, while under the spell of a new, absorbing
passion, he did his utmost to humour her little whims
and fancies, for he loved her dearly and was very proud
of her. But the end was inevitable. Sovereignty is
not a power that can be divided.
And tact, the strongest of human virtues, was a force
unknown to Natalie. Self-willed and impulsive, she
could not bring herself to be content merely with
influencing her husband and his ministers ; instead,
she tried to ride rough-shod over opposition. Quarrels,
therefore, between herself and Milan soon became events
of daily occurrence, and, as time went on, they increased
in violence. Now these quarrels not only jeopardized
her own happiness and the Prince's, but also were a real
menace to the welfare of the country.
In the first place, there were at Court many persons,
G 81
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
especially women, who hated Natalie. Her presence,
and Milan's devotion to her, robbed them directly of
favours with which once he had honoured them. They
delighted, therefore, in trying to poison her mind against
him by telling exaggerated stories of what Court life
once had been. And Natalie listened to these stories,
even believed them. Her idol, too, had feet of clay.
It was to this bitter fact that she awoke from the sweet
iflusion of her childish dreams. Then a new barrier
sprang up between husband and wife — jealousy. And
jealousy, like ivy, when once planted, grows apace.
Nothing can stay it.
Secondly, from a political point of*view, these quarrels
were of very grave importance. With the Prince
ruling at the head of one faction and his consort at the
head of another, the machinery of State needed constant
adjustment, and gave cause for much anxiety.
The cloud had rolled nearer — much nearer. Not
yet, however, did it burst. The sun of triumph still
shone brightly above the palace. These were the
halcyon-days of Milan's reign, the most glorious perhaps
in all the history of Servia. They mark an era of
organization, progress, and reform. Plenty and pros-
perity flourished everywhere. Belgrade grew apace,
and became a city worthy of taking rank among the
towns of Europe. And then, in 1882, came the crowning
triumph. The Powers recognized Servia as a kingdom.
This was Milan's reward for the consummate skill with
which he conducted his great war against the Turks.
82
THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN NATALIE
And it was the very reward he wanted, the epitome of
his aims.
To Natalie, also, this came as the sweetest of happen-
ings. Now she was a queen, and, amid the joys of the
present, readily forgot the disappointments of the past.
The future once again seemed rich with promises of
hope. And, in the happy moments of a new-found
greatness, she strove hard to blot out her former errors,
promising thenceforth to work in one accord with Milan
to prepare a heritage for her son, Alexander (Sacha, she
called him), the little prince whom she and her husband
both adored.
But, alas ! the ship of love, like the ship of friendship,
despite gay rigging, often proves itself frail and unsea-
worthy. Not fair weather but foul is the test of its
stability. And even in a calm . sea the ship which
carried Natalie and Milan had given anxious moments
to the pilot. How then could it ride a storm ? How
indeed — especially so fierce a storm as that which before
long burst over it with overwhelming suddenness ?
IV
Just as the Empress Eugenie sometimes is said to
have been the cause of the great war of 1870, which
wrecked the power of Napoleon III in the heyday of
its splendour, so Natalie sometimes is said to have pro-
voked the war of 1885, between Servia and Bulgaria.
Be this as it may, that war also ended in disaster. The
83
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
noble edifice which Milan had laboriously constructed
crumbled, like a pack of cards, in an instant to the
ground. His life work, his good resolves, his noble
intentions seemed to have resulted only in failure.
And now when he needed it most — this was the
bitterest blow of all — Natalie withheld from him her
sympathy. Indeed, the old quarrels between the King
and Queen again broke forth, and with renewed vigour.
And Milan, under the influence of defeat and dis-
appointment, made no endeavour to conceal them.
They became the talk of Servia ; and, upon the King,
reacted in the inevitable manner. Weary of fruitless
effort, weary of domestic misery, he plunged wildly
into his former reckless mode of living. Domestic
troubles had rendered life at the palace unendurable.
"The Castle," wrote a Servian officer, in a letter to
his family, " is in a state of utter confusion ; one
scandalous scene succeeds another ; the King looks ill,
as if he never slept. Poor fellow ! he flies for refuge
to us in the guard-house and plays cards with the
officers. Sometimes he speaks bitterly about his un-
happiness at home. . . . Card playing, however, is his
worst enemy ; it will work his total ruin."
Thus, while he drifted aimlessly along, Natalie, or
rather conspiracy and disorder, ruled the land. No
king could have found himself in a more invidious
position. But Milan, who once had been ambitious,
still had pride. And it was pride which at length
roused him from his lethargy, and forced him to make
THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN NATALIE
another effort to retrieve his fallen fortunes—just one
more. Once again, however, bad luck attended him.
Nikola Christitch, whom he chose as his adviser, was,
it is true, a man of great ability. But, unfortunately,
he was merely his wife's cat's paw. And Artemesia
Christitch was perhaps the cleverest woman in the
Balkans, totally unscrupulous, and, it so happened, the
Queen's most bitter enemy. To ruin Natalie was
the ambition of her life, and to achieve her object she
was prepared to sacrifice even the King.
Now in the hands of such a woman Milan, of course,
was powerless. He allowed himself to become entangled
helplessly in the meshes of her fascination. Then he
saw what he had done, and tried to escape. But it was
too late. Already he had lost the respect of his subjects ;
already Natalie was cognizant of the plot against her.
But she, instead of trying to save her husband
from himself, instead of allowing him to come to her
and plead forgiveness, proceeded to counterplot with
ruthless cunning. The fever of ambition had seized
her firmly. And she aspired now to drive Milan from
his throne, and establish herself as regent until her son
should come of age.
A crisis obviously was imminent, and in 1887 it
reached a climax. At the Easter reception, held at the
palace, it was customary for the Queen to kiss the wives
of State officials and foreign representatives. On this
occasion, however, as the wife of a certain Greek
diplomat advanced to receive the honour, Natalie
85
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
turned her head aside contemptuously ; she refused
even to look at the woman. In vain the chamberlain
remonstrated with her, imploring her to consider the
consequences of her action. In vain Milan himself
interceded. Natalie was obdurate. Why, she asked,
should she be gracious to the latest recipient of her
husband's favours ?
And the insult in her words, audible to all who
chose to listen, was more even than the tactfulness of
courtiers could counteract. Despite its diplomatic
significance, to hush up the scandal was found to be
impossible, Natalie's remarks being nothing other than
a declaration of open war between herself and the King
her husband. Clearly, then, Servia henceforth would
not be big enough to hold both her and Milan. One
of them must go.
But which ?
The King, infuriated by his wife's indiscreet behaviour,
wished for an immediate divorce. The Emperor
Francis Joseph, however, dissuaded him from taking
so extreme a course. Such action, he pointed out,
would be a crowning act of folly, and spell ruin both
to Milan and the House of Obrenovitch, for Natalie,
in spite of all her faults, was still the idol of the people,
and, in the Me of the injured wife, would receive a full
measure of their sympathy.
Accordingly, until a reconciliation or some permanent
arrangement could be agreed upon, it was decided that
she should leave the kingdom and live abroad with her
86
THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN NATALIE
son in whatever town the King might choose for the
latter's education, but that, during the Crown Prince's
annual visits to his father, she should be free to travel
where she liked.
On April 6, 1887, husband and wife parted. It
was a sorry day, this. Both felt the situation keenly.
As they stood at the railway station, bidding a
formal farewell to one another, instinctively their
thoughts travelled back, over years gone beyond recall,
to their wedding-morning. They remembered the
cheers, their joy, their happiness, and how, with a
perfect trust in one another, they had set out together
down the unknown road of life. And this was to be
the end ! That journey indeed had proved a miser-
able failure ! And it might have been so different —
both saw it now — so very different, if only ambition
had not warred with love.
The thought of separation had delighted Milan, but
the reality, now that it had come to him, pained him
even more than had domestic discord. He could not
disguise his emotion. But had his dream of happiness
faded irrevocably ? Was it too late for himself and
Natalie mutually to forgive and to forget ? He still
had hope. And there is an infinite tenderness in the
letters which he sent to her during the early months of
their separation.
" I would be much obliged," he wrote from Gleichen-
berg in September, "if you would let me know what
are your wishes as to our future relations towards one
87
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
another. As on my homeward journey I must pass
Baden, it would be, I think, proper for me to stop
there in order to pay you a short visit before 1 con-
tinue my journey to Vienna. If this proposal should not
please you, then perhaps you will spare Sacha to me.
I would only take him as far as Vienna, and bring him
back the next afternoon."
And later, when writing to implore her to keep her
compact and not to return to Belgrade merely in order
to further her ambitions, the reason which he gave was
this : " Our son is now old enough to notice the
estrangement between us."
But Natalie — what were her feelings ? It is difficult
to say, for pride and ambition dominated her. Still, in
her letters, too, there is a note of real regret. " You
might," she remarked in one of them, " have chosen a
more experienced consort, but not one more devoted."
Or again, " If you have made me unhappy," she said,
"you are still more unhappy than I am, and the day
will come when you will view things differently, and
you will find no excuse for your conduct." A woman's
love dies very hard.
If only, then, during this period of separation,
Natalie had been tactful and unselfish, even now all
might have been well. But plotting had become a
mania with her ; it was the very essence of her life.
Instead, therefore, of quietly seeking a reconciliation,
she struggled boldly to regain what she regarded as her
rights, and thereby forced her husband's hand until
88
THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN NATALIE
ultimately he had no alternative other than to take the
Crown Prince from her keeping.
To be robbed of her son — Natalie had suffered
much ; this she could not endure, and would not.
Arguments were of no avail ; threats were of no avail ;
nor were entreaties. The Queen was obdurate ; never,
she maintained, would she surrender her son — and for
this who can blame her ? — to the care of Artemesia
Christitch, who now openly was Milan's paramour. At
length, therefore, the King was left with no alternative
other than to send to Wiesbaden to remove the boy
by force.
Not yet did Natalie yield. Indeed, when Milan's
agent, General Protitsch, burst into the room where
she, with the Prince by her side, awaited him, he found
a pistol levelled at his head, and the hand which held it
did not swerve the fraction of an inch.
" Advance," said the Queen, with deliberate firmness,
" and I fire."
" Madam, you cannot be in earnest," replied the
soldier courteously. "I have my orders. Your Majesty
knows an officer must obey his orders."
Then Natalie yielded. But, in that one minute, all
her love for Milan turned to hatred. Without giving
another thought to reconciliation, she resolved that
henceforth there should be war between her husband
and herself, war to the death. And, although he had
scored the first success, she saw clearly now that she
would score the last. His victory had left him only
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
with a fatal course of action to pursue ; now he must of
necessity sever completely his marriage tie. Pride gave
him no alternative. And for divorce proceedings, no
time could have been less propitious for him than the
present.
Indeed, to Natalie, first robbed of her son, and then
renounced by the man who had robbed her, the
sympathies of the Servian people went out whole-
heartedly. The King they regarded as an object of
suspicion and scorn, so that his position as their ruler
became impossible ; he felt no longer justified in re-
taining it. Nor now had he desire to. Fruitless
strivings had quelled his ambitions and his hopes. He
had grown weary, struggling with the heavy burden of
kingship, whilst from afar the voice of pleasure cooed
to him promises of peace and happiness. Besides, were
he to stay in Servia longer, he would undoubtedly lose
all. By abdicating, however, he might still perhaps be
able to save something for his son.
In March, 1889, therefore, he laid down his crown
and retired to Paris, leaving regents to govern the
country until Prince Alexander should come of age.
And with that act ends the sorry story of his reign.
Henceforth he plays but a small part on the stage of
life. In Paris he soon ceased even to be notorious,
passing unnoticed among the reckless throng of aimless
pleasure-seekers, so that before long even restaurant
proprietors forgot to remind their guests that " the
gentleman with a dark moustache sitting over there"
90
THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN NATALIE
was the ex-King of Servia. To politics he paid but
little heed, and he interfered only when the regents or
the Government asked him for advice. Then he gave
it reluctantly.
But in Natalie thirst for power remained still
unabated. Nothing could quench it ; not even the
awful experience of being driven from the country by
force of arms. And in the end she triumphed, for
later, as her son's chosen adviser, she became, in fact if
not in name, ruler of Servia.
After the divorce, however, her path and Milan's
only once converged. In August, 1895, King Alexander
decided to bring to an end the regency, and to seize
with his own hands the reins of government. It was
a daring move, this great coup cTttat^ and brilliantly
executed. But it deserves mention here only because
Milan was chosen as the emissary to convey to Natalie
the news of her son's intentions.
And Milan went. Thus, after many long years of
separation, wife and husband met. And a terrible and
trying ordeal that meeting proved to be. Emotion
overcame them both. The room seemed to be filled
with the ghosts of the past, and the voice of memory
was very cruel now a new and unexpected bond of
unity had sprung up between them — the triumph of
their son. In him, at any rate, each could see the
other ; and with proud, loving, anxious eyes they
watched his every action, for he was all that was left to
them of their love, and of their dream of happiness.
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Alexander, too, was a prince of promise, a man
of courage, with the gift of statecraft. But just as
marriage had wrecked the greatness of the father, so
now it wrecked the greatness of the son. Which
particular fiend of folly persuaded the King to marry
that particular one of his mother's ladies-in-waiting he
chose to marry, it is impossible to say.
Clever Draga Maschin may have been, but she was
not the woman for the boy King of Servia to take to
wife. In the first place, she was old enough to be her
husband's mother, and, secondly, she was the most un-
popular woman in all Servia ; the people hated her,
and for imposing her upon them as their Queen they
never forgave King Alexander.
Nor did his father ever forgive him for marrying
her. But Milan did not live to see the awful con-
sequences of his son's infatuation. His heart had long
been weak — some say that it was broken — and he
died at Vienna on February n, 1901. More than two
years, therefore, elapsed before that memorable morning
dawned when Europe awoke to hear the ghastly tidings
that the King of Servia and his Queen had been foully
murdered in the night.
Thus faded the last of Natalie's dreams. Nor was
there any one to console her in her sorrow.
92
Nadir Shah and Sitara, the
Hindu Slave^Girl
m
IV
NADIR SHAH AND SITARA,
THE HINDU SLAVE.GIRL
|HE great Mogul Empire lay helpless at his
feet. Victory had been overwhelming in its
completeness. Nadir Shah lay back among
the cushions in his tent and laughed a laugh
of grim satisfaction. Soon he would find himself in
the position of Alexander the Great, sighing for fresh
worlds to conquer. Ah, but it was a pleasant thought ;
the consciousness of triumph — there is no sensation
more exhilarating. For a moment, the warrior's stern,
black-bearded face relaxed into an almost tender smile.
And surely, he had every reason to be satisfied. A
Turkoman by birth ; a soldier of fortune by inclination ;
by profession a freebooter, he had risen by the aid of
his magnetic personality and military daring, until at
last, in 1736, at the age of forty-nine, he became Shah
of Persia.
Not even was the career of Napoleon more meteoric.
When Nadir ascended the throne he found Persia
in a state of disruption. Enemies beset the kingdom
on every hand, Turks, Russians, Afghans. Sedition
95
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
and anarchy reigned everywhere supreme. But, out of
disorder, the new ruler, by superhuman efforts, soon
created order, and, as the head of a united people,
established himself the terror of a continent. And now
he had invaded India, and crushed the Mogul Emperor.
That very day, in fact, his proud adversary had come
in person to his camp to sue for peace ; had come in
person and been sent away humiliated, humbled to the
dust ; he, the mighty ruler who once had dared to hurl
insults at the upstart Shah of Persia.
Yes — success, indeed, was very sweet ; but revenge
far sweeter. So Nadir drained another goblet of wine,
nestled further back among his cushions, and proceeded
to discuss plans for the future with Ali Akbar and
Ahmed Khan, his two great Ministers.
No, he declared, nothing was further from his mind
than the intention to appropriate the Emperor's
dominions ; to attempt that would be merely courting
trouble. All he desired was to humiliate his rival, to
humiliate him utterly. So soon, then, as the army
had recovered of its fatigue, he would march on Delhi.
For a while, as victor, he would occupy the city ; then
formally restore to the Emperor his regal dignity, and
himself return northwards.
Aye — but he had another purpose also. Delhi was
rich. War was expensive ; and his own subjects already
were groaning under the burden of taxation — he dared
not oppress them further. Why, then, should not the
vanquished pay the price of his ambition ? Why not
NADIR SHAH AND SITARA
indeed ? Besides, with the riches of Delhi in his
coffers, he could see no limit to his future conquests.
And Nadir again laughed, grimly.
Suddenly he stopped. From without the tent came
the sound of voices and tramping feet. The Shah
sat up and listened ; he had been waiting for that sound.
A moment later the curtain was pulled aside, and a
servant entered, stepping noiselessly across carpets on
the floor.
" What is it ? " Nadir asked.
The man made deep obeisance. The Mogul Em-
peror, he said, had just sent his promised tribute — an
elephant, some horses, fifty slave-boys, and as many of
India's fairest women.
Nadir rose to his feet immediately. The gift was
already overdue ; he had been eagerly awaiting its
arrival. It was too dark now — besides, he was too
tired — to inspect the horses. He would leave them
until the morning.
But the women — he was anxious to see them, very
anxious ; he had heard much of Indian maidens.
Had not Ahmed Khan told him of them : that they
were as slender as cypress trees, as graceful as deer,
and that their eyes shone as the very stars of night ?
And Ahmed Khan was a native of Kandahar, which is
near to Hindustan. He then most surely ought to
know.
So Nadir did not delay one minute. Forthwith he
left his tent, and moved towards that in which the
H 97
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
captive women were assembled. No sooner had he
entered than he saw that they did not belie their
reputation. Among them were many graceful forms and
many lovely faces. But Nadir had eyes only for one
of them ; she stood in the middle of the line ; a tall,
slim girl whose complexion was almost European in its
fairness.
But now a bright flush glowed in her cheeks, and she
turned on the conqueror a look of proud defiance which
compelled his gaze.
" Who is that girl ? " he asked.
" My lord, a maiden of the Rajputs," replied an
obsequious eunuch.
" Maiden indeed ! " And the girl laughed contemp-
tuously. " Maiden indeed ! " she repeated, " 1 have
been a wife!'"
The eunuch, dismayed by the girl's audacity, moved
forward as if to strike with his slipper the lips which
had dared to utter this impertinence. Suddenly he
drew back. Sitara — for such was her name — had drawn
a dagger from her bosom, and held it menacingly. There
was no mistaking the meaning of her attitude.
And Nadir laughed. The girl's action had pleased
his present humour. Then he addressed her personally.
c< Give me that knife," he said.
Sitara stood motionless.
" Give me that knife," he said again ; this time more
sternly.
The girl hesitated, but only for a moment. There
98
NADIR SHAH AND SITARA
was command in Nadir's voice. So she obeyed. And
Nadir took the weapon, thrust it in his girdle ; then,
without another word, passed slowly down the line of
captive women.
ii
Back in his own tent again, the Shah sat for a long
while wrapped in thought. He could not banish from
his mind the incident with Sitara. And as he sat silent,
toying with the dagger he had taken from her, a faint
smile played upon his lips. The woman interested him.
He, who had known and loved many women, had
never before met one like this. She possessed the
courage of ten men, and her beauty — ah ! he had never
seen the like of it. A sudden fire leapt into the man's
eyes, intense and passionate. He must see her again, he
told himself; see her immediately — and alone. He
rose to his feet, and called for a servant.
" Send the Agha Bashi to me," he commanded. And
the servant, noticing the look on his royal master's face,
hastened to do his bidding.
A moment later, the Agha Bashi, or chief official of
the harem, entered the tent ; he was a tall, sad-faced
negro.
Peremptorily Nadir told him of his wishes. The
man looked troubled. He was a loyal servant, devoted
to his master, and he remembered only too well
Sitara's reckless courage. Was it right that the Shah
should be left with her alone ? He thought not ; and
99
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
ventured to make a protest. But Nadir checked
him.
"Send the girl to me," he said ; " I want her — now."
Then the faithful eunuch bowed his head. " As the
Shah wills," he muttered, and passed out.
Nadir watched him go ; then he rose to his feet again,
and for a few restless minutes paced his tent. The still-
ness of the night oppressed him. So he resumed his
seat, and waited.
Presently the curtain was flung aside. The man's eyes
rested on it, fascinated. And a moment later the slave-
girl entered. She walked with timid, anxious steps, and
her head was bowed; but there was dignity in her
carriage, although her bosom heaved and her lips
moved tremulously. Nadir gazed at her spellbound.
She was more beautiful than she had seemed before,
a thousandfold more beautiful. His eyes feasted upon
her. And in the dim lamplight her flimsy draperies
seemed only to accentuate her loveliness. In the
middle of the tent she stopped, standing motionless.
Then Nadir spoke to her.
" Come nearer, girl," he said. " Look at me ! What
is it ? You are frightened ? "
And Sitara shot him one quick, fearful glance. She
was frightened ; and well might she have been, for she
was moving, so she thought, to punishment, to death.
And she did not want to die ; an hour ago she would
not have cared. But now ! She wanted now to live,
now that she had found a reason for it. Hitherto her
100
NADIR SHAH AND SITARA
lot had been thrown among effeminate puppets and
sycophants, but now she stood before a man, a man
such as she had often dreamed of, strong and masterful;
and she longed, then and there, to throw herself before
his feet and swear to serve him always. For his love
she dared not to ask. What right had she ? To serve
him — that alone would be enough; to die for him if
need be.
Some instinct within him told Nadir that this was
so, and he loved the girl the more for it. Women
usually looked to him only for favours. But this one
refused to plead with him even for her life.
And that, as Nadir was man enough to know,
required real courage. So, with all the gentleness at
his command, he sought to put her at her ease, assuring
her of his forgiveness, talking to her. Then he made
her tell him her life's history.
She, too, it seemed, had no affection for the Moguls.
She had been born a Hindu, but, when still a child, had
been captured and married to a Mogul warrior. From
him she had escaped, and, after many adventures, had
found refuge with a band of Marwari traders. They,
in due course, had brought her to Delhi. There, one
of the Emperor's wives, a woman of her own country,
had taken pity on her, and in her service she had
remained until that very day.
For a while, after the conclusion of this narrative,
Nadir was silent. Then he spoke, and his voice
quavered with emotion. Henceforth she could be a queen
101
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
herself, he said, a queen before whom all the world
should bow. Would she ? Would she ? Sitara's senses
reeled. She who had come to him as a suppliant found
the conqueror himself pleading before her, offering her
honour, riches, power, when even the littlest word of
tenderness would have meant bliss sublime. Would
she indeed ? Impulsively she threw herself before his
feet, showering them with kisses, hot, passionate kisses,
of gratitude and love.
But Nadir raised her up. She was to be his Queen,
he said, not his servant ; all other women should be as
the dust on which she walked ; she must not humiliate
herself.
Then he sent for the Agha Bashi, and the Agha Bashi
sent for the priest. And a few minutes later Sitara
left the tent the honoured wife of the greatest soldier
of the day, sparkling with jewels, diamonds and emeralds
and pearls.
The news spread quickly through the camp, and idle
tongues wagged maliciously. But Sitara heeded not
these things ; she was too happy, ah ! much too happy.
At this time the all-consuming love she bore for Nadir
filled her life utterly; she could think of nothing else.
Nor did she wish to. Lonely, it is true, she felt some-
times. That was inevitable. A stranger among a strange
people, how could she be aught but lonely ?
But she rejoiced in her solitude ; she loved those
long, hot days when she could lie in her tent alone, and
think, and dream, and wait for the approach of evening.
102
NADIR SHAH AND SITARA
For at nightfall she knew that Nadir would come to her,
and come not as a king, but as a man ; and from then,
till dawn once more called him forth to duty, he would
be hers, hers absolutely, and she his.
And at nightfall he always came.
Then again, she soon made friends among the
other women in the camp. How could she help it ?
Very simple, very lovable, it was not easy even for
jealous rivals to begrudge her courtesy. Yet this, her
very simplicity and charm, earned for her also at least
one relentless enemy, Shirazai, a former favourite,
whom she had deposed from the place of honour in the
Shah's esteem.
Now Shirazai hated Sitara with all the fierce hatred
of an Oriental, and swore to herself that she would
never rest till she had worked some hideous vengeance
on her rival. But of these intentions Sitara guessed
nothing. Nor did Shirazai mean her to; she was much
too cunning. Instead, she posed as the girl's friend,
masking her true feelings behind soft speeches and
kindly gestures, and so sought to gain her confidence.
The time would come, she thought, when that con-
fidence might be of service to her. Till then she could
afford to wait — and watch.
Now, Shirazai was a factor to be reckoned with, for
she happened to be none other than a sister of Ali
Akbar.
But Sitara little knew what grim troubles the future
was storing up for her. And, had she known, would
103
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
she have cared ? " Unborn To-morrow and dead Yester-
day " — was not the present sweet enough for her ?
Yes, yes; a thousand times, yes. She had found a love
such as woman never before had known or even dreamed
of. What else mattered ? One moment of that love
would amply compensate for years of torment.
Even Nadir's courtiers marvelled at their monarch's
constancy, sagely nodding their heads, wondering what
the end would be.
in
And so the victorious army rested, day following day
in quick succession. But for Nadir the time passed all
too quickly. His troops, he knew, already had re-
mained inactive overlong ; further delay might cause
them to grow lazy and ill-disciplined. So he aroused
himself.
On the morrow, he declared, he would set out for
Delhi ; preparations for the journey, therefore, must
begin immediately. Forthwith they began. It was a
busy day for everybody. And at nightfall, when he
went as usual to Sitara's tent, Nadir was tired and
fretful ; he felt like a man just awakened from some
happy dream, as, indeed, the call of duty had awakened
him. A great wave of self-pity passed over him,
flooding his heart with sadness. That sweet companion-
ship with the woman whom he loved, he now saw could
never be again what it had been ; in future there would
104
NADIR SHAH AND SITARA
be other claims upon him — the claims of government
and war.
Why then, he asked himself, had he not delayed
just one more week ? A woman's love — how much more
precious he thought it then than all the sterling gifts
of power. Idle dalliance, perchance, had softened the
man's heart.
Nor did his sadness escape Sitara's notice. She won-
dered at it greatly ; nor, try as she would, could she
dispel it.
But then, she knew not what it was that made him
sad ; not until suddenly he took from his turban a
superb and priceless diamond, which he had worn always
there as a mascot, and begged her to accept it as a gift.
"And," he said, " if you want to come to me at
any time, but send this stone, and you shall always
be received."
Then Sitara took the stone — but sorrowfully; until
then it had not occurred to her that she might ever have
need for such a charm.
Yet, even so, it seemed merely to be a passing cloud
which for a moment had overhung her happiness — this
sudden thought of fear. On the next day began the
march to Delhi. And to Sitara that journey was a week
of new and wonderful experiences ; she enjoyed every
moment of it, as she rode in triumph by her lover's side,
and then, at the end, with him entered the city.
That was at once the proudest and the saddest
moment in her life. She had left Delhi a captive;
105
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
she returned a Queen, and found herself lodged in the
" Palace of Joy " amid every luxury, as befitted the con-
queror's most favoured consort.
Then, on the following day, the Mogul Queen — she,
whose handmaiden Sitara once had been — besought
an interview, and, on her bended knees, implored the
girl to use her influence with the Shah to spare the city.
And Sitara promised.
The world had dealt very kindly with her ; she felt
she could afford now to be indulgent. So, when Nadir
came to her that night, she told him of her promise ;
and laughingly he conceded it. But she need not have
asked, he said ; already he had issued orders to the
troops, forbidding violence and plunder. Nor, he added,
were they likely to ignore those orders. Whilst from
the citizens of Delhi he feared nothing ; defeat had
cowed them utterly.
But not as utterly as Nadir thought. So it came
about that, a few days later, Sitara suddenly was
aroused by the sounds of shouts and tumult. What had
happened ? Had Nadir forgotten his promise to her ?
No ; surely not that. Then what had happened ? She
questioned the Agha Bashi, and was told that the mob
had risen in insurrection and were now being punished.
Punished — too well Sitara knew the meaning of that
word. So she sent word to Nadir, begging him to
stay his hand, and spare the hapless city. Then she
waited for a reply. None came. In despair, at last
she sent the diamond.
106
NADIR SHAH AND SITARA
But still the awful carnage seemed to continue un-
abated. Never a word did she receive from Nadir.
Was he angry with her ? Had he ignored her prayer ?
Or, had she interfered where she had no right to inter-
fere ?
Poor girl ! she felt sad and disappointed. Once,
only once, had she asked a favour, and it had been
refused. No wonder she was filled with sorrow.
But then, she did not know the truth. She did not
know that all that day her prayer had throbbed in
Nadir's pulses, and that the captains had wondered at
his moderation. She did not know this till later, when
Nadir told her so himself. But it was more even than
this sure proof of his great love could do to dispel her
sorrow, or make her to forget the hideous fate of the
city which once had been her home, and which she had
given her solemn word to save from hurt.
She was glad, therefore, when at length the Persian
army again moved northwards, its coffers filled with
the wealth of Delhi. This, she felt, was the beginning
of a new life indeed ; and, every moment, the past
and all its memories receded further, further in the
distance.
The road before her led to a strange land, to new
interests, new hopes, and, perhaps, new dangers also ;
but Sitara had no fears — no, although henceforth her
lot would be cast among an alien people who, she
knew, detested her. With Nadir at her side, nothing
mattered ; and by her side he rode, proud, dignified,
107
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
every inch a soldier, whilst in his turban blazed the great
Koh-i-nur diamond, the stone which now adorns the
Imperial Crown of Britain. Sitara adored the man ; and
before long was able to prove to him the strength of
her devotion.
After many weary miles of marching, the army at
length reached the waters of the Indus, and there for
a while, on the banks of the river, Nadir decided to let
his forces rest. It was his intention to turn the defiles
of the Khybcr by the country of the Yusufzai, and so
proceed northwards. With this aim in view, he had
spent a busy day negotiating with the headmen of the
tribe ; and evening found him tired and irritable, until
at last, just before midnight, he sank into a restless sleep.
The night was very hot. From without the tent
not a sound came, not even the rustling of a leaf. All
was as still as death. And the very weight of the atmo-
sphere was oppressive. Sitara could not sleep. For a
long while she lay on her couch, thinking.
Suddenly she sat up. Some one was moving. She was
sure of it. Stealthily she rose, crept towards the door
of the tent ; then looked out. For a moment she could
see nothing. But as her eyes became accustomed to the
darkness she was able to discern a form gliding along
the ground, and then another, and another. Next, the
flash of steel caught her eye. Suspicion became cer-
tainty. She slipped back into the tent, and gently roused
Nadir; but only just in time. In another moment the
assassins would have been upon him.
108
NADIR SHAH AND SITARA
But, as it happened, hearing the sound of movements,
they had fled precipitately. And the murdered bodies
of the guards outside alone were left to prove that
Sitara's fears had not deceived her. It was she who had
given the alarm ; she who had saved her lover's life.
Nadir did not forget the service.
Perhaps this was well. Not yet had Shirazai forgiven
her rival for stealing the Shah's affections. Nor had
she been plotting all this time in vain. And now her
opportunity for vengeance was at hand.
IV
At Herat, glad news reached Nadir. Reza Khan,
the Vali Ahd, or heir apparent — so messengers announced
— was hastening with all speed to meet the home-coming
army; and expected on the morning of the following
day to be able to extend in person a welcome to his
father.
Now Nadir had long been looking forward to this
meeting ; two years had passed since last he had
seen his son, and during that time, if rumour spoke
aright, the Prince had grown from boyhood into man-
hood, splendid manhood too. The Shah had heard
nothing but good report concerning him ; how that he
had proved himself a truly able regent, worthy to be the
heir to his soldier father.
But, alas ! on the morrow, when the son and father
met, a cloud marred the splendour and happiness of the
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occasion — that insidious cloud mistrust. Had not the
Prince perhaps become too manly, too independent, too
self-reliant ? A great anxiety seized hold of Nadir.
The boy, he feared, instead of being a help to him,
might prove a menace; and he looked in vain to find
loyalty or affection in his eyes. And of his son's
popularity with the people, there could be no doubt. He
had won their love and admiration ; the Shah himself
held only their respect and fear. Hence Nadir was
jealous. Nor could he conceal his jealousy.
Now Reza Khan too had reason for resentment.
The Shah's return would mean a diminution in his own
authority; henceforth no longer could he be an autocrat,
but must accept orders from another, and would be
expected to obey them unquestioningly. Could he do
this ? he asked himself. Would he ? That is what
Nadir asked. And until the future should find an
answer to these questions, there could be no bond
between the two men either of trust or friendship.
Now Sitara, conscious of Nadir's disappointment, and
seeing how trivial really were the causes which estranged
him from his son, tried hard to effect a reconciliation.
But this was an ill-judged policy on her part. In the
first place, Nadir resented her interference, and her
impartiality he resented even more. He had done
much for Sitara, and in return, he felt, she owed him at
least her whole-hearted sympathy, now that he needed it.
Then again, why should she seek to reconcile him to
his son ? A sudden fear flashed through his mind. Could
no
NADIR SHAH AND SITARA
it be that the Prince and his party had won or bought
her to their side? Could it be? Was she being false to
him — Sitara ? No, no ; this he could not, would not
believe. Still, somewhere within his heart, the seed of
suspicion had taken root, and suspicion, like ivy, grows
apace, clinging where it grows.
And then it was that Shirazai, ever watchful, saw that
at last her opportunity had come. She had waited
patiently for this hour, timing the moment of her
vengeance carefully; and her plans were laid with
fiendish cunning. First, then, she sought to reinstate
herself in Nadir's favour. This did not prove
difficult. She had but to offer him the sympathy he
asked for in his quarrel with his son ; the fascination of
her womanhood achieved the rest. Thus, inch by inch,
she stole the Shah's affections from Sitara.
And the latter, ignorant of the plot, sorrowed at
his changed regard for her. What had she done to
offend him ? That night, she decided, she would ask
her lover and so dispel the cloud which hung between
them.
That night ! Sitara, alas ! already had delayed her
question overlong; and now she had lost the oppor-
tunity of asking it. That night Nadir did not come
to her; in vain she waited for him. The hour of
his usual coming came and went, but still she was alone ;
yet still she waited, still she hoped. Nor did she
despair until at length she heard the sound of laughter
and of voices in Shirazai's tent. Then suddenly she
in
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
realized the hideous truth ; and, throwing herself upon
her couch, she sobbed and sobbed and sobbed till Sleep
took pity on her.
Such is the common fate of Eastern women. Sitara
knew it ; hers were tears of disappointment, not of
anger.
But for Shirazai, merely to rekindle the fickle flame of
Nadir's passion, that alone was not enough ; she must
bring ruin also to her rival. This she had sworn long
ago, and the purpose still was strong within her.
Cunningly, then, she dallied with the Vali Ahd,
employing all her many wiles and fascinations to gain
his confidence. This once gained, the rest was easy. She
had but to adapt his secrets to her own requirements,
and then betray them to the Shah. And in this way, by
abominable double dealing, she gradually regained her
lost prestige, and poisoned Nadir's mind against the girl
whose love still and in spite of all was the most precious
gift the world had offered him. No act was so mean
that she would not commit it ; no lie so false that she
would not make use of it.
Then came the climax. A few days later, yet another
attempt was made on Nadir's life ; an unseen hand
fired on him while crossing a ravine. So soon as the
first shot had been fired, Sitara, it is true, hastened to
his side, and stood between him and danger, now, as
on the former occasion, shielding him fearlessly from
death.
But during the days which followed, Nadir forgot
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NADIR SHAH AND SITARA
this. Lately he had heard much of seditious plots
and murderous intentions. He was too angry to
feel grateful or remember obligations. The culprit
must be found, found at all cost, and held up to the
world as an example. This was his determination.
And Shirazai, with all the cunning of her sex, under-
took to help in the quest.
By the aid of false witnesses, well paid to serve her
purpose, she contrived at last to bring the suspicion
of guilt to rest on the shoulders of the Vali Ahd. The
shot, she maintained, had been fired at his instigation,
by one of his servants ; he was responsible. And such
was her evidence that it seemed utterly damning and
conclusive.
But this was too terrible. That his own son should
seek to murder him ; Nadir could not believe it. Yet,
reason as he would, he could find no flaw in the
evidence brought forward by Shirazai. Every little
detail pointed relentlessly to one conclusion. And
motives for the crime were only too apparent ; jealousy,
ambition, pride ; aye — there were also many others, and
amongst them, the vague suspicion that Reza Khan
coveted his father's Queen, that he wanted Sitara, and
Sitara him. To Nadir, this came as a crueller blow
than even the knowledge of his son's treachery, as a
baser act of treason. Yet nothing could shake the
sworn testimony of the witnesses.
Fiercely, then, love and anger struggled for supre-
macy in Nadir's heart. But the result was inevitable.
i 113
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
An offence had been committed against his royal
person which no circumstance could justify. And one
punishment only seemed adequate. But death — could
he put to death the son he loved most dearly ? No —
even Nadir's iron determination flinched before passing
such a sentence.
None the less, the Prince must be punished, pun-
ished heavily, and for the future be rendered powerless
at any rate. His son's eyes, then, should be burnt
from out his head. That surely was a punishment
which would meet the crime ; a punishment more
horrible perhaps than death. Yet to the father it seemed
kinder. Besides, he reflected bitterly, it might serve
also as a constant warning to Sitara. A blind lover —
could she find charm in him ?
And so his royal decree went forth. And a great
gladness filled Shirazai's heart. Her plot was working
admirably. Forthwith, then, she hastened to the un-
happy Prince's mother, with words of tender sympathy.
Alas ! she could offer nothing more, she said ; her
influence with the Shah had gone. Then she paused
for a minute.
" But Sitara. . . ."
And those words raised sudden hopes in the dis-
tracted woman's heart. Sitara — yes, she might help.
Forthwith the wretched mother sought her out and told
the pathetic story of her grief. Nor did her mission
prove in vain. Sitara listened sympathetically ; and then,
despite misgivings, promised to plead with Nadir. She
114
NADIR SHAH AND SITARA
knew that she was acting very foolishly ; that her sup-
plication must prove futile. Still she felt she had a
duty to perform. Yes — and she would perform it.
Boldly, therefore, she craved an audience. Nadir
granted it immediately, bidding her come to him. She
went ; and found the Shah sitting in his tent alone, his
face hard and set. He had guessed the reason of
Sitara's visit ; nor wrongly ; and, as the girl spoke, his
expression grew yet still more stern and still more sad.
It had hurt him greatly to pass sentence on his son,
but that she should plead against that sentence hurt
him more. His worst fears he saw being realized,
and Shirazai's dark insinuations taking certain shape
within his mind. Sitara's action, he felt, one motive
only could have prompted. She loved his son. Her
very intercession proved her faithlessness and came
to Nadir as the culmination of his sorrows. For a
moment he was silent. Then he spoke.
" Go ! " he said fiercely, " or I will have you blinded
too ! "
But still the girl pleaded, clinging to his arm. " My
lord," she begged, " have pity ; have pity ; he is your
son ! Oh ! spare the Prince, my lord, I pray you."
This was more than Nadir could endure. At last his
sorrow found relief in anger ; a fierce wave of wrath
passed over him. He rose to his feet and, convulsed
with rage, struck at Sitara. The axe fell heavily ; and,
beneath its weight, the defenceless girl sank, with a
thud, to the ground, and there lay motionless, while
"5
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
from her forehead welled a stream of blood, ominous
and dark.
For a while the Shah gazed at her prostrate form
in horror, stupefied. What had he done ? Was she
dead ? Had he killed her ? Fear soothed his savage
wrath ; and sinking down upon his cushions, great
warrior though he was, he wept as though his heart
would break.
Meanwhile the faithful Agha Bashi took Sitara gently
in his arms, and bore her to the doctor. She was not
dead. But the negro, for he loved the girl and knew
not the true circumstances of the quarrel, deemed it
wise to keep this secret from the Shah. He acted on
his own responsibility. For several days Sitara lay
unconscious, hovering between life and death. Then
slowly she regained her reason. But, when at last she
could speak and move again, she was already many
miles from Nadir.
The Agha Bashi had sent her to the house of an
Armenian family who readily had invited her to share
their home until it might be safe to tell the Shah
that still she lived ; and there she settled down to face
the future.
But one month passed ; then yet another ; and still
bad tidings only came from Court. To tell the Shah
that Sitara was still alive, reports maintained, would
certainly spell ruin to all concerned. He had for-
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NADIR SHAH AND SITARA
bidden even her name to be mentioned in his presence,
and his fury lately had been uncontrollable.
Now, the courtiers thought that anger caused this
fury. So also did Sitara. Shirazai — she only knew
the truth ; that it was grief which made him mad, grief
and disappointment. Nadir had loved Sitara, nay,
he loved her still, and with a love such as Eastern
men rarely feel for women. Besides, since that day
on which foully he had murdered Love, nothing would
go well with him. His mind, he felt, had lost its old
precision, his brain its cunning. There seemed to be
no one he could trust, and every day his enemies in-
creased in strength and numbers. Superstitious fancies
harassed him.
The truth is, Nemesis at last had overtaken the great
warrior. And, although he grappled desperately with
Fate — the fate which he had prepared for himself
through long, fierce years of conquest — he fought in
vain. The reins of empire, now too big for one man's
hands, were slipping from his grasp. He knew it,
but was powerless to restrain them. And his courtiers
moved round him warily in very terror of their lives.
Thus months passed into years, and still Sitara
received no word from him. Then despair entered
her soul, strangling hope, and she walked like one for
whom life held no more joys. But her great love for
Nadir still burned as true as ever. She bore no
malice towards the man who had struck her down.
No, womanlike — his sudden cruelty had only intensified
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TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
her love ; and she longed, longed with a longing which
nothing could efface, for that day on which she and
he again might be united.
Yet would that day ever come ? The Shah's love
for her, she asked — how could it still live ? There were
women in the world fairer than she, whose love he could
enjoy. Besides, did he not think her dead ; that he
himself had murdered her ?
Now, at length, it came about that Nadir, while cam-
paigning, happened to pass near to the little Armenian
village which for three long years had given shelter
to Sitara. And to the girl the temptation now to go
to the man she loved proved irresistible.
In vain, friends urged her to be cautious ; in vain,
they pleaded. Sitara was obdurate. Go to him she
would, whatever might be the cost. Determination was
strong within her ; and death — she feared not death ; to
die by Nadir's hand would be happiness indeed, com-
pared to still more years of purposeless existence.
Besides, in her inmost heart she felt that Nadir
needed her, was calling to her, even as she needed
him. And so she sought out a trusty emissary and
sent him with a letter to the Persian camp, and,
with it, that stone which Nadir had given her now many
years ago. Then she waited.
And her woman's intuition had guided her aright.
Nadir had not forgotten. Nadir did need her.
Indeed, nothing could describe the joy he felt on
learning that Sitara, his loved Sitara, had come to life
118
NADIR SHAH AND SITARA
again. Forthwith he sent to her a royal escort, and
begged her hasten to him with all speed. But this
request was quite superfluous. Sitara did not delay
one minute ; and two days later entered the Persian
camp in all her splendour as a Queen.
There Nadir met her. And in that rapturous moment
of reunion the past and all its sufferings faded like
the memory of some awful dream at dawn. Henceforth
there was no more separation. The broken link soon
mended, and made the chain of love, which bound her
and the Shah together, stronger than it had ever been.
But the days of Nadir's greatness now were num-
bered— and with them his days of happiness. Destiny
had proved too strong for him ; he was struggling now
for very life ; and among his own followers were to be
found his bitterest enemies. The end was inevitable ;
and very soon it came.
Suddenly, in the still darkness of a night, while she
was sitting watching by the bedside of her wearied lord,
Sitara heard suspicious movements outside the tent.
Immediately she rose to her feet. But this time
the sounds had reached her ears too late. Before she
could move, before even she could scream, the assassins
were with her in the tent and had pinioned down the
sleeping warrior.
And later, when the tardy guards arrived, they found
their ruler lying dead upon the floor, and, stretched on his
giant form, the young body of the woman he had loved,
an evil-pointed dagger buried deep within her heart.
119
Robert Schumann and Clara Wieck
MADAME SCHUMANN
Photo by Elliott and Fry, London
V
ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK
IS domestic misery the inevitable penalty of
genius ? One is tempted almost to believe
it must be, so much does one hear about the
disastrous love entanglements of famous men.
But the belief, of course, is quite untenable. Great
men, it is true, sometimes have shown themselves
unwise and unsuccessful lovers. So, too, have little
men ; many of them, too many. Among them, in fact,
the percentage certainly is as high as, if not higher than,
among the great ; but with this difference — their short-
comings attract but little notice, being of interest only
to their friends and relatives ; whilst those of the great
are blazoned forth immediately to all the world.
This is one of those happenings which must be. The
glass houses of the gods of our mundane Olympus are
tempting targets for the stones of the dwellers on the
lonely plains of life.
It would be absurd, then, to dogmatize ; absurd to
maintain that happiness always is denied to genius.
There can be no such rule. The exceptions, at any
rate, are much too numerous to prove it. But, among
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TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
them, among that legion of great men whose private
lives also have been great, surely there are no more
splendid figures than those of Robert Schumann and
Clara Wieck.
It was a wondrous love that those two bore for one
another, a love more precious and rarer far even than
all the genius of the two great souls whom it affected.
And the story of it well deserves retelling ; it is as
fine as any mentioned in the records of Romance.
Robert Schumann was a musician. So also was
Clara Wieck. They were two beings whose minds
and inclinations both were in perfect harmony ; and
from the very day on which they accepted each the
other's love they remained true and loyal to one another
until death ; in their constancy neither of them wavered
once.
And this was so, despite the fact that Schumann
was the most susceptible of mortals, an artist who
craved for the beautiful things of the world, who lived
for love, and whose life, until Clara Wieck entered
into it, was literally a series of amorous attachments,
which followed one another in romantic and bewildering
succession.
It was in 1827 that first he fell the victim to a
woman's charm. At the time he was only seventeen
years of age, and all that is known of the lady is the
impression which she made upon her fanciful young
lover. " Oh friend," he wrote to a school-fellow, " were
I but-a smile, how I would flit about her eyes ! . . .
124
ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK
were I but joy, how gently would I throb in all her
pulses ! yea, might I be but a tear, I would weep with
her, and then, if she smiled again, how gladly would I
die upon her eyelids, and gladly be no more."
But the attractions of the unknown soon waned
before the charm of another, a girl whom he named
" Liddy." Beautiful undoubtedly she must have been,
but beauty, it would seem, was her sole accomplish-
ment ; she was sadly lacking in intellectual gifts,
incapable — so Schumann said himself — of "grasping
a single idea."
Hers, then, was but a sweet and fleeting power of
fascination. In due course it yielded to that of "Nanni" ;
and then, with the mature wisdom of his years, her
erstwhile lover wrote : " I think I loved her, but I knew
only the outward form in which the roseate-tinted fancy
of youth often embodies its inmost longings."
His love for " Nanni," however — it, too, proved
transient, lasting but a year ; then it subsided, remain-
ing with him only as "a quietly burning sacred flame
of pure, divine friendship and reverence." Still, he
delighted in thinking of " Nanni," and in remembering
all the hours he " dreamed so joyfully, so blissfully in
her arms and her love."
And he continued thus to dream till 1828. Then he
went to Augsburg, and at Augsburg he met Clara von
Kiirer.
Clara was the daughter of a chemist, languorous-
eyed and charming. Schumann fell in love with her
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TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
immediately ; and she encouraged him. But when
the time came for him to speak of his great passion,
he found that she already was betrothed ; in short, that
the girl merely had been flirting with him. This was a
cruel blow to his dignity ; and as quite a broken-
hearted student, he proceeded then from Augsburg to
the University of Leipsic to study law.
It was his mother's wish that Schumann should
become a lawyer. He himself hated the idea, but there
was no appeal against his mother's mandates, for his father
— and his father was the only person who, as yet, had
recognized the boy's true talent — already had been dead
for several years. Robert, therefore, had to go to Leipsic.
Still, once there, he allowed his legal studies in no way
to inconvenience him. Such time, in fact, as he did
not devote to piano playing, he allotted to writing,
dreaming, acquiring a taste for extravagant cigars, and,
indeed, also to love-making. He was ever careful not
to neglect the latter gentle art.
" I found it frightfully hard to leave Leipsic at the
last," he wrote to his mother in 1829. "A girl's soul
— beautiful, happy, and pure — had enslaved mine."
But apparently he escaped easily from the bondage,
and in Italy — he journeyed there from Leipsic — soon
found some one to console him, a beautiful English
girl, " who," he wrote, " seemed to have fallen in love
not so much with myself as with my piano playing."
He followed her to Venice. There, alas ! she left
him. " My heart is heavy," he declared, "... she
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ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK
gave me a spray of cypress as we parted. . . . She was
very proud and kind, and loving and hating . . . hard,
but so soft when I was playing — accursed remini-
scences ! "
Accursed or not, the memory of his love for this
English girl, or perhaps, the memory of the English girl's
love for his playing, keenly whetted Schumann's desire
to adopt music seriously as a profession. He would be
a musician. Resolve came to him one night while still
at Venice, and forthwith he rose from his bed — it was
five o'clock in the morning — and sat down to write to his
mother what he declared to be the most important letter
he had ever written, a letter in which he pleaded long and
eloquently to be allowed at any rate to test his talents.
Now, so eloquently did he beg that the mother,
moved at last by his manifest sincerity, decided to refer
the question of her son's career to Friedrich Wieck.
To her surprise the great master expressed a firm be-
lief in Robert's talents, and urged her to withdraw her
opposition to his wishes. Accordingly she did so,
telling her son, soon after his return from Italy, that
now, if he still wished it, he might really study music,
and study, what is more, under the tuition of none
other than Wieck himself.
To Schumann this spelt joy indeed. For such a
concession he had never even dared to hope. And his
delight was inexpressible, not only because he had won
his mother's consent, but because now he had as his
master quite the most famous piano teacher of the day.
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TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
ii
Nor was Wieck's reputation as a teacher in any way
over-estimated. He was undoubtedly the best in
Germany. None the less, he happened to be interested
in the career of his marvellous daughter even more than
in his own profession. Little Clara, in fact, was the
centre of all his ambitions; and, although in 1829
when Robert Schumann joined the Wieck household as
a pupil and a lodger, she was only nine years old, she
had already made her first appearance on the concert
platform. Her debuty incidentally, had startled Europe ;
and not merely because the pianist was an infant prodigy,
but because her playing was such as had never been
heard before, even in Germany.
In the company of this youthful genius, then, Robert
Schumann's life began. The years that had gone before
had been, as it were, wasted years. It was only now
that he became conscious of his own stupendous un-
developed power. And to develop that power he
worked with feverish industry, under his master's
watchful eye.
Still, even now he found time for idle dalliance also.
At any rate, letters written to his mother at this time
usually contained at least one reference to some adorable
and charming girl; and in almost every letter the girl
referred to was a different one.
But then, Schumann was naturally a sentimentalist,
the human embodiment of his own compositions. Love,
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ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK
and the need for love, were essential to his very being,
essential to his art. And Fate, it would seem, from
the very outset wished him to be the hero of a great
romance. Fortunately the world did not withhold from
him the opportunity. Even now, in fact, opportunity
was knocking at his door.
But of this Schumann was sublimely ignorant. How
could he have been otherwise ? He was but eighteen
years of age, and the girl only nine. For the present
he was fascinated merely by Clara's playing. That was
all. He was more interested in the person of another
girl, Ernestine von Fricken, the adopted daughter of
a rich Bohemian baron, who, like himself, was also a
pupil-lodger of Friedrich Wieck.
" She has a delightfully pure, childlike mind," he told
his mother, " is delicate and thoughtful, deeply attached
to me and everything artistic, and uncommonly musical;
in short, just such a one as I might wish to have for
a wife. I will whisper it in your ear, my good mother,
if the Future were to ask me whom I should choose,
I should answer unhesitatingly, c This one. '
Poor Schumann ! Once again his susceptible genius
had been ensnared by what it thought was love. The
" affair " advanced apace ; and, in the early part of the
year 1834, the young musician became definitely be-
trothed to Ernestine, in accordance with all customary
German ceremonial. Schumann was in an ecstasy of
happiness.
" Ernestine has written to me in great delight,"
K 129
\
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
he declared in a letter to his friend Henrietta Voigt,
" she has sounded her father by means of her mother,
and he gives her to me ! Henrietta, he gives her
to me ! You understand that ? And yet I am so
wretched ; it seems as though I feared to accept this
jewel lest it should be in unworthy hands. If you ask
me to put a name to my grief I cannot do it. I think
it is grief itself; but, alas ! it may be love itself, and
mere longing for Ernestine. I really cannot stand it
any longer, so I have written to her to arrange a
meeting one of these days. If you should ever feel
thoroughly happy, then think of two souls who have
placed all that is most sacred in them in your keeping
and whose future happiness is inseparably bound up
with your own."
But while Schumann thus was soaring to the dizzy
heights of rapture, another member of the Wieck
household was tasting for the first time of the bitter
cup of disappointment. With sad, anxious eyes, little
Clara watched the young composer's infatuation as it
grew. Child though she was, she loved Schumann ; she
had loved him for a long while. He was the one being
who could make her life and art complete r she knew it,
not knowing how she knew. And it was very hard for
her to stand and watch, while another woman, whom she
felt to be unworthy of him, robbed her of him, the one
man who could give her happiness. It dulled the keen
edge of her worldly triumphs.
But of this Schumann knew nothing. He regarded
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ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK
Clara merely as a child, and as such he treated her,
himself posing as an elder brother. Still, " I often
think of you," he wrote in one of his letters, " not as
a brother of his sister, not merely in friendship, but
rather as a pilgrim thinking of a distant shrine.'* And
Clara, it may be, could read the true meaning of such
words, could see that secret of his inner self which had
not as yet betrayed itself even to Schumann. He
loved her. She knew that in his heart he loved her.
And, indeed, he would have loved her, but for the
fact that . . . well ! she was only a child. Why, she
was so young that ghost stories still frightened her. It
never even occurred to him to regard her as a woman.
Yet, gradually, almost unconsciously, he chose this
child as a standard by which to judge other women.
By her he judged Ernestine. But for Ernestine the
test was too severe. What Schumann had thought to
be her virtues he soon saw existed mainly in his own
imagination. She was not an interesting girl. Her
letters were illiterate and insincere; they jarred upon
her lover's senses ; whilst, for the thousand and one
little deceptions which she practised on him, he could
not forgive her.
And then it was that his friendship with Clara began
to ripen into a closer tie. He kept " mental trysts "
with her, and his letters — -they tell their own tale.
They are not the letters of a brother.
On one occasion he longed to catch butterflies to be
messengers to her. On another he thought of getting
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
his letters posted in Paris, so as to arouse her curiosity.
And once he told her that if she were present he would
press her hands even without her father's leave. " Then,"
he added, " I might hope that the union of our names
on the title-page might foreshadow the union of our
ideas in the future."
Clearly, then, it was not only Clara's cleverness which
fascinated him. Her person — it too delighted him.
Indeed, he declared in reply to one of her childlike
effusions, " Your letter was yourself all over. You
stood before me laughing and talking ; rushing from
fun to earnest, as usual ; diplomatically playing with
your veil. In short, the letter was Clara herself, her
double."
And Clara herself was a charming child ; she fas-
cinated Schumann ; he delighted in watching and study-
ing her. "Clara," he wrote to his mother in 1833,
"is as fond of me as ever, and is just as she used to
be of old, wild and enthusiastic, skipping and running
about like a child, and saying the most intensely thought-
ful things. It is a pleasure to see how her gifts of
mind and heart keep developing faster and faster, and,
as it were, leaf by leaf. The other day, as we were
walking back from Cannovitz (we go for a two or three
hours' tramp almost every day), I heard her say to
herself : * Oh, how happy I am ! how happy ! ' Who
would not love to hear that ? On the same road there
are a great many useless stones lying about in the
middle of the footpath. Now, when I am talking, I
132
ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK
often look more up than down, so she always walks
behind me and gently pulls my coat at every stone to
prevent my falling ; meanwhile she stumbles over them
herself."
Now to a friendship which had advanced so far as
this, surely there could be but one ending. Even
Ernestine was wise enough to see this, and made no
endeavour to avert the inevitable. In short, she and
Schumann agreed mutually to break their troth, admitting
that they had ceased to love each other. And neither
of them bore malice ; on the contrary they became
better friends than ever they had been before.
" I always believed," Ernestine told Schumann later,
" that you could love Clara alone, and still believe it."
Surely no woman could have acted more graciously.
Now to break an engagement in Germany is a serious
undertaking. Indeed, there are, as Schumann found,
innumerable formalities to be complied with ; and it
was January, 1836, before at last he was free to seek
the hand of a girl whom, if ever such things are pre-
destined, the Fates long ago had chosen for his wife.
But the pompous tardiness of legal processes proved
more than his impetuosity could tolerate. His love
refused to be restrained. At any rate, he could not
restrain it ; its insistence mastered good resolves ; and,
long before he had been released from his former en-
tanglement, he poured into Clara's eager ears the story
of his hopes and dreams.
It was November 25th. Schumann had called on the
'33
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Wiecks to say farewell, for he had arranged to leave
on the following day for Leipsic. All the evening he
had eyes for nobody in the house, save only for Clara ;
his ears heard nothing but her voice ; his senses were
conscious only of her presence. Then, as he rose
to go, Clara rose also, and walked with him to the
door, carrying in her hand a lamp to light him down
the steps.
But to be thus alone with her, to say " good-bye "
to her — and who knew when again he would see
her ? — such a test of endurance Schumann's resolves
could not survive. His love surged up within him,
and, seizing Clara in his arms, he told her then and
there the incoherent story of his passion.
Clara resisted him, and freeing herself from his
grasp reminded him of Ernestine.
So far as he was concerned, she no longer existed,
Schumann declared. She had broken her word to him,
he said, and betrothed herself already to another — a
slight inaccuracy which, under the circumstances, perhaps
one can forgive him.
Clara, at any rate, believed him ; and falling into
his arms, she yielded herself gladly and longingly to
his embraces. And then, while his lips were pressed
to hers, the long-slumbering embers of her love burst
suddenly into flame. In that one moment Clara the
child became a woman.
" When you gave me that first kiss," she told her
lover later, " then I felt myself near swooning. Before
134
ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK
my eyes it grew black. . . . The lamp I brought to
light you I could hardly hold."
Indeed, she did not hold it ; she dropped it. That
night love almost fired a house.
But for the present, seeing that Schumann's engage-
ment to Ernestine von Fricken not yet had been
annulled, the lovers decided to keep their promises
made to one another secret. But, in February, Schu-
mann, being free at last to seek Clara's hand, proposed
formally to do so. He was quite optimistic as to the
result of his petition. " While waiting for the coach at
Zwickan — 10 p.m. Feb. 13, 1836," he wrote and told
her of his hopes.
" Sleep has been weighing on my eyes," he said,
" I have been waiting two hours for the express coach.
The roads are so bad that we shall not get away till
two o'clock. How you stand before me, my beloved
Clara : ah, so near you seem to me that I could almost
seize you. Once 1 could put everything daintily in
words, telling how strongly I liked any one, but now I
cannot any more. And if you do not know I cannot
tell you. But love me well. ... I demand much,
since I give much. ... At Leipsic my first care shall
be to put my worldly affairs in order. I am quite clear
about my heart. Perhaps your father will not refuse
it if I ask him for his blessing. Of course, there is
much to be thought of and arranged. But I put great
trust in our guardian angel. Fate always intended us
for one another. I have known that a long time, but
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
my hopes were never strong enough to tell you and
get your answer before.
" What I write to-day briefly and incompletely, I
will later explain to you, for probably you cannot read
me at all. But simply realize that I love you quite
unspeakably. The room is getting dark. Passengers
near me are going to sleep. It is sleeting and snowing
outside. But I will squeeze myself right into a corner,
bury my face in the cushions, and think only of you.
Farewell, my Clara."
But Schumann's high hopes were doomed to dis-
appointment. On no conditions would Clara's father
sanction the engagement. Prayers and entreaties like-
wise were of no avail. The old man remained ob-
durate, deaf to reason. " If Clara marries Schumann,"
he declared on more than one occasion, " I will say it
even on my deathbed, she is not worthy of being my
daughter."
Nor was he content merely with threats ; he made
his child promise never again even to see the man
she loved. He would shoot Schumann, he, said, unless
she promised. Then Clara gave him her word. What
else could the poor child do ? In Germany the con-
ditions of filial independence are different, very different,
from those which exist in England. And Clara was a
dutiful daughter.
Besides, as she realized, her father's opposition
certainly was not altogether without reason. He wished
to find for himself a son-in-law who could further
ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK
Clara's interests, a man of great ability or income. But
Schumann — of what use could he be to her ? The
future seemed to hold nothing for him. As a pianist
certainly he could never hope now to earn either fame
or money, for his right hand, crippled by constant
practising, was almost useless to him ; and his reputa-
tion as a composer, it of course had yet to be estab-
lished.
For the lovers, then, months of hideous anguish
followed the paternal ultimatum, since Clara strove to
the utmost to keep the promise she had made to her
father ; and Schumann, for his part, felt in honour
bound not to make the task more difficult. Never
a word, then, passed between them ; not a note ; nor
even a message save, of course, such as Schumann could
convey in his compositions and Clara in her playing.
Messages such as these each sought devotedly.
In the meanwhile, Schumann endeavoured by every
means to better his worldly prospects so that one day
he might be able to hurl defiance at obstinate parents.
At the same time, it is true, he took steps — and
who can blame him for this ? — surreptitiously to be
kept in touch with Clara's doings.
" I am not going to give you anything musical to
spell out to-day," he wrote to an acquaintance who was
known also to his beloved, " and without beating about
the bush will come to the point at once. I have a
particular favour to ask of you. It is this : Will you
not devote a few moments of your life to acting as
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
messenger between two parted souls ? At any rate,
do not betray them. Give me your word that you
will not.
" Clara Wieck loves, and is loved in return. You
will soon find that out from her gentle, almost super-
natural ways and doings. For the present don't ask
me the name of the other one. The happy ones, how-
ever, acted, met, talked, and exchanged their vows,
without the father's knowledge. He has found them
out, wants to take violent measures, and forbids any
sort of intercourse on pain of death. Well, it has all
happened before, thousands of times. But the worst of
it is that she has gone away. The latest news came
from Dresden. But we know nothing for certain,
though I suspect, indeed I am nearly convinced, that
they are at Breslau. Wieck is sure to call upon you
at once, and will invite you to come and hear Clara play.
" Now, this is my ardent request, that you should
let me know all about Clara as quickly as possible — I
mean as to the state of mind, the life she leads, in fact
any news you can obtain. All that I have told you is
a sacred trust, and don't mention this letter to either
the old man or anybody else.
" If Wieck speaks of me, it will probably not be in
very flattering terms. Don't let that put you out. . . .
I may further remark that it will be an easy thing for
you to obtain Clara's confidence, as 1 (who am more
than partial to the lovers) have often told her that I
correspond with you. She will be happy to see you
•38
ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK
on that account. . . . Write soon. A heart, a life
depends upon it. . . ."
And then, unable longer to contain himself — lover-
like, presumably he thought that so far he had con-
cealed the secret — he added, " my own — . For it is
I, myself, for whom I have been pleading."
in
Now Wieck made a sorry mistake in hoping, by
oppressive measures, to stifle the attachment between
his daughter and Robert Schumann. Adversity is the
very soil in which a love such as was theirs thrives
best. Wieck might have known this. But he failed
to ; nor, would it seem, did he realize that there is
a limit even to a daughter's sense of duty. In fact, not
content with his past severities, he proceeded now to
tax the endurance of the unhappy Clara still more
heavily, and sought to replace the idol he had stolen
from her heart by one which happened to be pleasing
to himself.
And by doing so, by trying thus to thrust upon
the daughter, whose wishes he had thwarted, a husband
chosen by himself, he displayed amazing ignorance of
those laws which govern women's hearts.
Carl Banck, the man whom he ordained that Clara
should marry, was, of course, eminently eligible, for
he was a singer to whom a great future seemed to be
assured.
'39
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
But marry him — marry him simply because her father
wished it — Clara could not, would not. Besides,
she disliked the man. And dislike turned to hatred
when Banck sought to capture her affections by
maligning Schumann. Such dastardly methods as those
even Clara's gentle spirit could not tolerate ; and her
feelings, long pent up, now burst forth in glorious
revolt.
Why, she asked herself, should she remain loyal
to a promise made solely to satisfy her father's
vanity ? It was ridiculous. She would not. She told
Schumann so. And henceforth letters flew between
herself and him as often as trusty emissaries could be
found to carry them.
At last even a meeting was arranged. It was a
dangerous undertaking, and the lovers both were
greatly agitated. Schumann was almost dumb with fear
and joy ; Clara nearly fainted. Still, it was a sweet
thing to look back upon, this secret tryst.
" The moon shone so beautifully on your face," Clara
told her lover later," when you lifted your hat and passed
your hand across your forehead ; I had the sweetest
feeling that I ever had ; I had found my love again."
Fortified by this renewal of his happiness, in Septem-
ber, 1837, Schumann dared again appeal to Wieck. He
chose the occasion carefully, sending his letter to the
obdurate old gentleman on Clara's birthday, " the day,"
he said, " on which the dearest being in the world, for
you as for me, first saw the light of the world."
140
ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK
But even this failed to melt the father's heart.
" Nothing shall shake me," he replied. And nothing, it
seemed, would shake him. Schumann essayed every
means within his power; he interviewed him; he sent
messages to him ; he wrote to him, but all in vain.
Despair entered his heart.
"Ask her eyes," he implored, "whether I have told
you the truth. Eighteen months long have you tested
me. If you have found me worthy, true, and manly,
then seal this union; it lacks nothing of the higher bliss,
except the paternal blessing. An awful moment it is
until I learn your decision, awful as the pause between
lightning and thunder in the tempest, where man does
not know whether it will give destruction or bene-
diction. Be again a friend to one of your oldest friends,
and to the best of children be the best of fathers."
Now the extravagance of this appeal really discon-
certed Wieck. Despite himself, he was beginning to
entertain a grudging admiration for the perseverance
of his would-be son-in-law, and in consequence knew
not what to say in reply. Accordingly, he took refuge
in evasion. " Wieck's answer was so confused," Schumann
wrote to a friend, "and he declined and accepted so
vaguely, that now I really don't know what to do. Not
at all. He was not able to make any valid objections;
but as I said before, one could make nothing of his
letter. I have not spoken to C. yet; her strength is
my only hope."
None the less, Wieck did now make a small concession.
141
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Perhaps he saw that he could have no peace until he had.
At any rate, he told the lovers that in future they might
meet from time to time — in the presence of a chaperon ;
and even that they might correspond occasionally when
Clara was travelling.
Schumann for his part, however, placed but little
confidence in such promises. " There is nothing in
this, believe me," he wrote to Clara; "he will throw
you to the first comer who has gold and title enough."
Still, he could not but admit that these concessions
were not to be despised. To be able to see Clara
occasionally; and to write to her — that alone was
enough to spur him on to great endeavours. So he
set to work as he had never worked before. And
dreams made even work delight, for his thoughts now
were centred always in the future. "We shall lead,"
he told Clara, " a life of poetry and blossoms, and we
shall play and compose together like angels, and bring
gladness to mankind."
The Schumann romance by this time had become
historical. It was the talk of Europe. The lovers
were inundated with letters of advice and sympathy.
Admirers even offered them money in order that they
might marry immediately, and live in comfort. The
secret messengers were numberless. Among them was
a Russian prince. Chopin, too, Mendelssohn and
Liszt, all were implicated. But to Clara and Schumann
this notoriety proved hateful. Firmly they waived
aside all offers of assistance, deeming it best to be
142
ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK
patient, at any rate, until Easter, [840. Then, they
resolved, they would marry whatever might happen.
But it was a terrible prospect, this waiting. " My
sole wish," Clara wrote, " is — 1 wish it every morning —
that I could sleep for two years ; could oversleep all the
thousand tears that shall yet flow . . . Foolish wish ! I am
such a silly child. Do you remember that two years
ago on Christmas Eve you gave me white pearls and
mother said then : c Pearls mean tears'? She was right;
they followed only too soon."
What is more, still they were with her. Not even yet
would the father allow his daughter any peace. He
was always tormenting her, and presenting to her odious
suitors ; whilst he seemed to delight in doing everything
he could to poison her mind against the man she loved.
He accused Schumann of infidelity to her, defamed
his character, even declared that he was an inveterate
drunkard. But to these charges Schumann answered
readily — to Clara. " I should not be worth being
spoken to," he said, " if a man trusted by so good and
noble a girl as you, should not be a respectable man and
not control himself in everything. Let this simple
word put you at your ease for ever."
Still, these scandalous imputations against his character
goaded him to frenzy ; he resented them bitterly, and, if
only as a means of freeing her from the persecutions of
her father, began now seriously to consider the question
of eloping.
Eventually he abandoned the idea. In Germany the
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
consequences of such an action would be very serious
— for the girl, at any rate ; and Schumann, unlike most
musician lovers, was ever solicitous for his beloved's
welfare. At last, however, as time went on, and Wieck's
treatment of his daughter became more and more
unfatherly and tyrannical, he decided that something
really drastic must be done. Accordingly he wrote to
Wieck, and told him that, unless the marriage should be
approved immediately, he would institute legal pro-
ceedings, and appeal to a court of law to compel his
consent.
In due course Schumann received an answer to this
ultimatum. He would be pleased, Wieck said, to give
his consent to the marriage ; but only on certain condi-
tions— mercenary, insolent conditions which neither
Schumann nor Clara would consider for a minute. The
latter, in fact, wrote herself to her father and told him
so, candidly.
Then the lawsuit began — on July i6th, 1839. And
for a whole long, weary year the proceedings were pro-
tracted. It is a dismal tale, the story of these happenings.
Wieck defended the case relentlessly, leaving no stone
unturned which might conceal something he could use
to blacken Schumann's character, and availing himself
of every device known to law and cunning to delay
the giving of the verdict. It was not until August 12,
1840, that the Court at last pronounced a verdict in the
lovers' favour — a verdict strongly in their favour.
Then all the troubles of anxiety and suspense
144
ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK
were forgotten in a moment. The memories of the
past faded completely ; only to the future did the lovers
look, doing everything within their power to hasten
forward preparations for the wedding. And so it came
about that, on September 12, Clara Wieck was made
the wife of Robert Schumann. The ceremony was
performed very quietly in the little church at Schoene-
feld, a village near to Leipsic. But she and her
husband had gained only one day by all their litigation,
for on September I3th Clara came of age.
Still, they had gained one day. And perhaps even
to have done that was worth the trouble. " It was
a beautiful day," the bride wrote in her diary, " and the
sun himself, who had been hidden for many days,
poured his mild beams upon us as we went to the wed-
ding, as if he would bless our union. There was
nothing disturbing on this day, and so let it be inscribed
in this book as the most beautiful and the most im-
portant day of my life. A period of my existence has
now closed. I have endured very many sorrows in my
young years, but also many joys which I shall never
forget. Now begins a new life, a beautiful life, that life
which one loves more than anything, even than self;
but heavy responsibilities also rest upon me, and Heaven
grant me strength to fulfil them truly and as a good
wife."
And as a good wife indeed she did fulfil them.
Marriage did not mark the end of Clara Wieck's
romance. It was but the beginning of it, for hers and
L 145
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Robert Schumann's was an ideal union, a perfect mar-
riage.
" They lived for one another," a biographer has
written, " and for their children. He created and wrote
for his wife, and in accordance with their temperament;
whilst she looked upon it as her highest privilege to
give to the world the most perfect interpretation of his
works . . . and to ward off all disturbing or injurious
impressions from his sensitive soul."
Now it was from this, his sensitive soul, that arose
the only cloud which marred their married happiness.
That cloud was the penalty of genius. Madness seized
Schumann, madness in the form of melancholia. But
even at those times when his depression was most acute
his wife was still to him a " gift from above." And for
her sake he fought fiercely against his malady — for her
sake, and the sake of her children whom he also loved.
Clara bore him eight, but even that did not satisfy.
" I always tell my wife," he once wrote to Mendels-
sohn, "'one cannot have enough.' It is the greatest
blessing we have on earth."
But mania, struggle though he would against it, in
the end proved stronger than all his efforts. Periods
of complete sanity, it is true, followed each attack, but
as Schumann grew older, the attacks, alas ! increased
both in severity and frequency. In 1854, for example,
so acute was his melancholy that one day in February
he crept from the house unobserved and threw himself
from a bridge into the Rhine. Fortunately he was
146
ROBERT SCHUMANN AND CLARA WIECK
seen to fall, and saved by some boatmen. But their
prompt action only postponed the end for a short while.
Two years later, in fact, overburdened by the weight
of his afflictions, the great musician passed peacefully
away, peacefully and happy, for Death found him sup-
ported in Clara's loving arms.
Schumann was only forty-six years of age when he
died. His wife survived him many, many years, and
during those years, through the medium of her incom-
parable art, made the world appreciate, as she herself
had done, the greatness of her lover's genius.
She did not marry again. Thenceforth she devoted
her life and all her art entirely to Schumann's children
and his memory, for she wrote, even so late as 1871,
" the purity of his life, his noble aspirations, the ex-
cellence of his heart, can never be fully known except
through the communication of his family and friends."
The Marriage of Victor Hugo
VICTOR HUGO
From an engraving
VI
THE MARRIAGE OF VICTOR HUGO
jHESE pages have nothing to say concerning
Victor Hugo's brilliant, though troublous,
career, his political activities, his successes,
his failures, or those many radical reforms
he strove most earnestly to make in the interest of
his fellow-countrymen ; nothing concerning even his
colossal literary greatness. Indeed, they do not pre-
sume in any way to give the story of the poet's life,
but merely a chapter from that story — the chapter
dealing with his love for A dele Foucher, and that,
incidentally, ends at the very point at which begins the
story of his real career.
During his later years, after he had been caught in
the whirligig of politics and fame, Victor Hugo, as
was perhaps inevitable, became a somewhat exaggerated
egotist, inconstant in his affections, and eccentric. But
when he loved Adele Foucher he was little more than
a child, a child poet withal, unmarred even by the
breath of cynicism, or knowledge of the baseness of
the world. Not yet had genius demanded tribute of
him ; not yet had dawned within him the consciousness
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
of his own stupendous talents. He was then in fact,
and unknowingly, merely an idealist, seeking, through
the medium of his art, to prove himself worthy of his
own ideal, worthy of love.
Now human passion, besides being the one great
theme of poets, is also the true source of all their
inspiration. And they — they and musicians — alone
among men can tell of it, for to them only is known
love's language. The story of a poet's love, therefore,
always is fascinating. But the story of that love which
came to Victor Hugo in all the freshness of his
innocency, to Victor Hugo, who, as a man, proved
himself the greatest of France's poets, the greatest of
all poets, perhaps, save only Shakespeare — how could
it be aught but wonderful ?
And surely it is more deserving of being re-told
here than the story of that love which came to him
later in life, a love built on the solid ground of reason
and of judgment, and not merely of that charming,
flimsy fabric, sweet sensation.
Now, Adele Foucher was the very girl to inspire
such a poet's fancy, for she was gifted not only with
great beauty, but with that vague, mysterious fascina-
tion which stirs emotions and stimulates imagination.
Hugo was never sure of her ; throughout his long
courtship the awful fear of losing her confronted him
perpetually, ever goading him to fresh efforts to prove
his worth and his devotion. Adele seemed always to
be escaping from his grasp, always elusive. In short,
152
THE MARRIAGE OF VICTOR HUGO
she possessed that infinite variety of charm of which
not even time, not even familiarity, can rob some
women. And it was because of this, because she won
Hugo's respect and admiration, that she was able to
retain his love.
The hunting instinct is strong in man. He hates an
easy capture, even though the quarry be a woman.
Adele and Victor were comrades together even in
their cradle days. Indeed, at that time their respective
parents had been close friends and neighbours already
for very many years. Madame Foucher and Madame
Hugo, no doubt, each found in the other an admirable
confidante and gossip, whilst the husbands, old General
Hugo and M. Foucher, a retired official at the War
Office, of course, had much in common. Thus, while
the mothers chatted and the fathers re-fought old battles,
the children of the two families grew up together side
by side. And somehow — perhaps because there was
a difference only of one year in their ages — Victor and
Adele always paired off together.
But they were never merely comrades. Victor was
a dreamer even as a boy, always imagining. And
something, it would seem, in Ad&le's nature responded
to his. Perhaps it was that she, too, loved to ramble
and romance in the old-world garden around the Hugos'
house — the Feuillantines they called it ; once it had
been a nunnery. At any rate, when quite a little child
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
the poet noted "her large bright eyes, her abundant
locks, her golden brown complexion, her red lips, and
her pink cheeks."
" Our mothers," he wrote, " used to tell us to run
and play together. We used to take walks instead.
We were told to play, but we preferred to talk. We
were children of the same age — not of the same sex.
Nevertheless ... we had little trials of strength.
I took from her once the biggest apple in the orchard ;
I slapped her when she would not let me have a bird's
nest.
" But before long the time came when she walked
leaning on my arm, and I was proud, and experienced
some new emotions. We walked slowly ; we spoke
softly. She dropped her handkerchief; I picked it up.
Our hands touched each other, and trembled. She
began to talk about the little birds, about the star over
our heads, about the crimson afterglow of the sunset
behind the trees, about her schoolmates, her frocks, her
ribbons. We talked innocently of commonplace things;
yet we both blushed, for the little girl had grown a
maiden."
And so, for a while, young love continued to pursue
his happy, peaceful path, innocently and undisturbed.
But in 1818, when Victor was sixteen and Adele fifteen,
trouble befell the Hugo household. The General and
his wife, in fact, agreed to differ, and to live henceforth
apart. The reason for their estrangement was mainly
political, Madame Hugo's partisanship for the Bourbon
THE MARRIAGE OF VICTOR HUGO
cause having proved at length quite intolerable to her
husband, a soldier who had fought valiantly and with
distinction for the Empire.
But old Hugo found it utterly impossible, on his
slender pension, to keep a house in Paris for himself
and, at the same time, to maintain his wife and family at
the Feuillantines. Accordingly, Madame Hugo was
forced before long to move into a smaller appartement
in the Rue des Petits-Augustins. But still she kept in
touch with her old friend Madame Foucher. Indeed,
she continued to call, every evening after dinner, at the
H6tel de Toulouse, where the Fouchers lived, with her
work-bag in her hand, and wearing an old purple merino
dress almost completely covered by an enormous shawl
with a palm-leaf border.
And when they were home from school, her two sons,
Eugene and Victor, always accompanied her. Eugene
for his part, however, hated these family gatherings ;
he found them intolerably depressing. Who can
wonder ? The ladies would pass the time by knitting,
and usually in silence, whilst M. Foucher, who
invariably sat reading in a corner, hated to be dis-
turbed.
And to disturb him was, as no doubt all who did it
learned, a most unwise procedure, for the poor man
suffered from insomnia, and, in consequence, usually
was irritable. None the less, although in bourgeoise
France in those days even big boys were expected to
be seen and not heard, to sit dumb and doing
155
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
absolutely nothing was the most wretched way imagin-
able of wasting an evening. So Eugene thought.
But Victor — " it was not that he enjoyed watching
the wood fire on the hearth, or passing two long hours
sitting still on a badly-stuffed chair. He did not care
if there was not a word spoken. He was satisfied if
M. Foucher did not look up from his book, or if the
ladies were intent upon their sewing, for then he could
look as long as he liked at Mile Adele."
In fact, he feasted his eyes upon her, and his ardent
glances both pleased and puzzled her. The girl became
curious to know their meaning. But Victor was much
too shy to tell her. Nor, indeed, did he himself really
understand them ; he was only dimly conscious that
some change was taking place within him.
Yet soon this silent adoration ceased to satisfy.
Adele now met his glances boldly ; and in her eyes
was a bewildering light, which thrilled the poet with a
kind of ecstasy. He could endure the torment no
longer. Nor could Adele. And she — for like a true
daughter of Eve, she knew how to arrange that things
should happen — contrived to meet him alone one day.
It was April 26, 1819.
" I'm sure you have secrets, Victor," she said. " Come,
what is your greatest secret ? Tell me and I will tell
you mine."
" I love you ! " replied Hugo bluntly.
" And I love you ! " came the dainty echo.
That was all — that and a timid kiss. It was very
THE MARRIAGE OF VICTOR HUGO
na'ive, and there seemed to be no need for more.
Indeed, neither had another word to say. They were
merely children playing at romance. They called it
love. Their elders would have called it folly. They
knew this ; and so were wise enough to keep their
plighted troth a secret. The present was much too
sweet to be marred by the needs of a remote to-morrow.
A glance, a pressure of the hand, a kiss, a stolen meet-
ing ; this spelt romance indeed. And meanwhile, the
meaning of love's great truth dawned gradually within
them.
The winter now was over ; and for the summer
months the Fouchers, as was their wont, took a little
house in the suburbs of Paris ; this year at Issy. For
a time, then, Adele and Victor were forced to endure
the torment of separation, for Issy, though not far from
Paris, was too distant for Madame Hugo often to
journey thither. Victor dared not go alone. To do
so would at once betray his secret. Left, therefore,
to fret and pine alone in Paris, he dreamed of Adele
every moment of the day. What was she doing ?
What frock was she wearing ? Was she thinking of
him ? But the questions remained unanswered, tan-
talizing his imagination until : —
" Sweet inclination grew a quenchless flame."
Love at last had explained itself to him ; it ceased to
be a plaything, and became now a great reality. And
so, when Adele returned to Paris in the autumn, she
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
and Victor met no longer as girl and boy, but as man
and woman, linked together by love's mysterious
understanding.
And they met often ; sometimes in the garden of the
Hotel de Toulouse, " under the chestnut trees," while
Madame Foucher was out shopping ; and sometimes,
when A dele was sent instead to do the marketing, in a
little side-street, where they would converse long together.
Even this was not enough. They wrote to one another
every day, but, of course, secretly.
Now to Hugo, confident in the strength of his devo-
tion and honourable intentions, these furtive letters and
stolen meetings added greatly to the attractiveness of
love, raising it, so he thought, to the high level of
Romance. But to Adele — and, maybe, because a certain
respect for the proprieties is inherent and natural in
every girl — this secrecy was hateful ; she longed at least
to be able to confide in her mother the knowledge of
her love.
Still, she dared not do so, for she knew only
too well the inevitable consequence. Indeed, one day,
having discovered a book of verses sent by Hugo,
Madame Foucher waxed quite angry, and cautioned
her daughter severely against accepting even little
attentions from a man — unless, of course, he should
happen to be marriageable. If she did, the good lady
sagely told her, she would lose that man's respect,
and, if she lost that, she could never hope to keep
his love.
THE MARRIAGE OF VICTOR HUGO
Now these words frightened Adele. She had done
wrong, she felt, in encouraging young Hugo, and in
addition had brought dishonour on herself. And so,
poor child, she was greatly troubled, so greatly that
it was more even than her lover could do to reassure
her.
And yet—" What can I tell you," he wrote, " that I
have not told you a thousand and a thousand times ?
. . . To tell you that I love you better than my life
would be a small matter, for you know I care very
little for life. ... I forbid you, do you hear, to say
anything more to me about my c contempt* my c want of
esteem * for you. You will make me seriously angry if
you force me to repeat that I could not love you if I
did not esteem you . . . because I hope you know the
purity of my love for you. I am your husband, or at
least I consider myself as such. You only can make me
give up that name. . . .
" Do you know that one thought makes three-quarters
of my happiness ? I dream that, in spite of all obstacles,
I may be permitted yet to be your husband, even though
it be only for one day. Suppose we were married to-
morrow, and I were to kill myself the next day, I should
have been happy for one day and no one would have
any reason to reproach you. You would be my widow.
Would it be possible, my Adele ... to arrange matters
thus ? One day of happiness is worth more than a life
of sorrow."
159
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
ii
But even the felicity of a one-day marriage, it seemed,
never could be consummated, for at this time a great
misfortune befell the lovers*
It came about in this way.
Madame Foucher, her suspicions already aroused by
the arrival of the little book of verses, began now to watch
her daughter's movements closely. Suspicion, then, soon
became a certainty, and she taxed the girl directly with
questions. And Adele, too much terrified even to
attempt dissimulation, confessed everything. To her
surprise, however, the confession did not anger her
mother ; on the contrary, Madame Foucher listened to
it with sympathy, almost tenderness, and said that she
would consider the matter, and consult about it with her
husband.
This spelled joy to Adele ; and when M. Foucher
expressed himself willing to look quite favourably on
Victor's suit, she became full of hope. Her father even
declared that he liked the boy, and believed in him.
Indeed, being himself somewhat of a savant, M.
Foucher, no doubt, already had formed a high opinion
of the young poet's capabilities. Accordingly, on
April 26, 1820 — exactly one year after Victor and
Adele had told each other of their love — accompanied
by his wife, he set out to call on Madame Hugo,
intending to ratify the betrothal formally.
To Madame Hugo the news of her son's attachment
1 60
THE MARRIAGE OF VICTOR HUGO
came as an absolute surprise ; it overwhelmed her
with astonishment. Victor in love ! Why, the boy
was a mere child, she declared; and she laughed at the
cause of the Fouchers' untimely mission. None the
less, in her heart she knew that what she had heard was
true ; and could not restrain the note of disappointment
in her laughter. That Victor, the son she idolized,
should thus renounce her love, without one word of
warning, for that of another woman, a mere girl too,
and one without a dot at that ! It was unbelievable.
Jealousy consumed her. Then the good woman lost
her temper, closing her ears utterly to reason. Never,
she said, never should the marriage take place with her
consent. A Foucher aspiring to wed the son of General
Hugo, indeed ! Why, it was insult.
And, under the circumstances, of course, M. Foucher
had no alternative other than to reply coldly. Pride
forbade him to argue longer with the indignant mother,
for, being a man who had held an important government
position, and who wore the ribbon of the Legion of
Honour, he and his family were in every respect equal
to the Hugos socially. So he gave it to be under-
stood that henceforth all intercourse between the two
families must cease.
Forthwith, then, Victor was sent for, and informed
of what had happened. The boy listened calmly.
Loyalty to his mother restrained his protests. But
when the Fouchers had taken their departure his
feelings triumphed, and, tearing himself from his
M 161
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
mother's embrace, he rushed to his room, locked the
door, and wept till he had no more tears to shed. In
vain Madame Hugo pleaded with him to allow her to
come in and comfort him. He would not, for it was
only now that he had lost Adele, that he realized how
much he loved her. He had lost her, lost her ; and life
henceforth, he felt, would be merely a horrible and awful
death. Grim despair entered his eighteen-year-old heart.
And Adele — her mind, too, was in a whirl of doubts
and fears, for she was kept in ignorance of what had
happened. Her parents would tell her nothing, save
that she must never expect again to hear from Victor,
must never even mention his name, for, they declared,
he had shown himself to be quite unworthy of her.
They deemed it kinder to tell her this, and by such
means hoped soon to help her to forget. With this aim
in view, moreover, they tried even to arrange another
marriage for her.
But Adele did not forget ; she could not bring herself
to believe that Victor had been false to her, even when
the weeks rolled by, and still she heard neither from nor
of him. In vain her mother tried to stimulate new
interests and restore her happiness; nothing could
arouse the girl. Dances, parties, theatres seemed to
have lost all their old charm and fascination for her.
Only in seclusion was she happy, for there she could
entertain at least the memory of Victor's love and read
his letters. And his last letter to her, signed with his
full name, she read and re-read.
162
THE MARRIAGE OF VICTOR HUGO
" Receive this, my inviolable promise, that I will have
no other wife but thee. . . . They may possibly separate
us, but I am thine — thine eternally. — V. M. HUGO/'
She still had hope.
So, too, had Victor, after he had recovered from the
first shock of disappointment. And in work he sought
to realize his hope, for work could give him money,
and money alone could give him that independence
which would make marriage possible. Accordingly he
set to work, and, moreover, did work, as only a lover
can for whom the prize is the lady of his heart. In-
numerable were his literary activities. And, at length,
Fate gave him, so it seemed, an opportunity of pursuing
his great quest directly.
M. Foucher published a book. True, it happened
merely to be a treatise on army recruiting. None the
less, it was a book. That was enough for Hugo. Un-
daunted, therefore, by its technicalities, he gave it a
full-page review in Le Conseruateur Litter air e^ prais-
ing it as though it were a masterpiece of literature,
a classic. Then in person he addressed to the author
a copy of the journal containing the critique.
M. Foucher, of course, was inordinately flattered by
this quite unmerited applause. But he had not the
courage to relent towards Victor ; still he preserved his
silence and his pride, failing even to acknowledge the
poet's tribute. The latter, however, did not yet despair ;
and when a few weeks later the Due de Bordeaux was
born — the royal child, Fenfant du miracle, whose birth
163
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
France eagerly had been awaiting — he wrote an ode
specially for the occasion, had it printed in pamphlet
form, and sent a copy with a carefully worded dedication
to M. Foucher. Adele, he hoped, might also see it,
and would understand perhaps the motives which had
prompted him.
Now this time his hopes did not deceive him. In
short, M. Foucher found it impossible longer to main-
tain pretence, for, although in no way deceived by
Victor's compliments, he was not a little gratified by
them, and felt he must at least make some acknow-
ledgment. But he did not write to the boy personally ;
instead he wrote to the mother. " I have to thank
V. M. Hugo," he said, " for his flattering article on
the Manuel du Recrutement. I have also to thank him
for sending me as a present a copy of his ode on the
birth of the Due de Bordeaux. My wife is a sharer
in my debt, for she has taken half the pleasure we have
had in this poem."
After this, friendly relations to some extent were
renewed between the two families. Victor and Adele,
however, still were kept carefully apart ; never were they
allowed to meet — even in the presence of their parents.
In spite of this, they heard of each other's doings.
So it came about that Victor learned that Adele was taking
drawing lessons. What is more, he learned where she
was taking them, and when. The rest was easy. In
short, he decided to lie in wait for her one morning,
and then dared boldly to accost her in the street. And
164
THE MARRIAGE OF VICTOR HUGO
it was a happy day for him, was this, the day on which
he saw his beloved again, and spoke to her, and found
that she had not forgotten, nor even changed in her
affection towards him. Despite, then, his adversities
and trials, life to Hugo once again became worth living,
for in future he and Adele met often thus ; even the
secret correspondence was renewed.
In this way another year rolled to its close, a
year full of petty excitements and little fears.
" Do you remember, Adele," the poet wrote on
April 26, 1821, "that this day is the anniversary
of that which determined my whole life ? . . . Oh,
tell me that you have not forgotten that evening. Tell
me that you remember it all. My whole life has ever
since been lived in the happiness or the sorrow which
dated from that day. . . . Since then I only breathe,
I only speak, I only move, I only act, thinking of
you. . . . There is no other woman in all the world
to me, except my mother. . . '
And soon, there was only Adele. On June 27
Madame Hugo died. Now Victor's affection for his
mother was perhaps quite the most beautiful of his
characteristics. Indeed, despite the misery she un-
wittingly had caused him, the boy literally adored her,
and was ready always to do anything to gratify even
her littlest wishes.
Hence, when, in the early days of May, Madame
Hugo was taken seriously ill, Victor waived aside
immediately all his obligations to little Adele, devoting
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
himself entirely to his mother. For two long months
the poor woman suffered, and for two long months
Victor nursed her unceasingly ; indeed during all this
time he hardly left her bedside and neither saw nor
wrote to Adele once. Still, even this devotion proved
unavailing. Madame Hugo's strength gradually but
surely failed her, until at last she passed to a land
where she had no more use for human aid, leaving her
son alone and utterly disconsolate.
The boy's grief was quite immeasurable, for during
those weeks while she had suffered he had learned to
love and know his mother as never before he had
known or loved her ; she had become very precious to
him. He felt her loss keenly, therefore, and the more
because the day which took her from him snapped the
very last link between his home and him. His father
long had been a stranger ; and his brothers — he knew
but little of them ; they were quite indifferent to him.
What is more, that day snapped also, so it seemed,
the last link between him and all that he held
dear, for in the hour of his tribulation, Adele, even
Adele, appeared to have forsaken him.
It was the day of his mother's funeral. The soli-
tude and loneliness of the house oppressed him. At
length he could endure it no longer ; he needed air, he
felt. So in the darkness of the evening he went out.
Fate, or maybe instinct, led him unconsciously in the
direction of the Hotel de Toulouse. He crossed the
courtyard. " Some suggestion of the devil," he said,
166
THE MARRIAGE OF VICTOR HUGO
impelled him. In the corridor he heard the sound of
music and of dancing. He ran up a back staircase.
The noise of gaiety grew louder. He ascended higher
and there, on the second floor, found a square of
glass which looked into the ballroom. He put his
burning face against it, and his eyes searched for Adele.
Then they found her.
" For a long time," he told her in a letter some time
later, "your Victor, standing mute and motionless,
wearing his funeral crape, looked at his Adele in her
ball-dress . . . and, dearest, it broke my heart ! "
" If you had waltzed," he added, " I should have
been lost. . . . But you did not waltz, and I took it
for a sign that I might hope. I stood there a long
time. I was present at the fete as a phantom may be
present in a dream. There could be no fete^ no joy
for me ; but my Adele was enjoying a fete ; she could
share the joy of others ! It was too much for me . . .
just then I awoke to a sense of my own folly, and I slowly
walked down the staircase which I had gone up without
knowing if I should even come down alive. Then
I went back to my house of mourning, and while you
were dancing I knelt and prayed for you beside the bed
of my poor dead mother."
in
But, when this happened, Adele had not yet heard
of Madame Hugo's death. Her parents purposely had
kept the tidings from her ; and bitterly she reproached
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
them for their action. Had she only known, she told
her lover later, she would have risked everything, and
come to him immediately to share his sorrow.
These were glad words indeed ; they spelled infinite
happiness to Hugo. And, when M. Foucher, repentant
of his thoughtlessness, paid him a visit of condolence,
again the boy's heart was filled with hope. So much so,
in fact, that on July 1 5, when he heard that the Foucher
family had left Paris to spend the summer months at
Dreux, he himself dared boldly to follow them. Lack
of funds made it necessary for him to journey all the
way on foot, and it took him three days to reach his
destination. But the result amply compensated him
for the fatigue. Indeed, his energy and devotion met
with an immediate reward, for, on the very day of
his arrival, he met Adele and her father walking in the
town.
"What a strange coincidence ! The poet assumed a
delightful air of complete bewilderment, and, on return-
ing to his lodgings, wrote M. Foucher an equally
delightful letter. He had set out, he said, to pay a
visit to a friend who lived between Dreux and Nonan-
court, but, on finding his friend's house empty, had
decided to rest for a few days at Dreux. This, surely,
must have been a decree of Providence, for, he remarked,
" I had the pleasure of seeing you to-day in Dreux,
and I asked myself, could it be a dream.
" But," he added, " I should not be candid if I did
not tell you that the unexpected sight of mademoiselle
168
THE MARRIAGE OF VICTOR HUGO
your daughter gave me great pleasure. I venture to
say boldly that I love her with all the strength of my
soul, and, in my complete isolation and my deep grief,
nothing but thoughts of her can give me joy or
pleasure."
How this letter must have made M. Foucher chuckle !
Still, it melted his heart also ; he liked Victor the
more for his honest, ingenuous lies, and told him
that in future he might meet Adele occasionally in the
presence of a third person — once a week, in fact, in
the Luxembourg Gardens — on condition that the en-
gagement should not be announced, or in any way made
known, until he had placed his financial affairs on a
surer basis ; and also on condition that he and Adele
should not under any circumstances write to one
another.
This latter regulation, however, M. Foucher soon
relaxed, since Hugo, forbidden to address letters to his
beloved, sent instead passionate effusions to her father.
" The dearest thing I have at heart," he wrote, for
example, on July 28, "is it not the happiness of
mademoiselle your daughter ? If she can be happy
without me, I will be ready to retire, though the hope
of being hers some day is my sole trust and expectation."
Or again — this he wrote a few days later — " A little
check will not annihilate great courage. I do not con-
ceal from myself the uncertainties or even the possible
dangers of the future ; but I have been taught by a
brave mother that a man can master circumstances.
169
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Many men walk with uncertain steps upon firm ground ;
a man who has a good conscience and a worthy aim
should walk with a firm tread even on dangerous
ground."
Now nothing, it seemed, could check these extrava-
gant outbursts. The situation, therefore, soon became
ridiculous ; and M. Foucher, overborne by the boy's
persistence, like a wise man, yielded at last to the
inevitable. Hugo, then, spurred on by this fresh success,
became at once all energy, and set to work with re-
newed determination to get his affairs in order. Under
no circumstances, he resolved, should the wedding be
delayed much longer ; even should the obstacles be
deemed insurmountable, he must overcome them some-
how.
And — he asked Adele — " Do not smile, dear love,
at this enthusiasm. What creature in the world is more
worthy than yourself to inspire it ? Oh, why do you
not see yourself as you are, such as you appear to him
whose adored companion you will be eternally ! "
" For your Victor," he told her, " you are an angel,
a spirit, a muse, a creature with only so much of human
nature as may suffice to keep you within reach of the
earthly and material being whose fate and whose lot
you deign to share."
Yet, despite her willingness, despite even her parents*
kindly attitude, there were still two obstacles for her
lover to overcome before she could hope to share his
lot. First, he must secure something in the shape of
170
THE MARRIAGE OF VICTOR HUGO
a regular income ; secondly, he must obtain his father's
consent to the union. Without the latter he could not
marry legally until he should attain the age of twenty-
five ; without the former, he could never link himself
to Adele.
On this point M. Foucher was quite obdurate ;
and his kinsfolk urged him to be obdurate also on
the other. It was criminal, they maintained, for a
father to allow his daughter to wait for her husband
five whole years — the five best years of her life indeed.
If the man to whom she was betrothed could not provide
for her, the engagement should be broken off imme-
diately, and one more suitable arranged. Hugo, they
said, obviously had proved himself unworthy of Adele.
Now these taunts hurt the susceptible young poet
cruelly, and the more because, as a Frenchman, he
could but admit the justice of them. Besides, when
could come an end to the delay ? He knew not.
When could he obtain his father's consent ? When
would he have an independent income ? The questions
were unanswerable ; and hope, even hope, provided
only meagre comfort. Still, he implored Adele to be
patient, and to trust him. But " do not ask," he
begged, " how ... I am confident of obtaining an
independent subsistence, for I shall then be obliged to
speak to you of a Victor Hugo . . . with whom your
Victor is in no way desirous that you should make
acquaintance." An income, he said, would come to
him somehow. It must.
171
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Nor did his brave determination prove unavailing,
for at last that income came. In 1822, in fact, the
Government tardily rewarded with a pension the poet's
loyal service to the Bourbon cause — not a big pension, it
is true; merely 1,200 francs a year, a sum which was
reduced subsequently to a thousand. Still, it was a
pension, and therefore sure. That was enough for
Hugo.
"Adele! my Ad£le," he wrote, "I am wild with
joy. ... I had passed a week preparing myself to
encounter a great misfortune, and happiness arrived
instead!"
Now, then, it remained only for him to obtain the con-
sent of General Hugo. But this he despaired of doing ;
his mind was in a turmoil of misgiving, for he regarded
his father's opposition as inevitable. He dreaded even to
ask the question, for should the answer be "No," there
would be nothing for him to do other than to ask Adele
to wait until he should attain his legal majority, and then
to marry him. But to this, he knew, her parents never
would allow her to consent. Day by day, therefore, he
postponed asking the fateful question. It was not until
March 6 that he succeeded at last in mustering the
necessary courage.
" This morning," he wrote to Adele, " I sent off the
letter which may lead to such important consequences.
Let us both think seriously of them. Possibly, my
Adele, we are on the verge of one of the most important
epochs in our lives. Forgive me for writing * our lives,'
172
THE MARRIAGE OF VICTOR HUGO
and including you with me in a community of fate,
when possibly I may make an end of myself, for I should
do it at once the moment I found reason to fear it might
not be for your happiness. . . .
" And yet," he added, " things, possibly, may turn out
well. It would not be the first time since I have loved
you that my happiness seemed beyond hope. To have
all turn out well is not probable, but it is not impossible.
Dearest — my Adele, forgive me for dreading misfor-
tune after I had told you I was resigned. It was
because my hopes were so precious, so sweet. We must
wait."
For three days they waited, four, five, a week.
It was a period of hideous suspense. But at last
the long-dreaded, eagerly-awaited letter came. With
trembling fingers Hugo tore it open and, laying it out
before him, read — read that which at first seemed too
amazing to be true.
The General approved of his union to Adele Foucher,
approved gladly !
Instead of being angry, he begged his son's forgive-
ness. Three weeks after his first wife's death, he said,
he himself had married again, had married, moreover, a
woman for whose sake he feared he had almost broken
the heart of Victor's mother. To see her son happy,
therefore, was the wish of his heart, he now de-
clared ; and even the wish, he hoped, might possibly
help him in some measure to make atonement for the
past.
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
For Victor, then, life suddenly became all sunshine.
The clouds which long had darkened it vanished
completely, and a wild joy filled him. " I am as
happy," he told Adele, "as it is possible ... to be
apart from you."
None the less, despite his exultation at the General's
unexpected tractability, he was not unmindful of its
cause. " This morning I answered my father's letter,"
he wrote to Adele. "There were two things in it which
gave me pain. He told me he had formed new ties.
My mother might have read what I wrote to him this
morning. My excitement did not make me altogether
forget what I owed to her memory. You cannot
blame me, my noble love. Besides, I hope we may
yet be reconciled. I am his son, and I am your
husband. All my duty is comprised in those two
relationships."
And soon he was Adele's husband more than in mere
imagination. Nothing remained now which need delay
the wedding. Forthwith, then, the date was fixed ; and
on October 12, the day agreed upon, and just two years
and six months after that upon which they had confessed
to one another the secret of their love, Victor Hugo and
Adele Foucher became man and wife.
" Do not doubt, dear love," the poet wrote shortly
before the wedding, " that we have a special destiny in
life. We have that rare intimacy of the soul which
constitutes the happiness of heaven and earth. Our
approaching marriage will be only the public consecration
174
THE MARRIAGE OF VICTOR HUGO
of another marriage, that ideal marriage of our hearts, of
which God alone has been the author, the confidant and
the witness."
But, alas ! this the marriage did not prove to be.
Adele, it is true, remained always a faithful, loving wife.
Victor, however — but why speak of him ? Adele did
not complain ; she had married a genius, and bravely she
faced the consequence.
Besides, the sweet memory of her courtship was
perhaps enough in itself to leaven her whole life.
Sir Richard and Lady Burton
N
SIR RICHARD BURTON («4«)
IN NATIVE DRESS
VII
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
BOLD novelist indeed, he who would dare
to tax the imagination of his readers with
a tale like this, a tale so strange, uncanny,
inexplicable. Not even could fantasy be
more fantastic. In fact, like the story of his life, the
story of Sir Richard Burton's marriage would be quite
incredible were it not true. And the story of his life —
has ever man lived more amazingly ? Has ever another
European, shrewd with the wisdom of the West, under-
stood, as he did, the occult mysticism of the East ?
No ! surely no. And, as an explorer, even Livingstone
cannot take precedence.
Nor was the woman whom he married one whit less
noteworthy. Any woman might have won Sir Richard's
love; no other woman could have kept it. That she
did keep it is not the least of her accomplishments.
But Isabel Burton did more than this. She became
a part, an essential part, of her husband's very being.
A wonderful man he may have been ; she most cer-
tainly was a wonderful woman, so primitive, so
mysterious, so noble withal that it is hard to
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TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
believe she lived in the exact and prosaic nineteenth
century.
By birth she belonged to one of the proudest and
most ancient houses in all England. She was an
Arundell of Wardour. And : —
" Ere William fought and Harold fell
There were Earls of Arundell."
And they were a fine race of men, too, these Arun-
dells. Their valiant deeds, loyalty, and fearless courage
claim many pages in the records of romance and
chivalry. But Isabel, perhaps, was the rarest flower of
them all.
She was born in London in March, 1831, at a house
in Great Cumberland Place, near to the Marble Arch.
As a child, she was much like other children ; and not
until she was sixteen years of age did her mind begin
to develop along its own peculiar lines. She then left
school and went to live at her parents' home in Essex.
Here she had liberty, liberty to gratify the love of
adventure which was innate in her; liberty, moreover,
to commune with Nature, and enjoy that sense of space
and freedom for which she craved. And her mind
developed rapidly. Isabel was no mere c torn-boy,1 but
a dreamer, a thinker. The spirit of the East was strong
within her. She loved solitude. The occult and mystic
had a curious fascination for her. Gipsies attracted her
irresistibly.
" Wild asses," she declared, " would not have kept
1 80
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
me out of the camps of the Oriental, yet English-named,
tribes of Burton, Cooper, Stanley, Osbaldiston, and
another tribe whose name I forget." Nor indeed could
they. Despite stern orders from her parents to the
contrary, she visited gipsy camps whenever subtlety
or chance would let her. And gipsies loved her, nay,
adored her ; to them, the child, in all the loveliness of
her girlhood, seemed like some fairy queen, whose
special destiny was to watch over and protect them.
Her particular friend was a certain Hagar Burton, a
tall, handsome woman who had much influence in her
tribe, and to whom Isabel rendered many little services.
Once the gipsy cast the girl's horoscope. She wrote in
Romany, but, translated, her curious prophecies read
thus : —
" You will cross the sea, and be in the same town
with your Destiny, and know it not. Every obstacle
will rise up against you, and such a combination of
circumstances, that it will require all your courage,
energy, and intelligence to meet them. Your life will
be like one swimming against big waves ; but God will
be with you, so you will always win. You will fix your
eyes on your Polar Star, and will go for that without
looking right or left. You will bear the name of our
tribe, and be right proud of it. You will be as we are,
but far greater than we. Your life is all wandering,
change and adventure. One soul in two bodies, never
long apart. Show this to the man you take for your
husband. — HAGAR BURTON."
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TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
But the gipsy had seen far into the future. For
a while, Isabel was destined to lead the life for which
birth had qualified her. She had a place to fill in the
world of society, and, in spite of her wild, imaginative
nature, was not insensible to her duties. In 1849,
therefore, she made her dtbut in London. And the
Duchess of Norfolk, who played the part of fairy god-
mother, had every reason to be proud of her prottgee,
the dazzling girl who bewitched immediately that magic
world surrounded by the walls of Fashion.
No wonder men admired her. Her wit, her beauty,
her originality assured her of success, making her
appear in striking contrast to the bored, artificial,
husband-seeking girls around her. Isabel frankly en-
joyed her pleasures. That was what she had come to
London for. Nor had she any thoughts of matrimony.
Indeed, for the men she met she had neither respect
nor admiration. The little gods of society, for whom
these other women pined, to her were merely play-
things. " Manikins," she called them ; " animated
tailors' dummies ! " " 'Tis man's place,'* she said, " to
do great deeds ! " And yet, she wrote, " I met some
very odd characters, which made one form some useful
rules to go by. One man I met had every girl's name
down on paper, if she belonged to the haute vottey her
age, her fortune, and her personal merits ; for, he said,
< One woman, unless one happens to be in love with her,
is much the same as another.' He showed me my name
down, thus : c Isabel Arundell, eighteen, beauty, talent
182
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
and goodness, original. Chief fault, ^o os. od. . . .'
Then he rattled on to others. I told him I did not
think much of the young men of the day. c There,
now,' he answered, ' drink of the spring nearest you,
and be thankful. By being fastidious you will get
nothing.'"
But Isabel refused to drink of the nearest spring.
Her ideal was not to be found in this world of society.
Unless she could marry the man of her imaginings,
she would marry nobody. This she determined. So
vividly was that man's portrait engraven in her mind
that she found time, even amid the whirl and gaiety of
the season, to describe him.
"As God took a rib out of Adam," she told her
diary, " and made a woman, so do I, out of a wild
chaos of thought, form a man unto myself."
Thus she wrote of him : —
" My ideal is about six feet in height, he has not an
ounce of fat on him ; he has broad and muscular
shoulders, a deep, powerful chest ; he is a Hercules
of manly strength. He has black hair, a brown
complexion, a clever forehead, sagacious eyebrows,
large, black wondrous eyes — those strange eyes you
dare not take yours off from — with long lashes.
He is a soldier and a man ; he is accustomed to
command, and to be obeyed. He frowns on the
ordinary affairs of life, but his face always lights up
warmly for me. In his dress he never adopts the
fopperies of the day. But his clothes suit him ; they
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TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
are made for him, not he for them. . . . Of course, he
is an Englishman. His religion is like my own — free,
liberal, and generous-minded. He is by no means
indifferent on the subject, as most men are, and even
if he does not conform to any church, he will serve
God from his innate duty and sense of honour. . . .
He is a man who owns something more than a body.
He has a head and a heart, a mind and a soul. . . .
" Such a man only will I wed ! ... If I find
such a man, and afterwards discover that he is not
for me, I will never marry. ... I will become a sister
of chanty of St. Vincent de Paul."
ii
But she did find such a man, and sooner than, even
in her wildest dreams, she had dared to hope. It hap-
pened at Boulogne ; the Arundells repaired thither at
the close of the London season, for Boulogne in those
days was a favourite place of refuge for impoverished
gentlefolk. She saw him walking on the sea front.
In appearance he tallied to the littlest detail with the
hero of her visions.
" He looked at me," she wrote afterwards, " as
though he read me through and through in a moment,
and started a little. I was completely magnetized ;
and when we got a little distance away I turned to my
sister, and whispered to her, * That man will marry me/
The next day he was there again, and followed us, and
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
chalked up c May I speak to you ? ' leaving the chalk on
the wall. So I took it up and wrote back, ' No ;
mother will be angry.* And mother found it, and
was angry."
But in the hands of Destiny conventions count as
nothing. And it happened that, a few days later, there
arrived at Boulogne some cousins of the Arundells who
knew this mysterious stranger. Isabel met them one
morning walking with him on the sea front, and they
formally introduced him to her.
The man's name was Burton.
Then Isabel remembered the words of Hagar, the
gipsy — " You will bear the name of our tribe, and be
right proud of it." And remembrance made her dumb.
For a while, silent and stupefied, she stood before this
man named Burton, whose piercing, gipsy eyes seemed
to read into her very soul. Then he made some
commonplace remark and left her ; the twain going
their respective ways.
Now Richard Burton was ten years older than Isabel,
and already had served, and served with distinction, for
several years in India, first in a regiment of native
infantry, and, later, on Sir Charles Napier's staff.
During this time he had devoted his energies un-
ceasingly to the study of Oriental languages and
Oriental customs, and in consequence had earned for
himself the nickname "the white nigger."
Nor was the title intended as a compliment, for
Burton being one of those masterful men who try to
185
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
ride roughshod over such rules as are laid down by
society, had not made himself popular in India. His
fellow-officers detested him.
Disgusted, therefore, with the treatment they ac-
corded him, he applied for furlough, and in 1850
returned to England. Thence he crossed the Channel
to join his parents at Boulogne. And at Boulogne, as
has been shown already, he met Isabel.
Still, the acquaintance thus begun ripened but slowly.
The man did not thrust his society upon the girl.
On the contrary, he seemed deliberately to avoid her,
and to do his utmost to offend her by his contempt
for the conventions, as already he had offended the
majority of the English colony in the town. Hence,
when, in 1852, the Arundells at length returned to
England, Isabel and he parted merely as friends.
To the girl it was a sad day, this day of parting.
Her ideal had taken shape ; she had seen him ; she had
spoken to him, and in spite of all, had learned to love
him with a love which overwhelmed her, and which
she could no more suppress than she could suppress
her nature.
And so, with an awful sorrow in her heart she fixed
her eyes on the fading coast of France, as every minute
the ship, ploughing its way relentlessly across the
Channel, widened the distance between her and the land
which held her happiness. She might never again meet
Burton. It was this which terrified her, for she knew
him to be a homeless wanderer, here to-day, gone
186
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
to-morrow. How could she hope to meet him then ?
And, without him, what could life be to her ? Merely
a hideous emptiness.
Yet only into her diary did she pour the full anguish
of her heart. " Richard may be a delusion of my
brain," she wrote. " But how dull is reality ! What
a curse is a heart ! With all to make me happy I pine
and hanker for him, my other half, to fill this void, for
I feel as if I were not complete. Is it wrong to want
some one to love more than one's father and mother ;
some one, on whom to lavish one's best feelings ? . . .
1 cannot marry any of the insignificant beings around me.
" Where are those men who inspired the grandes
passions of bygone days ? Is the race extinct ? Is
Richard the last of them ? Even so, is he for me ? . . .
I could not live like a vegetable in the country . . .
nor . . . marry a country squire, nor a doctor, nor
a lawyer (I hear the parchment crackle now), nor a
parson, nor a clerk in a London office. God help me !
" A dry crust, privations, pain, danger for him I love
would be better. Let me go with the husband of my
choice to battle, nurse him in his tent, follow him
under the fire of ten thousand muskets. ... If Richard
and I never marry, God will cause us to meet in the
next world ; we cannot be parted ; we belong to one
another. Despite all I have said of false, foolish, weak
attachment, unholy marriages, the after-life of which
is rendered unholier still by struggling against the
inevitable, still I believe in the one true love that binds
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
a woman's heart faithful to one man in this life, and,
God grant it, in the next.
" All this I am and could be for one man. But how
worthless should I be to any other man but Richard
Burton ! I should love Richard's wild, roving vaga-
bond life ; and as I am young, strong, and hardy, with
good nerves, and no fine notions, I should be just the
girl for him. . . ."
in
And Burton knew this. Already he had made up
his mind to marry Isabel, for he was one of those men
who determine on a course of action, assuming its
accomplishment. But of this Isabel knew nothing.
For four long years she was forced to stifle all her
hopes, and, in their place, graciously to receive the
attentions of London dandies, to dance with them, to
drink tea with their mothers, to talk scandal with their
sisters. Oh, how she hated it ! For four long years—
and during that time, never a word did she hear from
Burton.
But he was merely testing the opinion he had formed
of her, and, in the meanwhile, making his memorable
pilgrimage to Mecca, a venture of amazing daring.
Such a thing no European ever yet had done, or even
thought of as being possible. Only faithful Mussul-
mans are allowed to gain admittance to the inmost
sanctuary of Islam, and to that shrine where the
coffin of Mohammed hangs between earth and heaven.
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SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
And, of course, it was as a Mussulman that Burton
journeyed, living the life proper to his disguise, eating
the food, conforming to the ritual, joining in the
prayers and sacrifices. Even so, every moment held
its dangers ; one mistake, one prayer unsaid, one hasty
word would have led surely to detection. And then —
the consequence is too hideous to contemplate ; a few
white bones scattered on the desert sand, not more
would have been left of the dog of an infidel who had
dared profane the sanctuary of Mecca.
But Burton made no mistakes. In safety he returned
to Aden. Then, when the news of his astonishing
achievement began gradually to be noised abroad,
England was dumbfounded with amazement ; the
man's name was on the lips of everybody. And
Isabel — she was very proud and very happy ; Burton,
she felt, belonged to her, and she chronicled his every
movement in her diary ; longing to congratulate him
on his triumph ; counting the seconds till he could
return, and she might welcome him.
But Burton did not return. From Egypt he went
to India, back to his regiment. In her heart Isabel
was glad of this ; she did not like to think of him
as being shunned by men, but still, " Is there no
hope for me ? " she asked ; " I am so full of faith. Is
there no pity for so much love ? . . . How swiftly my
sorrow followed my joy ! I can laugh, dance and sing
as others do, but there is a dull gnawing always at my
heart that wearies me."
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TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Not even when he left India did Burton come back
to England. Instead he went to Somaliland; " a deadly
expedition," wrote Isabel, " or a most dangerous one ;
and I am full of sad forebodings." Nor did they remain
unfulfilled. In Somaliland Burton was wounded, and
wounded so badly that he had perforce to return to
England to recover of his hurt. But he did not stay
long. Nor did he give Isabel even an opportunity
of seeing him. In 1854, in fact, so soon as he was
strong enough, he set out for the Crimea, and there,
as a member of General Beatson's staff, busied him-
self organizing irregular cavalry — the famous Bashi-
bazouks.
And Isabel, how she longed to join him at the seat
of war ! " It has been a terrible winter in the Crimea,"
she wrote in her diary. " I have given up reading
* The Times,' it makes me so miserable, and one is so
impotent. I have made three struggles to be allowed
to join Florence Nightingale ... I have written again
and again . . . but the superintendent has answered me
that I am too young and inexperienced, and will not
do."
In 1855, however, Sebastopol fell. Then Burton re-
turned to England. Isabel was wild with excitement.
" I hear that Richard has come home, and is in town,"
she wrote. " God be praised ! "
Yet days passed into weeks ; weeks into months, and
still she neither saw nor heard from him. Had he for-
gotten her ? Fear mingled with her other sorrows.
190
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
She knew that he was busy preparing for another
expedition. But did this alone explain his silence ?
Had he no thoughts for her ? Had she loved in vain ?
Had she ? Had she ? Surely Richard Burton was her
Destiny. Surely — but oh, why did he not come and
claim her ? She could not understand his silence.
Then, in the following June, as she was arriving
at Ascot racecourse, she noticed Hagar Burton standing
among the crowd which thronged the gates. Greatly
excited — this indeed, she thought, must be an omen —
Isabel leaned out of the carriage and strove to make the
gipsy see her. But there was no need for this ; Hagar
had seen already, and was hastening towards the carriage.
" Are you Daisy Burton yet ? " she asked.
Isabel shook her head. "Would to God I were!"
she exclaimed.
"Patience," said the gipsy ; "it is coming."
Just then an attendant thrust the woman from the
carriage, and Isabel could hear no more. Still, she had
heard enough perhaps — enough at any rate to make her
happy.
Two months later it came.
It happened in this wise. While walking in the
Botanical Gardens with her sister one August morning,
Isabel suddenly found herself face to face with Burton.
Immediately she stopped. He stopped too. They
shook hands, and stood for a while talking about old
times. Then Burton asked if she went often to the
Gardens.
191
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
" Oh, yes," replied Isabel, " we come and read and
study here from eleven till one ; it is so much nicer than
studying in a hot room."
" That is quite right," Burton remarked. " And
what is the book ? "
She showed it to him. It was Disraeli's " Tancred."
Burton just glanced at it; then he looked at Isabel,
" a peculiar look," she called it, such as he had given
her at Boulogne.
On the next morning she went to the Gardens again.
Burton she found already there. He was sitting alone,
writing poetry. But, so soon as he saw Isabel, he rose
and joined her. For a long while they walked together
through the Gardens.
On the following morning they met again ; and on
the next. In fact, these daily meetings continued for
a fortnight.
Then, one morning, gently stealing his arm around
her waist, Burton pulled Isabel towards him and laid his
cheek on hers.
" Could you do anything so sickly as to give up
civilization ? " he asked. " And if I can get the con-
sulate at Damascus, will you marry me and go and
live there ? "
Isabel made as though to speak. But Burton re-
strained her. " Do not give me an answer now," he
said ; " you must think it over."
For a moment there was silence. Then Isabel found
her voice, and in a torrent of words poured forth
192
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
all her pent-up feelings. " I do not want to think it
over," she said. " I have been thinking it for six years,
ever since 1 first saw you at Boulogne. I have prayed
for you every morning and night ; I have followed your
career minutely ; I have read every word you ever
wrote, and I would rather have a crust and a tent with
you than be queen of all the world ; and so I say now,
Yes! Yes! Yes!"
And then, in the ecstasy of that first embrace, Burton
knew for certain what really he had known six years
before. There was one woman, one woman only, in all
the world for him. And now he had found her. He,
too, had waited with longing for that moment. But,
" Your people will not give you to me," he said at
length.
" I know that," replied Isabel, " but I belong to
myself — I give myself away ! "
Burton nodded, and his face grew hard and stern.
" That is right," he said, « be firm and so shall I."
IV
None the less, Burton proposed, for the present,
to keep his love a secret. He had reason ; in fact,
he was then engaged planning an expedition to Central
Africa, and expected to leave England in the autumn.
How long he would be away he knew not — perhaps two
years, perhaps three years, perhaps four ; three at least,
he thought ; and, until he should return, it seemed that
o 193
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
nothing could be gained by announcing the engagement,
for until then he could not think of marrying.
Opposition to the marriage was inevitable. Isabel
knew this. A premature announcement of the engage-
ment, therefore, would only serve to make those years
of waiting, at the best, anxious years for Isabel, years
of torment. Besides, the few weeks of happiness
which still remained were much too precious to be
marred by opposition and hostile criticism.
And how quickly those short weeks fled. September
passed like lightning. October was soon upon them.
On the 5th of the month Burton was to sail; he
arranged to meet Isabel secretly on the 4th to say
" good-bye." On the afternoon of the 3rd he called
formally to bid the Arundells adieu. They asked him
to join their party at the theatre that evening. He
thanked them, and said that he would try, but that he
was very busy, and might possibly be detained.
Then he took his leave. And Isabel, running to the
balcony, waved to him as he passed down the street and
turned the corner. For a moment his shadow wavered.
Then he was gone. And Isabel went back into the
room little thinking that three long years must pass
before again she would see him. Had he not arranged
to meet her, at any rate, on the morrow ?
" I went to the theatre that evening," she wrote,
"quite happy, and expected him. At 10.30 I thought
I saw him at the other side of the house, looking into
our box. I smiled, and made a sign for him to come. I
194
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
then ceased to see him ; the minutes passed, and he did
not come. Something cold struck my heart, I felt I
should not see him again, and I moved to the back of
the box, and, unseen, the tears streamed down my face."
Once home again she went straight to her room.
But sleep she could not ; she lay on her bed, restless
and feverish, consumed by a hundred doubts and fears.
What had happened ? What had happened ? She felt
that she must know immediately ; she could not wait
until the morning. Then, overcome with weariness,
she dozed. But only for a minute ; suddenly she
started up. Burton was near her ; she was conscious
of his presence. She groped around her, but touched
nothing ; and yet, so it seemed, she could feel his arms
around her.
Then he spoke to her : " I am going now, my poor
girl," he said. " My time is up, and I have gone,
but I will come again — I shall be back in less than
three years. I am your Destiny." He pointed to
the clock by her bedside. She noticed the hour. It
was two o'clock. For a while he gazed silently at
her with his gipsy eyes ; then he laid a letter on the
table. " That is for your sister," he said, " not for
you."
Suddenly the vision faded.
But was it merely a vision ? Isabel sprang out of
bed, and hastened to the door. She could see nothing ;
all was darkness. Yet still she trembled like a leaf.
She dared not enter her room again. Instead, she
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
roused one of her brothers, and confided in him all her
secret. He listened sympathetically and tried to console
her with brotherly consolation. "A nightmare," he
said, "it was that lobster you had for supper."
Isabel knew better. And she sat all the night in her
brother's room. At eight o'clock in the morning the
post arrived. No letter came for her ; but there
was one for Blanche, her sister — from Burton too.
He asked her to tell Isabel of his departure ; he had
found it necessary, he said, to leave England without
delay, and secretly, lest he should be detained as witness
in a certain lawsuit. He apologized for having failed
to join their party at the theatre, but he had found it
quite impossible to do so.
And why ? Because at 10.30, when Isabel had seen
him gazing at her in the theatre, he left his lodgings in
London ; because at two o'clock, when Isabel heard his
voice saying farewell to her, he set sail from South-
ampton on his way to Africa.
" There are more things in ..." But then, this
happening no man's philosophy could understand, much
less Horatio's.
But Burton had gone. This was the thought which
throbbed and throbbed through Isabel's distracted brain.
Burton had -gone, and left her alone, again to wait.
For six years already she had waited ; then had come
only that one brief spell of happiness ; now solitude
196
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
again, a very lonely, anxious solitude. Hope, it is
true, she had now to comfort her ; no longer did she
love unasked.
Still, it was very hard to wait, harder perhaps than
hitherto, for the woman at any rate. Before the man
lay a life of activity, danger and adventure. But she —
she had naught to do save think, and fret, and fear.
And for three long years at least she must remain thus
in a state of hideous uncertainty. Nor could she even
talk of her troubles, for until Burton should return his
secret must remain a secret. This he had demanded
of her. And she had promised.
But would he ever return ? Who could tell ?
Countless dangers lay before him. To find the fabled
sources of the Nile — that was his mission. And the
path to his goal lay through an unknown land, a land
which white man never yet had crossed. It was a
perilous journey. But Isabel gladly would have made
it with him.
Why had he not let her ? Bravely she would have
shared his difficulties and fatigues — despite her sex ;
she longed for the taste of danger and adventure.
" I wish I were a man," she wrote : " if I were, I
would be Richard Burton. But as I am a woman,
I would be Richard Burton's wife. I love him purely,
passionately and devotedly. ... I have given my every
feeling to him, and kept back nothing for myself or the
world ; and I would this moment sacrifice and leave all to
follow his fortunes, were it his wish, or for his good."
197
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Oh, why then had he not asked her ? For the
sound of his dear voice, " with all its devilry," she
would now have given gladly, she told her diary, years
of her life. Alas, however, not only the voice, even
the pen was dumb. News perforce came rarely,
and such as came was very scant. Burton's road lay
through wild parts ; he had but few facilities for posting.
Besides, to write often would be dangerous ; letters
might reach hands other than those for which they were
intended. And Isabel knew this ; she understood the
reason of his silence. None the less, she listened
eagerly for every post, and not even time could cure
her of the sickening sense of disappointment which she
felt when nothing came.
Still she did not bewail her fate, or brood. Courage
was the birthright of an Arundell. And, in some
degree, at any rate, the horoscope cast in the days of her
childhood had prepared her for this sorrow. " Your
life," Hagar the gipsy had said " will be like one
swimming against big waves." And such indeed it had
proved itself. So Isabel fixed her eyes on her Polar
Star, and moved towards it, looking neither to right nor
left.
" No gilded misery for me," she wrote. " I was
born for love, and require it as air and light. What-
ever harshness the future may bring, he has loved me,
and my future is bound up in him with all consequences."
In August, 1857, she set out, with Blanche, her married
sister, on a prolonged tour through Europe. This
198
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
broke the weary monotony of waiting. And Isabel
enjoyed every moment of her travels. Only one thing
was wanting to make her happiness complete, only
Richard. His absence was the chord upon which, in her
diary, she harped incessantly. " I am told there is no
land between us and Tunis," she wrote at Nice — " three
hundred miles — and that when the sirocco comes the
sand from the great desert blows across the sea on to
our windows. We have an African tree in our garden.
And Richard is in Africa."
At Genoa she received good news. A letter from
Burton ! He might be able to return to England in the
following June. But this was meagre consolation. " It
makes me quite envious," she wrote, " to see my sister
and her husband. I am all alone, and Richard's place is
vacant in the opera box, in the carriage, and everywhere.
Sometimes I dream he came back and would not speak
to me, and I wake up with my pillow wet with tears."
And even in Switzerland, the land of her dreams, even
there, on the snow-clad mountains, she looked for
Burton. Never for a moment could she banish his
image from her mind.
Now in Switzerland she received two proposals of
marriage, one from a Russian general, the other from a
wealthy American, " polished, handsome, fifty years of
age, a widower, with .£300,000 made in California."
But she gave serious consideration to neither of these
offers. " There is only one man in the world," she
declared, " who could be master of such a spirit as
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TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
mine. People may love (as it is called) a thousand
times, but the real feu sacre only burns once in one's
life. Perhaps some may feel more than others ; but
it seems to me that this love is the grandest thing in this
nether world, and worth all the rest put together. ... If
any woman wants to know what this feu sacre means, let
her ascertain whether she loves fully and truly with
brain, heart and passion. If one iota is wanting in the
balance of any of those three factors, let her cast her love
aside as a spurious article — she will love again ; but if the
investigation is satisfactory, let her hold it fast, and let
nothing take it from her. For let her rest assured love
is the one bright vision Heaven sends us in this wild,
desolate, busy, selfish earth to cheer us on to the goal."
And such a love Isabel indeed had found. She had
met her affinity — the man who at that time, in the
company of Speke, was fighting his way fearlessly through
the jungles of Central Africa. It was a wonderful
achievement, that journey, true to the noblest traditions
of British daring ; and Burton's genius inspired it.
But Burton did not reap the credit ; disgrace was the
only prize he gained. Ofttimes the world thus rewards
her heroes. The facts of the case are controversial.
They cannot be stated here. But this truth remains —
when Burton came back to England in '59, he found
Speke, who had returned twelve days before him, the
hero of the hour, and himself an object of suspicion and
of scorn. He had expected honour, but found only
dishonour. He was notoriously unlucky.
2OC
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
VI
But had he not told Isabel to expect him in the June
of '58 ? Yes — nor had he contradicted this report.
Eagerly, therefore, she had waited for him, but in vain.
June, July, August — slowly the months rolled by ; yet
still he came not. The suspense was terrible. September,
October, November — and never a word did she receive
from him ; even Christmas brought no news. Gradually
hope faded from her heart ; Burton must be dead, she
thought ; and a great despair seized hold of her.
During Lent, therefore, she retired into a Retreat in
the Convent at Norwich, there to prepare herself for the
future. Unless she could marry Burton, she would
become a nun. This she had sworn long ago. Perhaps,
too, in religion she might find consolation.
At Easter she left her retreat for a while, and
decided to visit her parents in London. And in London
she heard news of Speke. He had just returned to
England ; the air was full of the story of his achieve-
ments. But Burton, so rumour said, had decided to
stay indefinitely in Zanzibar ; and rumour said other
things as well, hideous, ugly things which Isabel could
not, would not believe, for she knew them to be untrue.
The Burton whom she loved was a gentleman,
the soul of chivalry and honour ; and she longed for
him to return and publicly deny these wicked libels.
Yet still he came not. He was alive, however. That
was something. But why did he not return to her ?
201
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
What had happened ? Why did he not even write ?
What did it all mean ? Isabel was beside herself.
Then came a letter. It was long overdue, but
characteristic of the man, only a few lines of verse : —
TO ISABEL
" That brow which rose before my sight,
As on the palmer's holy shrine ;
Those eyes — my life was in their light ;
Those lips — my sacramental wine ;
That voice whose flow was wont to seem
The music of an exile's dream."
Then he did still care. Nothing else now mattered.
An ineffable joy flooded Isabel's heart; yes, and a
curious misgiving also. " I feel strange," she wrote in
her diary on the 2ist of May, " frightened, sick, stupe-
fied, dying to see him, and yet inclined to run away,
lest, after all I have suffered and longed for, I should
have to bear more." But she did not run away. Nor
surely could she have escaped from Burton, even had
she wished. The man was her Destiny.
On the following day, May 22, it happened that
she decided to call upon a friend. Her friend was
not at home, but, said the maid, would be in for tea;
would Miss Arundell, therefore, wait ?
" Yes," she replied ; and was shown into the drawing-
room.
A few minutes later the door-bell rang again. Another
visitor — a man ; he, too, was asked to wait. Then she
202
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
heard him speak ; he was coming up the stairs. " I
want Miss Arundell's address," he said. And it was
impossible to mistake the voice. The door slowly
opened. Isabel's mind reeled ; and she stood in the
middle of the room, trembling but powerless to move.
So Burton found her.
" For an instant we both stood dazed," she wrote
afterwards. " I felt so intensely that I fancied he must
hear my heart beat, and see how every nerve was over-
taxed. We rushed into each other's arms. I cannot
attempt to describe the joy of that moment. He had
landed the day before, and had come to London, and
had called here to know where I was living, where to
find me. . . . We forgot all about my hostess and her
tea. We went downstairs, and Richard called a cab
and he put me in and told the man to drive about —
anywhere."
But he was a very different-looking man, this Richard,
from the Burton Isabel had known of old. " He had
had twenty-one attacks of fever, had been partially
paralysed and partially blind. He was a mere skeleton,
with brown-yellow skin hanging in bags, his eyes pro-
truding, and his lips drawn away from his teeth. . . .
He was sadly altered; his youth, health, spirits, and
beauty were all gone for the time."
Still, one thing he had not lost — a woman's loyalty;
that nothing could shake. " Never did I feel the
strength of my love," Isabel wrote, " as then. He
returned poorer, and dispirited by official rows and
203
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
every species of annoyance ; but he was still — had he
been ever so unsuccessful, and had every man's hand
against him — my earthly god and king, and I could
have knelt at his feet and worshipped him. I used to
feel so proud of him ; I used to like to sit and look at
him, and think, c You are mine, and there is no man on
earth the least like you/ "
But not even yet had her troubles ended. Now that
Burton proceeded formally to seek her hand, Mrs.
Arundell began to oppose the suit determinedly, and
not without reason.
In after-years, even Isabel admitted her mother's
hostility to have been justified. In the first place, as
a member of a staunchly Roman Catholic family, it was
only natural that Mrs. Arundell should wish her child
to marry a man who shared that faith. Yet she was
not so bigoted a woman as to make religion an obstacle
to happiness. Had Burton been a Protestant, had
he even conformed to any Church, she would have
welcomed him as a son-in-law. She liked him ; he
interested her. But, she maintained, to allow Isabel to
marry a man who had no religion, who was frankly
an agnostic, would not merely be wrong but criminal.
There could be but one result from such a
union — tragedy ; and that, at all cost, must be pre-
vented.
Besides, Mrs. Arundell, too, had heard vague rumours
which were not to Burton's credit; they troubled her.
He might be a fascinating man and clever — he was ;
204
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
she did not attempt to deny it — but would he make
a good husband ? That was the important question.
And then again, Isabel had lived all her life in
comfort, if not in luxury. But what could Burton offer
her ? He had no private means, and neither the War
Office nor the Government regarded him with favour.
Apparently he had no prospects for the future. This
was a very serious consideration; she could not allow
her daughter to be sacrificed, for Isabel was an attractive
girl, and there were many men willing, nay, anxious, to
marry her, men of position and of means.
In disapproving of the marriage, then, Mrs. Arundell
acted merely as a good mother should. None the less
she might surely have seen the futility of opposition ;
how truly, during those years of waiting, Richard and
Isabel had proved their love.
Besides, neither of them was a child. This, too,
she forgot. Burton, in fact, was more than forty, Isabel
nearly thirty years of age. Surely then, they were old
enough to choose for themselves. So Burton declared.
But Isabel knew not what to say. She adored her
mother, and hated the idea of acting contrary to her
wishes. And thus, while she wavered between love and
duty, another lingering year elapsed.
To Burton this state of affairs proved utterly intoler-
able. Delay, interference, he could brook neither; his
was not a sympathetic nature. Isabel, then, he said,
must make up her mind one way or the other; if she
wanted him, she must marry him ; if not, she must
205
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
release him. He wrote to her to this effect in April,
1860. He was going away, he added, on a visit to
Salt Lake City, the Mormon stronghold ; he would be
absent for nine months. On his return she must decide
immediately between her mother and himself. And
without another word, he sailed.
But Isabel — this was more than she could bear.
Her nerves, long overtaxed, now broke down com-
pletely beneath the weight of all her sorrows. For
several weeks she lay ill, very ill. Then she rallied
bravely. No woman ever possessed more indomitable
pluck. With convalescence came resolve ; and with
resolve came happiness. No longer would she contend
against the inevitable ; no longer would she hesitate.
Her purpose lay clear before her ; whatever might be
the consequence, she would marry him now — the man
she idolized — so soon as he returned to claim her.
But Burton was a poor man. She must fit herself,
then, to be a poor man's wife, and to live the life that
he lived. Again, he was a born adventurer ; his castle
a tent, his park the illimitable desert. His wife, then,
must not allow herself to be a hindrance to him ;
she must be a true helpmate. This Isabel saw clearly.
And she was glad. At last she had found a something
to achieve. And so, on the plea of ill-health, she
escaped quietly to the country, and there set to work to
learn the rudiments of farming, and how to manage a
house without the aid of servants.
Thus, while busy with preparations for the future,
206
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
eight of the tedious months of waiting slipped away.
At last the glorious end was now in sight. At
Christmas she went to Yorkshire to visit relatives,
Sir Clifford and Lady Constable, at Burton Constable.
There she decided to await Richard's coming ; as one
of a large party, she hoped the time might pass quickly
for her. But she had not long to wait. Indeed, she
had been in the house but a few hours when she hap-
pened to pick up a copy of " The Times," which had
just arrived.
She glanced at the paper casually, and there, to her
astonishment, saw a paragraph which announced that
Captain Burton had returned unexpectedly that morning
from America !
VII
" I was unable," she wrote, " except by great resolu-
tion, to continue what I was doing. I soon retired to
my room, and sat up all night, packing and conjecturing
how I should get away — all my numerous plans tending
to a * bolt ' next morning — should I get an affectionate
letter from Richard." And she did ; she received two
letters, and, within twelve hours, contrived also to receive
a wire summoning her to London on important business.
There Burton met her. His manner was severe and
firm. " Now you must make up your mind," he said,
" ... if you choose me, we marry and I stay ; if not,
I go back to India, or on other explorations, and I
return no more, Is your answer ready ? "
207
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
" Quite," replied Isabel. " I marry you this day
three weeks, let who will say nay."
Of this date Burton did not approve. Wednesday
the 23rd and Friday the ijth were his unlucky days.
The wedding, he said, must take place on Tuesday,
January 22.
Isabel then told her parents this decision. " I consent
with all my heart," the father said, " if your mother
consents." With this her brothers and sisters agreed,
but Mrs. Arundell was obdurate ; nothing would move
her.
So Isabel, acting on the advice of her father, consulted
Cardinal Wiseman, telling him the whole story of her
love for Burton. The Cardinal listened sympathetically,
and when she had finished bade her to leave the matter
in his hands.
Then he sent for Burton, and questioned him closely.
" Practise her religion, indeed ! " said the latter, un-
daunted by the cross-examination. "I should rather
think she shall. A man without a religion may be
excused, but a woman without a religion is not the
woman for me."
And this answer amused the Cardinal, and convinced
him. He admired the man for his honesty, and straight-
way offered himself to perform the marriage ceremony,
undertaking to procure from Rome a special dispensa-
tion.
On the following day the Arundell family met to
devise a course of action. Obviously it was imperative
208
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
that, at the time, Mrs. Arundell should hear nothing
of the wedding. It seemed best, then, that Isabel
should be married from the house of friends — Dr. and
Miss Bird volunteered their services — and that friends
only should attend the ceremony. This was the final
arrangement.
And forthwith Isabel set to work ostensibly to make
preparations to pay a visit in the country ; and her
mother helped her, suspecting nothing.
Then the great day came.
"At nine o'clock on Tuesday, January 22, 1861,"
she wrote, " my cab was at the door, with my box on it.
I had to go and wish my father and mother good-bye
before leaving. I went downstairs with a beating heart
after I had knelt in my own room, and said a fervent
prayer that they would bless me, if they did I would
take it as a sign. I was so nervous I could scarcely
stand. When I went in mother kissed me, and said,
' Good-bye, child. God bless you 1 ' I went to my
father's bedside, and knelt down, and said good-bye.
c God bless you, my darling ! ' he said, and put his
hand out of the bed and laid it on my head. I was
too much overcome to speak, and one or two tears ran
down my cheeks, and I remember as I passed down
I kissed the door outside.
" I then ran downstairs and quickly got into the cab,
and drove to the house (the Birds' house) . . . where
I changed my clothes — not wedding-clothes (clothes
which most brides to-day would probably laugh at) —
p 209
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
a fawn-coloured dress, a black lace cloak, and a white
bonnet — and . . . drove to the Bavarian Catholic
Church, Warwick Street. When assembled we were
altogether a party of eight. The registrar was there
for legality, as is customary. Richard was waiting on
the doorstep for me, and as we went in he took holy
water and made a very large sign of the cross. As
the 10-30 Mass was about to begin we were called into
the sacristy, and we found that the Cardinal, in the
night, had been seized with an acute attack of illness
. . . and had deputed Dr. Hearne, his vicar-general,
to be his proxy.
"After the ceremony was over ... we went back to
the house of our friends, Dr. Bird and his sister Alice
. . . where we had our wedding-breakfast. . . . We
then went to Richard's bachelor lodgings, where he had
a bedroom, dressing-room, and sitting-room ; and we
had a very few pounds to bless ourselves with, but we
were as happy as it is given to any mortals out of
heaven to be."
VIII
Their joint income was only ^"350 a year, but they
were utterly contented, and, owing to Isabel's tact and
magnetic influence, immediately were able to assume
a prominent position in society. Isabel was determined
to prevent Burton's brilliance from rusting in obscurity ;
and she succeeded admirably. Indeed, the Prime
Minister, Lord Palmerston, gave a dinner-party speci-
210
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
ally to honour the newly wedded couple. And even
Queen Victoria, contrary to all precedents, allowed the
bride of a runaway marriage to be presented to her at
Court.
Three months after her marriage, moreover, Isabel
secured for her husband official recognition. True, it
was only a humble appointment which the Government
offered him, the consulate of Fernando Po, a deadly
spot on the West Coast of Africa, barely fit for human
habitation ; no white woman certainly could live in such
a place.
None the less, Burton accepted the offer, and went
out alone. Isabel allowed him no alternative. It was
her wish, she declared, to be a help to him, not a
handicap ; and to scale the official ladder, she main-
tained, a man must begin on the lowest rung. Only
to herself did she admit the bitterness of her dis-
appointment. " One's husband in a place where I am
not allowed to go, and I living with my mother like
a girl," she wrote. " I am neither maid nor wife nor
widow." It was intolerable. Still, one thing was very
clear. Another position must be found for Burton.
And she found it. Indeed, she gave Lord Russell,
the Foreign Secretary, no peace until at last, in des-
peration, he offered to Burton a consulate in Brazil.
There Isabel could join him. There she did join
him. And thenceforth she and her husband never were
long apart. Wherever he went, she went also, working
with him, working for him ; whilst, in the end, she did
211
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
for him what he could never have done for himself;
she forced England to appreciate his greatness.
" You will have seen from the papers," she wrote to
a friend in 1886, "... that the Conservatives on
going out made Dick Sir Richard Burton, K.C.M.G.
. . . The Queen's recognition of Dick's forty-four years
of service was sweetly done at last, sent for our silver-
wedding, and she told a friend of mine that she was
pleased to confer something which would include both
husband and wife."
But, alas ! this recognition had come too late. Ten
years before, such an honour might have lent en-
couragement to Burton's efforts ; might have helped
him to batter down the wall of prejudice which hemmed
him in. But now — never again would he be able to
put to his lips the cup of adventure which he loved so
well. He had finished his last draught. The arduous
journeyings of the past had shattered at length even
his iron constitution ; only his indomitable spirit still
remained to testify his former might.
Life, it is true, lingered within him for four more
years, but all the while the end loomed clear and
large ; the man's strength even now was failing fast.
IX
Sunday, October 19, 1890 — Lady Burton called it
her last day of happiness. " I went out to Communion
and Mass at eight o'clock," she wrote, " came back, and
212
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
kissed my husband at his writing." He was engaged on
the last page of "The Scented Garden " ; on the morrow,
he hoped to finish it, and then, he said, he would be free
seriously to make arrangements for the voyage to
Greece and Constantinople which he and Isabel long
had contemplated.
During the day he talked much about that journey
and appeared to be in the very best of spirits.
At half-past nine in the evening he got up from
his chair and retired to his bedroom, just as usual.
His wife followed him. But, while she was saying the
night prayers to him — so she declared afterwards — "a
dog began that dreadful howling which the superstitious
say denotes a death." So greatly did it disturb her
that she got up and asked the porter to go out and see
what was the matter with the dog. After this she
finished the prayers. Then Burton asked her for a
novel ; she gave him Robert Buchanan's " Martyrdom
of Madeleine " ; kissed him and got into bed.
For a long while her husband lay reading quietly,
but at midnight he grew uneasy, complaining of a pain
in his foot. At four o'clock the pain was worse, so
much worse that Isabel sent for the doctor. The latter,
however, could find nothing wrong ; heart and pulse
both were in perfect order. So he did not wait.
At half-past four, Isabel sent for him again ; her hus-
band, she said, had had a sudden seizure. The doctor
returned immediately, this time to find Burton lying in
his wife's arms, helpless. A minute later he became
213
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
unconscious. After that he never moved again ; neither
skill nor all the ingenuity of science could awaken
him. Burton was sinking into the profound, last sleep
of death.
" By the clasp of the hand " — his wife wrote after-
wards— "and a little trickle of blood running under
the finger, I judged that there was a little life until
seven, and then I knew that ... I was alone and
desolate for ever."
But still she had his memory, still she had her love ;
a love stronger than the strongest bonds of Death ; a
love which no power in heaven or earth could weaken.
She was not alone then, nor desolate.
And, until Death claimed her too, the flame of devotion
burned in her heart as purely and as steadfastly as ever
heretofore ; even more purely, more steadfastly. While
Burton lived she had devoted her life to his ; now that
he was dead, to his memory she consecrated all her
services.
Men had misunderstood Sir Richard Burton, mis-
judged him cruelly ; and his name, tarnished most
hideously, was anathema in many homes. To remove
these stains, then, from the fair whiteness of his memory,
and to reveal him to the world as the true and honour-
able man whom she had known and loved — this was
his widow's sole ambition.
More stains most certainly must not be added. So
then it was that she destroyed the pages of " The
Scented Garden," his last unpublished manuscript.
214
SIR RICHARD AND LADY BURTON
Many, she felt, might read the book, but only a very
few would understand it or appreciate. Therefore she
burned it deliberately, page by page, and robbed the
world of a masterpiece of literature. A publisher
offered her ^"6,000 for the manuscript before he had
even seen it. And ^6,000 would have meant much
to Lady Burton ; her husband had left her very scantily
provided for. But she refused the offer.
In her eyes there was a something more precious than
wealth or fame or all the rich prizes of the world, and
that something was her husband's memory — his memory
and his good name.
215
Dante and Beatrice
m
DANTE -
From a photograph after the original picture by Giotto
VIII
DANTE AND BEATRICE
[ATURE has a supreme sense of the fitness
of things. Perhaps that is why she made
Dante a citizen of Florence — the city of
beauty, the poet of beauty, unquestionably
they belong to one another. Indeed, as one wanders
through that paradise set in the world's most lovely
garden, fanciful imaginings run riot ; at every corner
one sees some sweet association, in every stone some
tender sentiment.
And yet the Florence in which the poet had his
being was very different from the superbly splendid
Florence of to-day. When Dante was born, not yet
had the cathedral even been begun ; the Campanile
was still a treasure which the future held in store.
One is apt to forget this, and, maybe, because it seems
incredible that Dante should have lived so many as six
centuries ago.
Still, Florence even then was Florence, and the blue
of the Tuscan sky as incomparable as it is now. And
Florence, of course, was Dante's home.
Even to-day, in fact, not far from the old church
219
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
of San Martino, may be seen a narrow little doorway,
which once was the entrance to the home of the Alighieri
family, the house in which the Divino Poeta was born.
Very little else remains of the original building. But
in Dante's day it must have been a large and roomy
mansion, for in it the entire family lived. As more
accommodation was required, new stories had been
added, new wings built on. It was customary for well-
to-do Florentines thus to enlarge their houses.
The neighbours of the Alighieri had done the same—
the Donati, a little further down the street, the Cerchi,
and the Portinari. This corner of the city, therefore,
soon became a little colony in itself, imperium in imperio ;
and the residents were neighbours in the word's true
meaning.
Hence, when, in 1274, Folco Portinari decided to
give a feast to his friends on May Day to celebrate
the coming of the spring — a Tuscan spring ; an occasion
surely worthy of a feast ! — it was only natural that he
should invite his neighbours, the Alighieri.
And with them went little Dante, then a boy some
nine years old. Nor was he by any means the only
small boy present. Indeed, Boccaccio has told us, quite
a crowd of children assembled at the feast, and, among
them was " a daughter of the above-named Folco, . . .
who was about eight years old, gay and beautiful in her
childish fashion, and in her behaviour very gentle and
agreeable ; with habits and language more serious and
modest than her age warranted ; and besides this with
220
DANTE AND BEATRICE
features so delicate and so beautifully formed, and
full, besides mere beauty, of so much candid loveliness
that many thought her almost an angel."
But Dante — he thought her an angel quite, for the
girl was none other than Beatrice, the Beatrice whose
memory he has made immortal. And even on that,
the afternoon when first she met his gaze, he had eyes
for nobody in all the house — save only her ; her love-
liness, her beauty held him spellbound.
He could not bring himself to play with the other
children ; indeed, he forgot that they were present, and
just stood gazing at Beatrice, worshipping and wondering.
But speak to her — no ; he could not, he dared not.
Shyness forbade him. Yet some great emotion stirred
his little nine-year heart most strangely. He could not
understand its meaning.
And what was that emotion ? Was it the passion
men call love ? Could it have been ? Surely not ;
Dante was but nine years old, and Beatrice only eight,
although, it is true, she was a dainty little maid, and
must have looked truly charming in her dress " of a
most noble colour, a subdued and goodly crimson,
girdled and adorned in such sort as best suited with her
very tender age." l
Then was it just simply a sublime, adoring admiration ?
Who can tell ? Yet, whatever may have been its nature,
from that emotion sprang the most wondrous love the
1 This, and all subsequent quotations from Dante's writings are taken
from Rossetti's translation of his works.
221
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
world has ever known ; albeit — judged from the merely
human standpoint — quite the most foolish. And surely
the human standpoint is the right one from which to
judge a lover. At any rate, love is essentially a personal
and human force. Presumably, then, the measure of
its strength lies more in accomplishment than in inten-
tions.
But Dante's love for Beatrice — what did it accom-
plish ? Nothing ; absolutely nothing — save to endow
posterity with some incomparable writings, and a few
rare, unattainable ideals.
Now, it may be, to Dante love thus became a thing
spiritualized and unreal, because it found him at a very
early age, before yet his passions really had developed.
Indeed, although in the sunny south, no doubt, boys
become men, and maidens women, more quickly than
in the frigid north, it is incredible that, at the age
of nine, Dante should have felt any serious physical
attraction to a little girl of eight. And yet, the poet
himself declared that from the very moment when he
first saw Beatrice, love governed his soul completely.
"This youngest daughter of the angels," he wrote,
" ... I ... found her so noble and praiseworthy
that certainly of her might have been said those words
of the poet Homer, c She seemed not to be the daughter
of mortal man, but of God.' " Still, even he dared not
to say much of his earliest feelings, for knowing them
to be abnormal, he feared they would be ridiculed.
" Were I," he wrote, " to dwell overmuch on the
222
DANTE AND BEATRICE
passions of such early youth, my words might be counted
something fabulous."
And so — his narrative continues — " after the lapse of
so many days that nine years exactly were completed
since the above-written appearance of this most gracious
being ... it happened that the same wonderful lady
appeared to me, dressed all in pure white, between two
gentle ladies older than she. And, passing through a
street, she turned her eyes thither where I stood sorely
abashed, and by her courtesy . . . she saluted me with so
virtuous a bearing that I seemed then and there to
behold the very limits of blessedness. The hour of
her most sweet salutation was exactly the ninth of that
day."
But could it have been that Dante had not seen
Beatrice for nine long years ? Why, the houses in
which they lived almost adjoined one another. Surely,
then, he must have seen her sometimes, perhaps in the
church, perhaps in the market ; or, it may be, sur-
reptitiously have watched her from a window as she
flitted along the street.
But no — he has assured us emphatically that he did
not. First he met her when he was nine years old ;
and then again, exactly nine years later, on a May
Day, too, and at the ninth hour of the day. And it
would be sacrilege to regard this curious sequence of
the figure nine merely as a poet's pretty, superstitious
fancy.
One must be content to believe, then, that young
223
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Dante, favoured by fortune with a wealthy father,
had been absent much from Florence during those years,
pursuing learning in other cities, in Padua, in Bologna,
studying philosophy, perhaps, and art and science, so
that one day he might prove himself worthy of the
creature of loveliness whose vision dwelt always in his
mind.
Then he returned home. And there, as has been
shown already, he met Beatrice again. And she smiled
on him I This was rapture indeed. What is more, she
spoke to him ; " and because," he declared, " it was the
first time that any words from her had reached mine
ears, I came into such sweetness that I parted thence as
one intoxicated. And betaking me to the loneliness of
mine own room, I fell to thinking of this most courteous
lady, thinking of whom I was overtaken by a pleasant
slumber wherein a marvellous vision was presented to me.
"There appeared to be in my room a mist of the
colour of fire, within the which I discerned the figure of
a lord of terrible aspect. . . . In his arms . . . a person
was sleeping, covered only with a blood-coloured cloth.
... I knew that it was the lady of the salutations who
had deigned the day before to salute me. And he who
held her held also in his hand a thing that was burning,
and he said to me, Vide cor tuum. (Behold your heart.)
But when he had remained with me a little while . . .
he set himself to waken her that slept ; after the which
he made her to eat that which flamed in his hand, and
she ate as one fearing. Then ... all his joy was
224
DANTE AND BEATRICE
turned into most bitter weeping, and as he wept he
gathered the lady into his arms, and . . . went up with
her towards Heaven."
What could be the meaning of this dream ?
Its portent seemed to young Dante somehow to be
grimly tragic. So he wrote a sonnet anonymously,
addressing it " To every heart which the sweet pain
doth move," in which he expounded his vision, and
asked for an explanation to it.
The poet received several answers to his question,
but none of them satisfied him. So a great uneasiness
began to prey upon his mind, until at last he became
ill in body also. Nor was it hard for any one to observe
the nature of the malady. The man obviously was ill
for the love of somebody. But of whom ? His
friends grew curious to know, and taxed him with
many questions.
Dante, however, " looked into their faces, smiling, and
spake no word in return."
ii
Still, even in Italy in the thirteenth century, in-
quisitiveness was not thus easily to be appeased. Dante's
friends, in fact, persisted in their questionings ; but they
persisted in vain — not one word would the poet say
to enlighten them ; curiosity made him only the more
determined to guard his secret. No breath of scandal,
he resolved, no word of idle gossip must ever be
allowed to sully the fair name of Beatrice.
Q 225
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
And so, hoping thereby to throw dust in the eyes of
his suspecting friends, he singled out a certain girl in
Florence, and — presumably with her consent — ostenta-
tiously addressed himself to her, paying her such
marked attentions that, as he himself has said, " those
who had hitherto watched and wondered at me now
imagined they had found me out."
The idea occurred to him in this manner. He hap-
pened to be in church one day. Beatrice was there also.
And between her and himself, " in a direct line, there
sat another lady of a pleasant favour ; who " — Dante
wrote — " looked round at me many times, marvelling at
my continued gaze which seemed to have her for its
object."
Now, not only this lady, but many other people also,
noted the direction of his gaze. And so it came about
that, as he was leaving the church, Dante heard it
whispered after him, " Look you to what a pass such
a lady hath brought him." For a moment he felt
troubled ; but then those who spoke happened also to
mention the name of her who had been sitting between
Beatrice and himself. Their words reassured the poet ;
for the present, at any rate, he felt confident that his
secret remained unknown. So he resolved to continue
making use of this lady to screen the truth. In this
way he kept his "secret concealed till some years were
gone over."
And then, poor man, despite his subtle cunning, he had
a bitter penalty to pay for all his shyness and his folly. . . .
226
DANTE AND BEATRICE
But, one may ask, what need was there for all this
secrecy ? Why did not Dante straightway tell Beatrice
of his love, and beg her to marry him ? Why not,
indeed ? He was not, as some writers have maintained,
so greatly her inferior in rank as to make marriage
with her impossible. He was not her inferior at all ;
and Boccaccio has declared that, had he but asked her
for it, she would have given her hand gladly to him —
and her heart.
Then what was the reason of his silence ? Could it
have been that Dante was more philosopher than poet,
and knew that the Beatrice whom he loved was an ideal,
an ideal of his own mind that never could be realized
in life ? Surely no ; Dante, supreme among poets, never
would have heeded a truth so mundane, so grossly cynical.
Then the real reason — and there could have been but
one — was that the poet, oppressed by the weight of his
own unworthiness, dared not to speak to Beatrice of
his love, or lay before her virgin soul the story of his
hopes and base desires. What right, he asked himself,
had he to do so ; what right even to wish that she,
an angel of loveliness, should share with him his wretched
life, and, for his sake, thrust upon her head the heavy
crown of wifehood ?
No — he decided — a thousand times, no; he must
never ask so great a favour ; nor ever would. Resolve
was strong within him. Perhaps this was well.
Had he asked and been answered " Yes," inevitably
he must have found in store for him many a very sorry
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TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
disappointment. Could any woman have fulfilled his
lofty dream of feminine perfection — even the very
gentle Beatrice ? Surely not.
Adorable she may have been, but it was only to a
poet's fancy that she seemed to be a daughter of the
angels ; at heart she, even she, I trow, was very woman,
and, as such, would soon have shattered sweet illusions
— at any rate, when she found herself wedded to a
mystical young dreamer, with very spiritual ideals and
very human inclinations, somewhat conceited withal,
and egotistical.
Fortunately, Dante never asked ; instead, he remained
true to his unnatural determination that self must be
sacrificed completely. So, he just stood afar, and gazed
at Beatrice; gazed at her, and worshipped her and
loved her. And, he hoped, this silent adoration might
invoke, perchance, some happiness to fall upon her.
That she should smile on him sometimes — that would
be reward enough alone.
" Because mine eyes can never fill
Of looking at my lady's lovely face,
I will so fix my gaze,
That I may become blessed, beholding her."
Yet, before long, even this privilege was withheld from
him. The misfortune came about in this way. The
good lady, who till now had acted as a mask to Dante's
secret, suddenly had occasion to go from Florence and
take up her abode elsewhere.
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DANTE AND BEATRICE
This was a sorry day for the poet. Without some-
body to aid him, how could he preserve his secret ?
And preserve it he must, at all costs. What then, was
there for him to do ? Find another compliant in-
amorata? There seemed to be no alternative. Clearly
he could not hope successfully to entertain a bogus
passion for a lady in a distant city. But first, he felt,
he must at any rate give the impression of mourning
her departure. Accordingly, he wrote a poem in which,
piteously disconsolate, he lamented his sad loss. Love,
he declared,
'* Vouchsafed to me a life so calm and sweet
That oft I heard folk question as I went
What such great gladness means —
They spoke of it behind me in the street.
*' But now that fearless bearing is all gone
Which with Love's hoarded wealth was given me ;
Till I am grown to be
So poor that I have ceased to think thereon."
This done — and the words, he thought, would fully
serve their purpose — Dante set out, with Love as his
guide, to search through Florence for a lady who might
act as substitute. And eventually, so he believed, Love
showed him such a one. But either Dante must have
failed to understand his guide's intent, or, maybe, Love
wilfully deceived him, as Love, no doubt, has deceived
many another man before and since.
At any rate, the poet's second choice proved less
229
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
happy than the first. Nor really can this be deemed
a matter for surprise, since, for some strange reason,
Dante, it would seem, neglected to take the girl into his
confidence. She, therefore, naturally believed his affec-
tion for her to be genuine, even as was hers for him,
until she realized the truth.
Then the trouble began. Outraged and indignant,
a great anger seized hold of her; nothing could pacify
it, and as for her erstwhile lover's apologies and humble
supplications — they served only to fan her wrath. Her
love, in fact, turned in a moment all to hatred ; and so
persistently did she protest against the cruel treatment
Dante had meted out to her that, at last, the voice of
her complainings reached the ears of Beatrice.
And Beatrice, too, misunderstood the poet's motives,
and was greatly angered. Till then she had thought
well of him ; indeed — oh, had he but known it ! — she
had admired him greatly. But now he had done that
for which she never could forgive him ; he had wronged
a woman, wronged her most infamously. Determined,
therefore, to vindicate the rights of her own sex, she
denied him her salutation.
Then Dante, as apparently it was his wont to do on
such occasions, retired " to a lonely place to bathe the
ground with most bitter tears." And, he declared,
"when, by this heat of weeping, 1 was somewhat re-
lieved, I betook myself to my chamber where I could
lament unheard. " There a most strange happening
befell him.
230
DANTE AND BEATRICE
Love came to him in a vision, and, after telling
him what it was that had caused the gentle Beatrice
to be wroth, bade him arise and send to her a poem to
explain that he had offended only because he loved her,
and had loved her now for many years. " And thus,"
Love told him, " she shall be made to know thy desire ;
knowing which, she will know likewise that they were
deceived who spake of thee to her."
So Dante arose, and straightway sent Song forth on
his mission, telling him first to seek out Love and go
with him to the home of the dear lady, and there explain
all to her. Then surely, he felt, she could not long
withhold forgiveness from him.
It was with these words that he bade Song entreat : —
" Lady, his poor heart
Is so confirmed in faith
That all its thoughts are but of serving thee ;
'Twas early thine, and could not swerve apart."
If still she wavered, he begged Song next
" Bid her ask Love, who knows if these things be,
And in the end, beg of her modestly,
To pardon so much boldness, saying, too,
' If thou declare his death to be thy due,
The thing shall come to pass as doth behove.' "
But Beatrice, for she had steeled her heart, ignored
Song's prayer. No answer did she deign to give
to Dante, only silence, the most cruel of all replies.
In vain her lover waited. Then, poor man, troubled
231
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
sorely, he sat down and communed solemnly with him-
self alone.
Was it right, he asked, that he should allow himself
thus to be made miserable by a hopeless, unrequited
love ? Young blood still flowed through his veins, and
the world was full of fair women. Surely among them
he could find one to love ?
Yet could he — with the vision of Beatrice ever in his
mind ? No, never ; nothing could shake his loyalty ; he
would be always true to her. Her love, he ho longer
sought it, not even her salutation. The right to wor-
ship from afar, that was all he desired — that and the
power to serve her should need arise. Then he would
be amply compensated for his self-denial and for all his
suffering. So he determined.
And by that determination, Dante certainly justified
his claim to the distinction, commonly accorded to him,
of being the most sincere of all known lovers. It was no
mere accident of time and circumstance — this love he
bore for Beatrice; no mere transient passion kindled in
the fire of youth, but indeed, as he intended it to be, a
true, sublime, unchangeable devotion which heeded not
at all the needs of self, and made its victim impervious
to all the seductive sweetnesses of life.
Still, despite its beauty, how lamentably foolish it was
too. It was not love as man knows love, this servile,
self-abasing reverence. Nor surely was it love as ever
woman wished for it. But Dante could not bring
himself to recognize this truth, or think of Beatrice
232
DANTE AND BEATRICE
merely as one endowed with vulgar, human passions,
like himself.
So he rejoiced in his martyrdom ; and with such a
love as he had burning in his heart, felt that, for his
sufferings, no real ill ever could befall him. Nor — so he
hoped — could his devotion bring aught but good to his
dear lady.
in
Now it happened that, not long after he had come to
this great decision, Dante again found himself in the
presence of Beatrice. They met, it would seem, at a
wedding. And so acute and manifest was the poet's
discomfiture and confusion that commentators have
agreed, almost unanimously, that the wedding could
have been none other than that of the fair Beatrice
herself.
It is impossible, of course, absolutely to verify this
statement, for, in the Vita Nuova, Dante makes no
reference to the date.
He merely says a friend took him to a house, at which
many ladies "were assembled around a gentlewoman
who was given in marriage on that day," and that there,
at his friend's request, he decided to stay and " do
honour to those ladies." " But," he wrote, " as soon as
I had thus resolved, I began to feel a faintness and a
throbbing at my left side, which soon took possession of
my whole body. Whereupon I remember that I covertly
leaned my back unto a painting that ran round the
233
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
walls of that house ; and being fearful lest my trembling
should be discerned of them, I lifted mine eyes to look
on those ladies, and then first perceived among them the
excellent Beatrice."
On the other hand, however, nowhere else in the Vita
Nuova does Dante allude either to Beatrice's wedding or
to Beatrice being present at a wedding. Hence, seeing
it is known that, in the year 1287, she married a certain
Simone de' Bardi, a member of one of the great Floren-
tine banking-houses, supposition strongly favours the
belief that it was at her own wedding that Dante now
met her; as, of course, also does the poet's confessed
and manifest distress on this occasion.
Nor could he disguise his feelings, try as he would,
his senses, he declared, being " overpowered by the
great lordship that Love obtained, finding himself so near
unto that most gracious being." In consequence, then,
he made himself an object of ridicule among his fellow-
guests, who drew him among them and, mocking, bade
him tell . them what it was that ailed him. Even
Beatrice joined with them, laughing at his sorry mien.
Her scorn was the bitterest pain of all ; it stung the
poet to the very heart. None the less, he bore it with
fortitude, and readily forgave Beatrice her lack of
sympathy, for, so he told himself, after he had returned
to his room and finished his usual bout of weeping, " If
this lady but knew of my condition, I do not think that
she would thus mock at me ; nay, I am sure that she
must needs feel some pity."
234
DANTE AND BEATRICE
But by this time Beatrice surely must have known the
truth. Indeed, who but a Dante could possibly have
deceived himself into believing otherwise ? — especially
seeing that, owing to his behaviour at the wedding, as
he was well aware, many of the other ladies present had
divined his secret. In fact, a few days later, certain of
them stopped him in the street, and one, addressing him
by name, asked boldly : " To what end lovest thou this
lady, seeing that thou canst not support her presence ? "
" Ladies," the poet replied, " the end and aim of my
Love was but the salutation of that lady of whom I
conceive that ye are speaking."
Then — so he wrote afterwards — " these ladies began
to talk closely together; and as I have seen snow fall
among the rain, so was their talk mingled with sighs."
After this, she, who had spoken before, said : " We
pray thee that thou wilt tell us wherein abideth this thy
beatitude."
" In those words that do praise my lady," Dante
answered.
Then the ladies left him ; and the poet, as he went his
way alone, pleased with his happy repartee, resolved
within himself that from that time forward the sole
theme of all his writings should be " the praise of this
most gracious being."
His sweet illusions, then, not yet had faded; in spite
of everything, he still saw Beatrice only as a something
spiritual, a daughter of the angels of whose love, even of
whose esteem, he felt most utterly unworthy. To
235
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
serve her, to be able to serve her — for this alone he
dared to hope ; even to be able to suffer for her. And
he longed with an ineffable longing for the opportunity,
until at last it came about that a chance was given him.
In short, Folco Portinari died. Now Beatrice had
been devoted to her father, nor would it seem without
reason, for Dante has described him as a man " of
exceeding goodness";1 and her grief at having lost him
was piteous to behold. But every pang of pain she felt,
hurt Dante a thousandfold more, until at length his
" body became afflicted with a painful infirmity, whereby"
— he declared — " I suffered bitter anguish for many days
which at last brought me into such weakness that I could
no longer move. And I remember that on the ninth
day, being overcome with intolerable pain, a thought
came into my mind concerning my lady . . . and,
weeping, I said within myself: c Certainly it must some
time come to pass that the very gentle Beatrice will die.' '
Then, bewildered by the awfulness of his thoughts, he
closed his eyes, and, behold, saw yet another vision.
" The sun went out, so that the stars showed themselves,
and they were of such a colour that I knew they must
be weeping; and it seemed to me that the birds fell
dead out of the sky, and there were great earthquakes.
With that, while I wondered in my trance ... I con-
ceived that a certain friend came unto me, and said,
1 During his lifetime, Folco Portinari held numerous high offices in
Florence ; and proved himself a true public benefactor by founding the
hospital of Santa Maria Nuova.
236
DANTE AND BEATRICE
4 Hast thou not heard ? She that was thine excellent
lady hath been taken out of life ! *
" Then I began to weep very piteously ; and not only
in mine imagination, but with mine eyes, which were
wet with tears. And . . . my heart, that was so full
of love, said unto me, ' It is true that our lady lieth
dead ' ; and it seemed to me that I went to look upon
the body wherein that blessed and most noble spirit
had had its abiding-place. . . . And therewithal I came,
with such humility by the sight of her that I cried out
upon death, saying, { Now come unto me, and be not
bitter against me any longer ; surely, there where thou
hast been, thou hast learned gentleness. Wherefore
come now unto me who do greatly desire thee ; seest
thou not that I wear thy colour already ? ' :
Then Dante awoke. Some watcher-on, alarmed by
the sleeper's groans and agonies, had aroused him.
And he was glad to look upon the day again, glad
to know that his vision had been but a dream.
Yet, perchance, it might be more than this. Was
it ? Was it ? Somehow he could not dispel the vision
from his mind, and it weighed on him like a hideous
portent, although at this time there were for him many
other considerations to distract his woe.
Dante, be it remembered, was by no means merely the
love-sick swain such as in the Vita O^uova he describes
himself. On the contrary, he was a citizen of Florence and,
in very truth, a man. Indeed, even now, while shedding
bitter tears of sympathy with the grief of his dear lady,
237
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
he was engaged actively in the affairs of the city, par-
ticipating in that bloody war between the Guelfs of
Florence and the Ghibellines of Arezzo, which cul-
minated at last in a crushing and absolute defeat of the
Aretines at the great fight at Campaldino on June i ith,
1289.
Dante himself took part in the battle ; and, according
to Leonardo Bruni, " fought vigorously on horseback
in the front rank, where he was exposed to very real
danger ; for the first shock of battle was between the
opposing horse."
Of these and many other stirring happenings the poet
makes no mention in his story of his love for Beatrice ;
the Vita J^uova gives the impression that an absolute
happiness and content reigned in Florence, and, more-
over, all because Beatrice now was forgetting the inten-
sity of her grief, and had come " at last into such favour
with all men, that when she passed anywhere folk ran to
behold her; which thing" — Dante declared — "was a
deep joy to me."
Still, there remained with him the horrid memory
of his dream ; and, despite the pleasure which Beatrice's
recovery of happiness had given him, nothing could
dispel it from his mind.
" Certainly it must some time come to pass that the
very gentle Beatrice will die." The words echoed and
still re-echoed through his heart, until at length — nor
was it many weeks later — that time did come. In fact,
but a year after the battle of Campaldino, in June,
238
DANTE AND BEATRICE
1290, it happened to Dante that, as he himself ex-
pressed it, " the Lord God of Justice called my most
gracious lady unto himself," and thereby left " the
whole city widowed and despoiled of all its dignity."
IV
For a while after the death of Beatrice, the poet's
grief remained quite inconsolable. Yet on the subject
of his irreparable loss he said but little. Words failed
him ; even he could not adequately express his anguish.
As Mrs. Oliphant has written, " the sudden tottering of
reason which is natural to man dazed and bewildered
by such a calamity " seemed to come over him, and,
in his writings, he fell " to babbling, yet with all the
intensity of his ardent soul, about the number nine1
which regulated that lovely concluded life."
Then, exactly one year after this great sorrow had
befallen him, he happened to raise his eyes one day,
and perceived a young and very beautiful lady gazing
at him from a window with a gaze full of pity, " so
that," he said, " the very sum of pity appeared gathered
together in her."
Nor, would it seem, was this the only occasion on
which he thus raised his eyes, for, he wrote later,
1 Dante and Beatrice met for the first time in their ninth year ; nine
years later they spoke together. And now it came about that, on the
ninth day of a month in the ninetieth year of a century, Beatrice died —
a series of coincidences which surely is not sufficiently striking to justify
the emphasis Dante lays upon it.
239
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
" whensoever I was seen of this lady she became pale
and of a piteous countenance, as though it had been
with love ; whereby she remembered me many times
by our most noble lady, who was wont to be of a like
paleness. . . ."
" At length, by the constant sight of this lady," he
added, " mine eyes began to be gladdened overmuch
with her company ; through which thing many times I
had much unrest, and rebuked myself as a base person ;
also, many times I cursed the unsteadfastness of mine
eyes."
Now exactly what may have been Dante's relation-
ship to this fair enchantress, it is impossible to say.
Still, it is very clear that, soon after the death of
Beatrice, he became involved in a love affair which was
very much less spiritual than real. He himself referred
to this backsliding in his Purgatorlo when Beatrice met
him and rebuked him firmly for his wantonness. And
there are rumours of other and similar entanglements.
One may safely assume, then, that despite the exalted
passion of his youth, the divine poet really was a very
susceptible and human genius.
So, then, it came about that, before long, he decided
to take unto himself a wife. This, according to Boc-
caccio, he did solely in obedience to the advice of
relatives, hoping thereby to find consolation for the loss
of Beatrice — and a very futile hope Boccaccio thought it.
But he, of course, was a confirmed old cynic,
who, on principle, regarded marrying as arrant
240
DANTE AND BEATRICE
folly. Philosophers, he once declared, should leave
matrimony " to rich fools, to noblemen, and to
labourers.'*
But in Dante's case, one must confess, his cynicism
was justified. The poet's marriage, in short, was not an
unalloyed success ; though, from a strictly worldly
point of view, most wise and most politic, for the lady
whom he chose — Gemma, daughter of Manetto and
Maria Donati — happened to belong to one of the most
powerful and influential families in all Florence.
Dante was married to her, it would seem, in the little
church of Santa Maria, a church full with memories of
Beatrice, in the year 1293, just when he was beginning
to write that immortal epic of which Beatrice is the
central and inspiring figure. The bride, therefore, was
forced to take up her abode with a husband whose
thoughts and interests were absorbed entirely in the
charms and virtues of a former love.
This could hardly have been gratifying. Still, despite
time-hallowed credence, there is no sufficient evidence to
show that she proved herself a bad and shrewish wife.
Indeed, the calumnies which have been heaped mercilessly
on her head are based mainly on the words of a man
who frankly was prejudiced against her.
Prior to the poet's marriage, Boccaccio wrote, Dante
" had been used to spend his time over his precious
studies whenever he was inclined, and would converse
with kings and princes, dispute with philosophers, and
frequent the company of poets, the burden of whose
R 241
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
griefs he would share, and thus solace his own. Now,
whenever it pleased his new mistress, he must at her
bidding quit this distinguished company, and bear with
the talk of women, and to avoid a worse vexation must
not only assent to their opinions, but against his inclina-
tion must even approve them. He who, whenever the
presence of the vulgar herd had annoyed him, had been
accustomed to retire to some solitary spot, . . . must
abandon all ... sweet contemplation and . . . must
account to his mistress for every emotion, nay, even for
every little sigh.
" Oh ! what unspeakable weariness to have to live
day by day, and at last to grow old and die, in the com-
pany of such a suspicious being 1 "
Much of this, no doubt, was true. But it would be
unfair to lay all the blame at Gemma's door. She was
merely an ordinary woman ; her husband happened to
be a genius. It was incompatibility of temperament,
then, that made their union an unhappy one ; and for
this Dante was as much to blame as she — probably more.
Gemma, in fact, seems to have done her utmost to
fulfil worthily her duties to him as a wife. At any
rate, she bore him seven children in seven years — seven
children, one of whom he had the audacity to name
Beatrice ! — and in addition afforded him the full benefit
of all her influence, so that, as her husband, he rose
rapidly in civic fame, until at last, in 1300, he was
chosen one of the six Priors of Florence — the highest
honour that could be conferred upon him.
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DANTE AND BEATRICE
Soon after he had acquired his new dignity, however,
Dante became unavoidably involved in the fierce strife
which at that time convulsed Florence, between the two
Guelf families — the Donati and the Cerchi. What is
more, he had the misfortune to find himself on the
losing side, and in consequence, at the termination of
hostilities, was exiled from the city, with the reassuring
promise that, should he dare ever again to show his
face inside the walls, he would be " burned with fire
so that he die."
So Dante departed. But he went alone ; Gemma
remained behind in Florence ; nor did she and her
husband ever meet again. And this, of course, may
have been because — as Boccaccio would have us believe
— he had already seen too much of her. But surely it
is more likely that Gemma had seen too much of him,
this husband still passionately in love with the memory
of one long dead.
For many years after he had been hounded from
Florence, the luckless politician poet wandered round
Italy trying to arouse popes and princes to take interest
in his afflictions, and help him to regain his rights.
But in 1317, having despaired at last of reinstating
himself in the favour of his countrymen, he retired to
Ravenna ; and there, with his two sons, Pietro and
Jacopo, and his daughter Beatrice, he lived until,
on September Hth, 1321, in his fifty-seventh year, he
passed away.
And then " there can be no doubt but that," as
243
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Boccaccio has said, " he was received into the arms of
the most noble Beatrice, with whom, in the presence of
Him who is the supreme God, having laid aside the
miseries of this present life, he now joyfully lives in
that felicity which awaits no end."
244
Leon Gambetta and Leonie Leon
GAMBETTA
From an engraving by Holl, after a photograph
IX
LEON GAMBETTA AND LEONIE LEON
i
}Y my opinions, by my political actions, I
wish to secure the supremacy of the people
... to restore and establish . . . the doctrine,
rights, vindications, and even the incon-
sistencies of a thorough democracy. . . ."
Gambetta was speaking. The Legislative Assembly
was crowded ; not a vacant seat could be seen, for the
brilliant young democrat, who suddenly had risen from
nothing and proved himself the greatest orator of the
day, was a force to be reckoned with in France — even
in 1869, when the star of Napoleon III seemed still to
be in the ascendant.
Not a sound disturbed the impressive stillness of the
House — save the voice of the speaker. The President
of the Chamber, the Deputies, the ladies in the galleries
all sat motionless, enthralled by the young orator's
eloquent sincerity.
At last, with a characteristic wave of his arms,
Gambetta finished speaking. For a moment there
was silence. Then suddenly — for the spell had now
been broken — a whispering and restless impatience
filled the House ; women chattered, men rose from
247
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
their seats, some to depart, others to talk with
friends.
One figure only remained still passive, still under the
influence of the speaker, the figure of a woman, tall,
slim, and beautiful.
As he crossed the floor of the House, Gambetta
glanced at her. This mysterious, black-gloved woman
puzzled him. For months past she had always been
there when he was speaking, always in the same seat,
always gazing at him. And her eyes seemed to pene-
trate his very soul ; he could feel their influence, but
their message — it was an enigma to him. Who was
she ? Why was she there ? Why did she stare thus
at him, her face expressive neither of approval nor of
disapproval ? He could find no answer to the ques-
tions. In vain he sought for it.
But Gambetta was ignorant of the ways of women.
His had been a life of work, a life of struggle ; he
had had no time for social intercourse. His friends
numbered only a few wild Bohemians whom, during
leisure hours, he bewitched with Republican doctrines
at the Cafe Procope. To the world he appeared a
mystery ; his fellow-men saw only his strength, his
daring, his tenacity of purpose, not his frailties. In
this, perhaps, lay one of the secrets of the man's success.
And that success indeed had been astonishing. At
the age of thirty-four, although only of humble Italian
parentage, Gambetta found himself one of the most
prominent figures in the arena of French politics, the
248
LEON GAMBETTA AND LEONIE LEON
man of the moment, hailed by prophets as the statesman
of the future. Yet determination had been his only
asset — that and a wonderful sincerity which his gift of
oratory made supremely real, and which, in itself,
assured his triumph. If ever there has been a true
patriot, Gambetta was that man. He served France
well, moreover, despite his mistakes ; and they were many.
But if he did much for France, the lady of the black
gloves, Leonie Leon, did more, for she it was who
made Gambetta ; she it was who inspired his great
achievements, restrained his restless spirit and guided
him along that narrow, tortuous path which winds its
way through countless dangers to success.
Leonie became his mentor, his friend, his confidante ;
and she loved him. What is more, she understood him,
and was able more often than he knew to save him
from himself, to reason with him in the hour of
triumph, to encourage him when in despair.
And Gambetta knew that he owed her much.
" Come ! " he wrote, not long before his death, " our
business prospers, and Minerva can be proud. Athens
will erect altars to her if Athens, by recovering her
former splendour, can recover her virtue — gratitude."
But Athens erected no altars. And for this Leonie
was glad. She had wished to efface herself entirely;
for Gambetta she lived, for his honour, his glory, his
fame ; she thought of nothing else. He became her
idol at the very moment when first she saw him ; and
thenceforth she adored him with an utter disregard of
249
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
her own self, as the brain and mouthpiece of all her
noblest hopes.
Gambetta, of course, was unaware of this ; he knew
not why she came there to hear him speak. He only
knew that she was beautiful, distractingly beautiful ;
that her features were perfect, and her skin like ivory,
upon which her hair rippled in great dark waves. And
her eyes — they maddened him. What did they say to
him ? Why did they look, and, so he sometimes
thought, look longingly, at him — a wild, impetuous son
of the people ? What charm could he or his ambitions
hold for such a woman ? Curiosity grew into a very
torture.
And so at last — he selected this day perhaps because
once she seemed to smile at him — as he stepped down
from the rostrum at the conclusion of his speech, he
moved towards a table, scribbled a note, and asked an
official to give it to the lady with the black gloves.
Then, trembling, he awaited the result.
The woman took the note and opened it. Gambetta
watched her every movement. Slowly she read it, very
slowly, very deliberately, but then tore it into tiny
pieces, and, without glancing once towards the writer,
left the House. On the next day she did not return,
nor on the next, nor yet the next. He must have
offended her, Gambetta thought ; and, in consequence,
he felt sad and disappointed, for he had begun now to
realize that in some mysterious way this unknown
woman was necessary to him, that in her he would find
250
LJEON GAMBETTA AND LEONIE LEON
a someone to understand him — a friend. And he needed
a friend.
But now, so it seemed, he had lost her. Nor, for the
present, could he look for her. At that time sterner
duties called him ; he dared not undertake a quest of
love. France, in short, required his services ; France
standing on the brink of a disastrous war.
Vigorously Gambetta had opposed that war. But the
country had refused to listen to him. Still trusting in
the Emperor's might, and heedless of saner counsels,
she chose instead to march blindly and with foolish
arrogance to ruin.
Although hostilities with Prussia began only in the
middle of July, 1 870, within two short months Napoleon
III and one army had surrendered at Sedan ; another
army, under Bazaine, was locked up in Metz ; the
enemy were marching straight on Paris.
Forthwith Gambetta threw prejudice to the winds.
If France could not emerge victorious from the war, at
least she must save her honour. Paris, he resolved, at
any rate must never fall into the hands of foreigners.
He became at once the very heart and soul of the
defence. And then, as the German lines closed round
the city, seeing that nothing more could be done within,
he escaped in a balloon, and set to work to raise the
South of France to arms. Perhaps he would have
succeeded in relieving Paris, had only Bazaine co-
operated with him from Metz — perhaps. It is futile to
conjecture. Bazaine would not co-operate; he refused
251
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
to act with the man who had proclaimed a Republic
and, he said, betrayed the Emperor.
So Paris fell.
And it was then, in the Chamber of the Provisional
Government, the Assemblee Nationale, that Gambetta,
still protesting against the surrender of Alsace and Lor-
raine, again saw the lady of the black gloves, Leonie
Leon. She was sitting there as beautiful, as mysterious
as ever, listening intently to every word. Gambetta
watched her, and her presence seemed to inspire and
stimulate his eloquence. And now that he had found
her again, he was determined that she should not escape — -
at any rate, until he had penetrated the mystery which
surrounded her.
At the conclusion of his speech, therefore, he sent her
another message, short, but full of meaning. " At last
I see you once more," he wrote. " Is it really you ? "
That was all. And the woman smiled as she read it.
But still she heeded not the prayer ; indeed, without
giving even a sign, she rose, as she had done before,
and left the hall.
But this time she did not destroy the letter. Instead,
she slipped it in her dress. Gambetta noticed the
action. It filled him with hope.
Many months, however, were destined to elapse
before again he saw her, momentous, awful months,
while anarchy swept through the land. In Paris the
Commune raged, and atrocities were perpetrated com-
pared with which the horrors of the siege had been as
252
LEON GAMBETTA AND LEONIE LEON
nothing. Confusion prevailed everywhere. It was a
hideous sight — France murdering herself, whilst from
Versailles the forces of law and order strove bravely to
save her from her folly.
The " No Surrender " party, headed by Gambetta,
still favoured a continuation of the war. The other
party, headed by M. Thiers, advocated peace at any
price. M. Thiers, of course, was right, but his majority
was small. So strong were his opponents, in fact, that,
for a while nothing, it seemed, could prevent a civil
war — save only Gambetta. Like a true patriot, there-
fore, he surrendered his principles, resigned his office,
and retired into seclusion, leaving his rival master of
the situation.
Nor did he return to Paris till peace had been es-
tablished. And then he had his reward, for in Paris he
met Leonie again.
n
It happened in this wise : —
A friend of Gambetta, a man whom he had known
since childhood, met with an accident in the hunting
field one day. Fortunately his hurt was not serious.
Gambetta, none the less — for he was a kindly, sym-
pathetic man — so soon as he had heard of the mishap,
set out to make inquiries.
On arriving at the house, the servant told him that
his friend's mother was at home ; then asked, Would
M. Gambetta come in ?
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
He entered; but was sorry that he had, for a recep-
tion seemed to be in progress, and the salon was full of
visitors — a state of affairs by no means to his liking.
Still, it was too late now to escape. So he addressed
a few words to his hostess, and then looked despairingly
around the room in the vain hope of finding a familiar
face.
To his surprise he found one. SHE was there, the
lady of the black gloves ; and she had recognized him ;
she was looking towards him now — smiling. For a
moment their eyes met, a tense moment, profound in
meaning. Then, like one in a dream, Gambetta moved
across the room towards her. She waited for him. And
for a while they stood talking nervously together of those
commonplace and foolish things which men and women
do discuss at times like this and in such places. At
length, unable longer to restrain himself, Gambetta said:
" I want to talk to you where we can be alone. May I
walk home with you ? "
He gave her no opportunity to refuse. So they
left the house, and walked together slowly down the
street.
Gambetta was the first to break the silence. " Why,"
he demanded, " did you ignore my letters ? "
The woman ventured no reply.
" Did you think I was playing with you ? Don't you
know that I love you, that I've loved you now for
years ? "
But L£onie restrained him. " Stop," she said, <; you
254
LEON GAMBETTA AND LfeONIE LEON
know not what you say. I am not worthy of you, not
worthy of your destiny. You must not speak to me of
love." And she held out her hand as though to say
good-bye.
Gambetta seized it, and held it firmly. " You cannot
leave me thus," he begged. "You shall, you must
listen to me ! "
The woman hesitated. " Be it as you will," she said.
" I will explain one day " — and she laughed ; it was a
hard and bitter laugh — " I will tell you all my sorry
story. Then you will understand.'*
" But when ? " Gambetta spoke eagerly. " May I
come and call on you ? "
" No, no ! Please do not dare do that. You mustn't
come to my house, I beg you. Let us meet early in
the morning when nobody will see us — to-morrow ! "
So it was arranged ; in the park of Versailles near
the Petit Trianon at eight o'clock.
Gambetta arrived first at the place of meeting, long
before the appointed hour, and, for eternity it seemed to
him, tramped the long avenues with ill-disguised im-
patience. It was a glorious morning, still with the
stillness of early autumn. But he was heedless of its
beauties, deaf to the songs of the birds, for he was
waiting, waiting for his love, and his love came not.
A clock struck eight. Still he was alone. Five
minutes passed, six, seven, eight, but then — at last he
saw her, hastening towards him. And a supreme
happiness filled his heart, for he knew then that he
255
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
loved that woman as he had never before loved any
other woman, nor ever could again.
Nor did her confession surprise him. He had half
expected it, for that sympathy and understanding which
spring from a great sorrow were written clearly on her
face. Patiently, then, he listened while she stumbled
through her miserable story.
Her father, Leonie told him, had died when she was
still a child. He had been a colonel in the army, a
great friend of the Due d'Orleans, and a brave man,
but, somehow, base and ugly rumours had begun to
circulate concerning him ; and he, in despair, unable to
endure a slur upon his honour, had committed suicide,
leaving her without a penny, a friendless, helpless orphan.
She had tried to earn her living as a governess, but it had
been a cruel struggle. She was too young, too simple,
too inexperienced, too trusting. And then. . . . Tears
strangled the woman's words ; she buried her face in her
hands and wept.
But she had no need to say more. Gambetta now
understood everything. The world is a hard place for
lonely girls to live in ; Imperial France had been very
hard, very cruel. And he knew it ; a great sympathy
strengthened his love, and he longed then and there to
take her in his arms and comfort her.
But Leonie thrust him from her. " Now go ! " she
said. "You cannot marry me. You must have a wife of
whom France will be proud. It is your duty. And I, too,
have a duty — to renounce you. Don't make it harder ! "
256
LEON GAMBETTA AND LEONIE LEON
But Gambetta refused to be renounced. He pleaded
with the woman long, deaf to her protests, until at
length she agreed to seal with him, at least, a bond of
friendship, and to meet him thus every morning in the
gardens of Versailles.
Now to the man these meetings were the sweetest
joys in life. In Leonie he found more than a friend ;
he found a counsellor — a counsellor who, by her shrewd
advice of moderation, did more than anybody else to
help him drive from France the House of Bourbon, the
House of Bonaparte, and finally establish the Republic.
Leonie he trusted with all his secrets, seeking her
advice on every question, and not only did she advise
him well, she also humanized and made him reasonable.
She found him a man ; she made him a gentleman.
And for this France should be grateful to her. The
most priceless diamond is a crude stone until it has
been polished.
But Gambetta, at any rate, valued her services ;
his letters breathe his gratitude. "You are divine,"
he told her in one of them, " and I am the happiest of
mortals ever honoured by a goddess's favours. I owe
everything to you, I ascribe everything to you. ... It
is useless for you to belittle yourself, to humiliate your-
self; I shall always remind you of your real ability and
power."
Now, that such a man and such a woman should have
remained for long merely companions, would have been
a happening in violation of every law of nature,
s 257
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Friendship was not a bond between them, but a barrier,
and an artificial barrier, too. In vain, the woman
struggled to support it ; in vain the man tried to help
her. That barrier could not stand ; it could not resist
the battery of love, for there is such a thing as the in-
evitable, and the inevitable is that which cannot be
avoided.
So it came about that L£onie arrived one morn-
ing at the place of meeting first ; and she was not before
her time. What could have happened then ? she won-
dered. Never before had she known Gambetta to be late.
For a moment she felt troubled. But then she saw him
coming, stepping jauntily along the path, a radiant smile
upon his face. Her misgivings vanished instantly, and,
as he approached nearer, she noticed that he carried in
his hand a beautifully untidy bunch of flowers, still wet
with dew.
" I have just picked these," he said ; " the gardener
knows me. Will you take them ? " Then he was silent.
A lark burst into song. Still Gambetta remained
silent. Leonie's fears returned. She glanced at the
man, but his face told her nothing, save that he was
nervous and distraught. So, taking the flowers, she
buried her face in them, and waited for him to speak.
The silence seemed to last for hours. But then —
" And will you take me also ? " Gambetta asked.
" Leonie, you must. I love you. I can wait no
longer." He seized her roughly by the hand and pulled
her to him. " Leonie, you must ! You must ! " he
258
LEON GAMBETTA AND LEONIE LEON
begged ; and in her heart she longed to yield to him ;
longed for him to crush her passionately in his
grasp. It was hard to resist — even for the sake of his
career.
But resist she must. For France's sake as well as his
own, Gambetta's fair name must be kept unsullied from
association with such a one as hers. Still, to say
" no " to him was nigh impossible ; and Iconic knew
that she must inevitably have struggled with herself
in vain had not Gambetta, at length, all unwittingly
given her a weapon, other than her altruism, with which
to fight.
"Let us go to the magistrate," he implored, weary
of arguing, " together — now. I do not fear the conse-
quence. So come ! " And he held out his hand to
her.
But Leonie drew back. This she could not do. In-
tensely religious, the idea of a marriage not sanctified
by a priest repelled her. The Church's blessing alone,
she felt, could efface the tragedy of her past. But to
Gambetta, of course, a civil marriage only was possible
—to Gambetta, who at that very moment was striving
to sever Church and State in France, not because he was
an atheist, or even irreligious, but because he saw in
clericalism and ultramontane influence the bitterest foes
of liberty.
It was a difficult question to solve, then, this question
of a marriage, for Leonie remained obdurate in her
convictions. Nothing that Gambetta could say would
259
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
move her. One concession only would she make. " If
ever you are in trouble," she said, u or persecuted,
then I will come to you — but not before."
This, however, did not satisfy her lover ; passion was
strong within him. So still he pleaded. " Then,
Leonie," he begged, " be at least my wife in secret.
Let us celebrate our betrothal now, according to the rites
of bygone days. There was a time when such rites
were as binding as are marriage ties. Here is a ring ;
once it belonged to my mother. Take it. It binds me
to you for ever."
And Leonie took the ring. Gambetta had acted more
cleverly than he knew in thus disguising his desire in
superstition. Had it been a mere vulgar liaison which
he demanded of her, she would, no doubt, still have
withstood him. But this which he offered, this was
very different. Her confessor — she remembered his
words now — once had told her that the Church ad-
mitted of two kinds of betrothal, sponsalia de pr<esente
and sponsalia de future, and that the former, betrothal
by present vows, was, under unavoidable circumstances,
as binding as the sacrament of matrimony.
Now in this case — so she argued with herself — surely
the circumstances were unavoidable. The world must
be allowed never to guess the truth. And how else
could the truth be hidden ? How indeed ? Besides,
by yielding to Gambetta's wishes, she could hope, she
thought, to save her poor tarnished reputation from
being exposed again to the limelight of notoriety ;
260
LEON GAMBETTA AND LEONIE LEON
perhaps, too, she might also prevent it from bringing
harm upon her lover.
Thus, convinced by her own arguments, she salved
her conscience.
in
Nor did the world guess the truth. For six years
the lovers kept their secret, six long years, while
Gambetta slowly climbed the ladder of success, raising
France with him. Never, until the very end, did the
breath of scandal touch his name, and this, although he
was always in the public eye, perpetually spied upon,
and watched by men whose business it was to watch
him, men paid by his enemies to collect information
which could be used against him.
But, of his relations with Leonie, even they guessed
nothing. Gambetta was too cunning for them ; he did
not meet Leonie by stealth or far from Paris. He was
conspirator enough to know that if one hides one's
secrets one only attracts attention to them. Instead,
therefore, Leonie used to come openly, driven in his
own carriage by his own coachman, to the house in the
Rue de la Chausee d'Antin in which he lived. And
there, whenever he had no official function to attend,
they would dine together, quite alone, and build
visionary castles for themselves and France. Such
daring disarmed suspicion.
Now to Gambetta the joy of evenings spent thus
opened up an altogether new world of delights and
261
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
possibilities ; how much these evenings meant to him
even he could not realize, save when Leonie failed him.
And this she did often ; she deemed it wiser not to
come too frequently, for, as she knew, her lover's
position was built on such very shallow soil that even
the breath of gossip might make it totter. " It is the
very nature of democracy to change," she told him,
" to attempt and to attempt again. Ingratitude is its
law, it sacrifices its dearest children with extraordinary
calmness."
But of such fears Gambetta was heedless.
" My adored One," he wrote in March, 1873, "... I
beg you to come back at once so that I may scold
you at leisure ; come at least on Tuesday if not on
Monday ; we will spend another of those divine even-
ings which seem to me, on the morrow, like the
memory of some supernal happiness. Moreover, poli-
tics are progressing wonderfully well, and I shall be
glad to chat with you about them. . . . But at least
I must have the happiness of kneeling at your feet, for
I cannot allow ""you to let such long intervals elapse
between your visits. Come, I call you, I await you,
I adore you."
Or again — this was written two years later ; Gam-
betta had arranged to spend a week-end in the country,
with nothing to disturb him from Leonie ; but she, it
would seem, at the eleventh hour had feared to go with
him — " Little One," he asked, " why do you delay, and
why do you let yourself be hindered at every step by
262
LEON GAMBETTA AND LEONIE LEON
trivialities ? . . . We are our own masters ; nature calls
us ; she has dressed herself in all her finery in our
honour. So I shall expect you on Thursday ; we will
start on Friday and be back on Sunday night at the
latest. Send me a definite reply, because I must send
notice of our arrival."
Not because of Gambetta, then, was the secret pre-
served, but in spite of him. For his part, in fact, he
would gladly have thrown discretion to the winds ; he
was proud of the woman whom he loved, inordinately
proud, and he longed to show her to the world, so that
it too might see and envy him his happiness.
To make Leonie mistress of his house, as well as mis-
tress of his heart, became with him a positive obsession ;
it is the chord upon which, in his letters, he harped
incessantly. In time, he thought, surely his entreaties
would overcome resistance.
Once in 1879 he thought they had. "Yesterday
was a memorable day," he wrote ; " I began to believe
I was shaking your determination. . . ."
So that was what he thought ! At this time, too,
when he was about to be offered the Presidency of
the Republic ! Leonie was greatly alarmed. " This
is the end of our happiness," she replied ; " I never
will be ; I never can be the wife of our country's ruler.
You must feel that yourself. I am going away. I do
not wish to be the last obstacle in your path when you
reach the very summit."
And she went away. The next letter Gambetta
263
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
received came from Italy. In it, Leonie begged him
to forget her and to choose for himself a wife from
some great family, who could further his interests ; she
even suggested a girl, a relative of M. Thiers, the
man whom she recognized as likely soon to become
Gambetta's most dangerous opponent. "So, accom-
plish your great destiny," she said ; " I will shrink back
into the shadow which luckily I have never left — was
I not right ? "
" No, little one ; no," her lover replied, " this hand
has waited ; it would rather wither than unite itself to
another hand than thine ; be assured of this : either it
will remain disconsolately empty, or it shall be thine.
When will you accept it ? In future I shall end all
my talks with that question whispered in your ear."
To this letter Leonie sent no reply. For several
weeks she preserved her silence ; and during this time,
as she had foreseen, Gambetta was offered the Presi-
dency of the Republic. But he refused the honour.
And had his love for Leonie aught to do with
his refusal ? One wonders. But the fact remains
he declined the offer, and, for the present, was con-
tent with the Presidency of the Chamber. Yet even
this was a position which Leonie could not bring
herself to share with him, although in his new dignity
he needed her as he had never needed her before. As
President of the Chamber he was a big public man,
with many social obligations. He needed a hostess
greatly — such a hostess ! True, Leonie returned to
264
LEON GAMBETTA AND LEONIE LEON
Paris and did all she could to help him, making
arrangements for him, ordering dinners, and arranging
tables. But this alone was not enough. Gambetta
missed that splendid happiness of jealousy which
belongs to the man whose wife is the admiration of
his friends.
" I thank thee a thousand times," he wrote to her on
one occasion ; " your magnificent flowers astonished and
charmed my guests, and all their praises went from my
heart to yours, for in my heart I thanked you for them.
You know what I need just now — your presence at
these fetes and the good which you could do. I shall
always return to this subject, because at every moment
of my life I remember it ; and I hope by strength of
will to obtain what I want."
Gradually, then, gradually, slowly but very surely
the woman gave way to him. But it was not until at
last when his enemies had got the better of him that
finally she yielded. Then she remembered the promise
she had made long ago in the. gardens of Versailles.
" If ever you are in trouble," she had said, " or perse-
cuted, then I will come to you." And she was true to
that promise.
It happened in this way. In 1881, his opponents
forced it upon Gambetta to form a Ministry, so that,
when defeated, as defeated he must be, they could have
the satisfaction of overthrowing him completely. And,
of course, he was defeated. He had known that he
would be from the outset. None the less, he did not
265
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
flinch from what he thought to be his duty; in his
heart, in fact, he hoped even yet to achieve the im-
possible.
" I shall do my duty," he assured his father,
" thoroughly, completely, to the very end ; and, pro-
vided that I keep my health, I hope by dint of pleading
to be able to accomplish my task. I do not count the
difficulties and dangers ; they are innumerable. I trust
in fate and in my devotion to the Commonwealth.
I must leave the rest to the mercy of the gods, if there
are any."
In November, after wrestling with countless diffi-
culties, he succeeded at last in forming a Ministry—
that ill-fated Ministry which was destined to endure
but two-and-seventy days. On January 26, 1882,
in fact, it was defeated and its leader hounded from
office, pursued by the most bitter accusations. Gambetta
had aspired to the dictatorship, his enemies declared—
Gambetta, the man whose greatest fault, after all, was
the excessive thoroughness of his democratic doctrines.
But he had not left in him the spirit to defend
himself; he was too ill, too disappointed. So he bowed
his head to the storm, took a small house in the Rue
Saint-Didler, close to Victor Hugo's house, and there
retired into seclusion.
And this house, it may be said, was the magnificent
mansion which the Bonapartists, who already had charged
him with bathing in the Due de Morny's silver bath
while at the Palais Bourbon, now declared that he had
266
LEON GAMBETTA AND LEONIE LEON
bought with the proceeds of his plunders while in
office. Magnificent mansion, indeed — it was a two-
storied house, rented at ^120 a year.
Still, to Gambetta it seemed a very palace, for it
was there that Leonie came to him, she for whom now
he had waited six whole years. Six years — it is a long
time out of a statesman's life ; and those years had
left Gambetta a very different man from him whom
they had found. His constitution was shattered ;
disappointment, responsibilities and care had aged him
greatly. One thing only remained with him unchanged
— his love for Leonie ; that she should come to him
was still, as it had ever been since first he met her,
the one and all-consuming purpose of his life.
And now she had come. He was very happy ; so
happy that he hardly dared even to mention the word
'marriage,' for fear of reawakening her dormant scruples,
and so losing her again. Still, marry her he would,
and before the year had ended — of this he was de-
termined. In confidence he told his father so.
But the latter, it would seem, was careless of the
secret. At any rate — " I beg you to say nothing of my
marriage," Gambetta wrote to him on October 30.
" You must have spoken to some one on the matter,
for the Agence Havas received a telegram from Nice
announcing my marriage. I have had the telegram
suppressed ; but they are evidently well-informed there.
I cannot understand how this comes about, for you are
the only person to whom I have mentioned the matter.
267
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
" I am doing my best to persuade my friend to make
up her mind, and I really think 1 have done some good,
thanks to my account of your joy on learning such a
piece of news ; but I have not quite conquered her
scruples and her opposition, so we must be discreet and
avoid all publicity."
But soon even this need vanished. Exactly what
happened never will be known. Did L6onie yield to
Gambetta ? Did Gambetta yield to her ? The answer
is immaterial. During the autumn they found some
way of overcoming the barrier of religion which stood
between them. It is this which matters, for Gambetta
then realized the epitome of happiness. In a few
weeks L£onie would be his wife ! She had promised
to marry him in December ! The man's joy was
boundless.
Forthwith he sought for, found and took a little
cottage at Ville d'Avray — Les Jardies he called it—
and set to work with boyish enthusiasm to make of it
a home for his bride.
This, alas ! fate destined it should never be.
One day, late in November, while playing with a
pistol in his study, Gambetta shot himself accidentally
in the hand. The wound did not seem serious, but
for some reason it refused to heal ; the state of the
man's general health, no doubt, delayed it. Then
complications set in ; and in spite of the doctors' care,
in spite of Leonie's devoted nursing, the patient daily
grew weaker. An operation might perhaps have saved
268
LEON GAMBETTA AND LEONIE LEON
him, but the doctors feared to perform it ; and so on
the 3 ist of December, robbed of his last chance of
life, the great patriot passed peacefully away.
And Leonie was left alone, destitute of all resources ;
Gambetta had given her all he had to give — himself.
And now he had gone ! For a while she gazed in
silent anguish on his face. Then she kissed it lightly on
the brow, and went her way — out into the world.
She did not attend the funeral. Gambetta belonged
to France. So she left it to France to honour him.
She merely mourned him, and she mourned him truly
till in 1906 death set her free to join him. Her
sorrow was inconsolable, and remorse made it bitter.
Why, why had she been obstinate ? Why had she
refused to marry him when and as he asked ? Oh,
why ? This became her great lament. And it was of
her lover she thought, not of herself. Death had dis-
closed his secret, and, needless to say, there were some
who misunderstood that secret, some even who believed
that she had shot him. Gambetta shot by a jealous
mistress ! The Petit Journal, in a glaring article from
the pen of a journalist more enterprising than imagina-
tive, stated this to be a fact. No wonder, then, Leonie
reproached herself. There was a stain now on the
great patriot's memory, and she had caused that stain,
she to whom his honour ever had been much more dear
than life.
" My tears," she wrote at Rome, only a short while
before her death, " can never cease to flow . . . and
269
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
... for my obstinacy ... I weep day and night."
" Here," she added, " are only ruins, tombs, bones,
relics, memories of the past ! Those who triumphed and
those who suffered alike are dead ; a few inscriptions, a
few ashes, that is all that remains of their joys and their
grief ! Life is uncertain and we must be as happy as we
can. Ah ! if I could begin my life again, this time
I would make no more mistakes."
Still, she had with her also, many sweet memories to
give her comfort.
" To the light of my soul,
To the star of my life,
To Leonie Leon
Sempre ! Sempre."
Thus Gambetta once had written to her. And to
have been the light of such a life as this, the star of
such a soul — was that nothing ?
The words might surely have been engraved as a fitting
epitaph on the little cross which marks her humble
tomb at Auteuil.
270
The Husband of Charlotte Bronte
CHARLOTTE BRONTE
From the picture by George Richmond
X
THE HUSBAND OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE
IXCIT1NG happenings are rare at Haworth, so
rare, indeed, that almost any happening is
deemed exciting. At any rate, this was the
case ninety years ago, for Haworth then was
merely a small village, perched high on a hill in the
wilds of Yorkshire — a bleak, forsaken spot, of little or
no interest to the outside world. Since those days, no
doubt, the little township has changed considerably, and,
like the rest of England, become inured by the progress
of civilization to the contingencies of the unexpected.
So now, it may be, public interest is roused less easily.
But, in 1820, seven country carts, laden with books
and furniture, toiling up the one long street was no
ordinary spectacle ; and the villagers turned out en masse
to watch their slow and tedious progress. The sight in
itself was excuse enough ; but this particular procession
held also for them another and quite distinctive interest.
It heralded the advent of the new vicar. And
what manner of man might he be ? Naturally his
parishioners were curious to know; and they made the
air buzz with gossip and idle speculation. But they
T 273
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
were not kept in suspense for long. The object of
their curiosity followed in person close in the wake of
his household gods.
The Rev. Patrick Bronte was a very ordinary
parson — a stern-looking, somewhat bigoted little man,
of Irish birth, forty-three years old, and very poor.
Eight years before he had married a pretty Cornish
girl, six years his junior. She arrived at Haworth with
him, a pale, delicate, worn-out woman, the mother of
six young children. And she was even more fragile
than she looked, for her married life had been one
incessant struggle. And now she needed rest ; rest
and warmth and sunshine. Haworth certainly was no
place for her. Nor did she survive its rigours long.
Only eighteen months after her arrival — in September,
1821, to be precise — she died ; the first of the Brontes
to find a final resting-place in the little churchyard
which adjoined the grim and sombre rectory.
Now, if life there had been dull for the children
before her death, it became a thousandfold more dull
after. They were left almost entirely to their own
devices. Their father they very rarely saw, even at
meal-times. He suffered from digestive troubles, and
so preferred to eat alone, hoping thus to avoid being
tempted by forbidden delicacies. Whilst companionship
— he neither needed it nor sought it. He allowed paro-
chial duties only to interrupt communion with his books.
His children, then, as was inevitable, grew into
wild, imaginative pupils of the moors. The joys
274
THE HUSBAND OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE
and adventures of the big world held no attractions for
them. The off-spring of a book-worm and a frail,
down-trodden little woman, they were quite content
amid their own restricted surroundings. But they
were all delicate — perhaps because, as babies, poverty
had denied them more than the bare necessaries of life
— whilst sorrow and misfortune dogged their footsteps
from the very outset.
In the spring of 1825, the eldest child, Maria, died,
aged twelve ; and, only five weeks later, the second
daughter also, little Elizabeth. But there were still
four children left — three girls and one boy. The boy,
however, Branwell Bronte, did not make exactly a
success of life. This often is the case with parsons*
sons, especially when the son in question is the only
brother of three doting sisters. Branwell, in fact, be-
came a dissolute young man, and proved himself a
constant source of worry to his sisters, and anger to his
father, until at last, in 1848, he, too, died, the victim of
his own excesses.
Yet, given the chance, he might have done something
really great, for he was a youth with much ability.
But he happened to possess the artistic temperament —
the artistic temperament, no money, a narrow-minded
father, and the dullest of country rectories for his
home. No wonder, then, he proved a failure.
His sisters, too, possessed his temperament. But to
them it came not as a misfortune, but as a blessing,
uniting them by the very powerful bond of a wonderful
275
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
companionship, giving them hopes, ideals, and aims
which they could share in common, when once again
they found themselves united under their father's roof.
Once again — yes, after leaving school, each went out
into the world alone, and sought to earn a livelihood by
teaching. But in turn each failed. Trained as they
had been, the slaves of weird, imaginative fancies, they
could not adapt themselves to the social conditions
amid which they found themselves. And so it came
about that at length they all returned to Haworth, and set
to work there to realize their childish dreams — to write.
But they told no one of their endeavours. Strictly
in secret they worked and studied feverishly for several
years. And this was not difficult, for at Haworth there
was nothing to disturb, nobody to question them. Nor
did they toil in vain. In the autumn of 1847 tne
literary world was startled by the appearance of three
remarkable novels, "Jane Eyre," " Wuthering Heigh ts,"
and "Agnes Gray." Who were the authors ? Who
were Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell ? Nobody had
ever heard of them. And not even Mr. Bronte sus-
pected for a moment that they were respectively his
three daughters — Charlotte, Emily, and Anne.
Indeed, not until the success of her book, "Jane
Eyre," was unmistakable and assured did Charlotte tell
Mr. Bronte of her enterprise. Then casually she re-
marked to him one day, "Papa, I've been writing a book."
" Have you, my dear ? " was the reply.
" Yes ; and I want you to read it."
276
THE HUSBAND OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE
The old man smiled indulgently.
" I fear it will try my eyes too much," he said.
" Oh ! " Charlotte exclaimed, " but it's not in manu-
script— it's printed."
" Printed ! " Mr. Bronte was now thoroughly
aroused. " Printed ? " he asked. " My dear, have
you considered the expense ? How can such a book
get sold ? No one even knows your name ! "
ii
Such was the father of Charlotte Bronte. But she,
of course, had learned long ago to understand his
curious little ways, so well, perhaps, as not even to feel
disappointed by his lack of interest in her, but to see
the humour of it. Besides, as she knew, she had now
merely to disclose her identity to become a famous
woman. There was comfort in that.
And greatly she needed comfort ; hers was a heavy
heritage of sorrows. In December, 1848, only three
months after her brother's death, she lost her sister
Emily. And, in the May of the following year, her
other sister died. Then Charlotte found herself alone
in the world, alone with " Shirley," the child of her
brain, as yet unborn ; a woman thirty-one years old,
not embittered, but made sweet by trouble, and very
beautiful. Not that her features were perfect ; they
were not, though, as Mrs. Gaskell has declared, " unless
you began to catalogue them you were hardly aware of
277
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
the fact, for the eyes and the power of the countenance
overbalanced every physical defect."
Then again she was heart-whole. This surely is re-
markable. Charlotte Bronte heart-whole at the age of
thirty-one ; Charlotte Bronte, the first novelist to make
women in fiction passionate human beings ; the writer
who, boldly and to the horror of Puritanical critics,
broke away from the old tradition and allowed her girl
characters to think and feel, endowing them with some-
thing more real than the conventional simpering,
blushing coyness ! It is indeed strange. And she had
not even been in love ! But already she had received
two offers of marriage, two in one year, in fact, her
twenty-fourth, before yet she had displayed any promise
of literary fame and greatness.
The first suitor, the Rev. Henry Nussey, was a
brother of her friend, Ellen Nussey, a really good
man too, devout, noble-minded, and sincere. And he
loved Charlotte dearly in his own dull, prosaic manner.
But she, it would seem, although gratified by his devo-
tion, never for a moment seriously contemplated marry-
ing him, marrying a man who was merely fond of her
and whose very nature rendered him incapable of being
more.
" Before answering your letter," she wrote to him on
March 5, 1839, "I might have spent a long time in
consideration of its subject ; but as from the first
moment of its reception and perusal I determined on
what course to pursue, it seemed to me that delay was
278
THE HUSBAND OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE
wholly unnecessary. ... I have no personal repugnance
to the idea of a union with you, but I feel convinced
that mine is not the sort of disposition calculated to
form the happiness of a man like you. It has always
been my habit to study the characters of those among
whom 1 chance to be thrown, and I think I know yours
and can imagine what description of a woman would
suit you for a wife. The character should not be too
marked, ardent and original, her temper should be mild,
her piety undoubted, her spirits even and cheerful, and
her personal attractions sufficient to please your eyes and
gratify your just pride. As for me, you do not know
me ; I am not the serious, grave, cool-headed individual
you suppose ; you would think me romantic and eccen-
tric ; you would say I was satirical and severe . . . and
I will never, for the distinction of attaining matrimony
and escaping the stings of an old maid, take a worthy
man whom I am conscious I cannot render happy."
And then she wrote to Ellen: "There were in his
proposal," she said, " some things which might have
proved a strong temptation. I thought if I were to
marry Henry Nussey, his sister could live with me, and
how happy I should be. But again I asked myself two
questions: Do I love him as much as a woman ought to
love the man she marries ? Am I the person best
qualified to make him happy ? Alas ! Ellen, my con-
science answered c No ' to both these questions. I felt
that ... I had not, and could not have, that intense
attachment which would make me willing to die for
279
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
him; and if ever I marry it must be in the light of that
adoration I will regard my husband."
And so it was that she decided she could never bring
herself to marry Ellen's brother. That he was a good
man she admitted ; she admired him greatly ; but in
him, she saw, she could never realize her own ideal.
The man she learned to love — why, she cried, "the
whole world, weighed in the balance against his smallest
wish, should be light as air." Such a man only
could she marry. To contract a loveless union, she
felt, would be more than foolish ; it would be a crime.
Still, she added, with a touch of pathos : " Ten to one
I shall never have the chance again: but nimporte"
She did, though, and only a few months later.
During the summer an old friend of the family came
one day to pay a visit at the rectory, and with him he
brought a young clergyman, fresh from Dublin Univer-
sity, a lively, clever, witty Irishman. The man amused
Charlotte ; she talked to him gaily, laughing at his jests
without restraint until, as the day wore on, " he began
to season his conversation with something of Hibernian
flattery."
Then she cooled towards him. This was not at all
to her liking. But presently the man departed. And
after he had gone, Charlotte thought no more about
him until, a few days later, she received a letter in a
strange handwriting. Who could the writer be ? Con-
sumed with curiosity, she tore open the envelope, and
read — surely as ardent a declaration of love as has
280
THE HUSBAND OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE
been ever penned. The writer was her young Irish
friend.
" I have heard of love at first sight," she declared
afterwards, " but this beats all. I leave you to guess
. . . my answer." And the nature of that answer,
Reader, perhaps you, too, can guess. Charlotte Bronte"
was not a hare-brained girl. For love, for a true, deep
love, she longed ; and to it she would have yielded
herself utterly and gladly. To that tawdry sub-
stitute, an emotional attachment — never.
But that love which she required is a rare and price-
less jewel. Many people seek for it ; few ever find it.
In the end, the great majority, given the chance, clutch
feverishly at the sham. This Charlotte would not
do ; she had studied human nature too carefully ; and
the study, although it may make one cynical, must also
surely make one wise. Thus, as the years rolled on,
romance became almost a stranger to her ; work ab-
sorbed all her energies. Still, she thought a great deal
about love — about love and marriage. This her art
demanded of her ; it demanded that she should under-
stand the emotions of her sex.
None the less, like many a great thinker, she failed
utterly to understand her own. Time — Time the
great changer of all things — had completely revolu-
tionized her views on life, but so gradually that, in her
heart, Charlotte, barely conscious of the change, still
continued to cling faithfully to the ideals of her youthful
dreams. She did not see that the girl's natural longing
281
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
for a man she could wish to die for, a man whose
smallest wish would outweigh in the balance the whole
world, had in reality yielded within her to the woman's
desire for love, for a someone to care for her and
cherish her.
And so she remained deaf to the voice of her maturer
judgment. Her true thoughts and aspirations, she
revealed — and then almost subconsciously — only in her
letters.
" My good girl," she wrote to Ellen Nussey, " Une
grande passion is une grande fo/ie. Mediocrity in all
things is wisdom ; mediocrity in sensations is super-
lative wisdom." And then again : " No girl should
fall in love till the offer is actually made. This maxim
is just. I will even extend and confirm it. No young
lady should fall in love till the offer has been made,
accepted, the marriage ceremony performed, and the
first half-year of married life has passed away. A
woman may then begin to love, but with great pre-
caution, very coolly, very moderately, very rationally,
If ever she loves so much that a harsh word or a cool
look cuts her to the heart she is a fool. If she ever
loves so much that her husband's will is her law, and
that she has got into the habit of watching his look in
order that she may anticipate his wishes, she will soon
be a neglected fool."
A sound doctrine this, no doubt, but a hard one to
live up to. To philosophize, as many people find, is
easier far than to be a philosopher. And Charlotte
282
THE HUSBAND OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE
Bronte, even when she had the opportunity of exempli-
fying her own wise teaching, woman-like, firmly declined
to 'do so. Her mind may have changed, but her heart
still remained unaltered ; still it longed, and longed
ardently, for the coming of some great, consuming
passion such as she never yet had found, and, so it
seemed — for already she was thirty-four years old — now
never would find.
" Doubtless," she wrote to Ellen Nussey, in September,
1850, "there are men whom, if I chose to encourage,
I might marry ; but no matrimonial lot is even remotely
offered me which seems truly desirable."
As a matter of fact, at this time, there were at least
two men devotedly in love with her. The first,
Mr. James Taylor, was a member of a London firm of
publishers. He came down to Haworth one day to see
" Currer Bell " with regard to arrangements for the
publication of " Shirley,'* and fell in love immediately
with the author.
Mr. Bronte" encouraged his suit. And Charlotte, for
her part, considered it earnestly. But no — she decided
at last — she could not bring herself to marry him ; she
did not love him. And the unhappy man, hurt sorely
by his rejection, left England, and went to India "to
recover." He was away five years.
" I am sure he has sterling and estimable qualities,"
she wrote after he had gone, " but ... it was im-
possible for me in my inward heart to think of him as
one that might one day be acceptable as my husband.
283
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
... I looked for something of the gentleman-
something, I mean, of the natural gentleman ; you
know I can dispense with acquired polish ; and for
looks, I know myself too well to think that I have any
right to be exacting on that point. I could not find one
gleam, I could not see one passing glimpse of true good-
breeding. It is hard to say, but it is true. In mind,
too, though clever, he is second-rate — thoroughly second-
rate. One does not like to say these things, but one had
better to be honest. Were I to marry him my heart
would bleed in pain and humiliation ; I could not, could
not look up to him. No, if Mr. Taylor be the only
husband fate offers me, single I must always remain."
in
But James Taylor was not the only husband offered.
There was yet another, the other, in fact ; an Irishman,
called Arthur Nicholls, who, like two of his predecessors,
happened also to be a parson. It is not necessary to say
more than this about his antecedents. He had not spent
an interesting life, and when he arrived for the first
time at Haworth in 1844, as Mr. Bronte's curate, he
appeared merely as a very " curatey " young curate,
a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, twenty-seven
years of age, moderately good-looking, moderately
intelligent and preposterously conscientious. Charlotte
he bored ; she admitted this frankly. " I cannot for my
life," she wrote to a friend, " see those interesting germs
284
THE HUSBAND OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE
of goodness in him you discovered ; his narrowness of
mind always strikes me chiefly. I fear he is indebted to
your imagination for his hidden treasure."
None the less he interested her to a certain extent ;
enough at any rate to induce her to draw a not unkindly
portrait of him as Mr. Macarthy in " Shirley." He was
representative of a type and it pleased her to study him.
Hence she allowed herself, perhaps, to seek his society
more often than otherwise she would have done. And
from this, it may be, arose the rumour, which soon
began to circulate through Haworth, that she was en-
gaged to be married to him. Engaged to him ! —
Charlotte denied the report warmly. " A cold, far-away
sort of civility," she wrote, "are the only terms on
which I have ever been with Mr. Nicholls."
That this was so, Arthur Nicholls knew only too
well. And the knowledge was torture to him. He
adored his vicar's daughter. For years past he had
watched her every movement, studied and admired her,
until at length he had fallen completely under the spell
of her magic influence. Nor was it her brilliant gift of
intellect alone which attracted him, nor yet her literary
fame. Indeed, as Mrs. Gaskell has asserted, " this, by
itself, would rather have repelled him when he saw it
in the possession of a woman," for he was a staid little
man, so conservative in his views that he wished women in
no way to be emancipated from the thraldom of the home.
But Charlotte Bronte, despite her work, despite her
genius, was a true woman. And, as a woman, Arthur
285
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Nicholls saw her. He had seen her as a daughter, as a
sister, as the mistress of her father's house. It was
her womanliness that had appealed to him. Not the
author, she was the woman he admired, the woman
whom he loved ; and he had learned to love her with all
that love and reverence which a good, honest man alone
can feel, with a devotion that Henry Nussey never could
have offered, a passion such as never could have fired
the heart of the impressionable young Irishman who
once had wooed her.
And yet he could not speak of this great love. He
dared not. He knew that Charlotte was indifferent to
him, knew what would be her answer. And to be sent
away rejected and miserable — no ; it seemed better to
worship in secret and from afar. This right, at least,
no one could deny him. Besides, what right had he to
ask one of the most famous women of the day to marry
him, an obscure, unheard-of curate, with the princely
income of ^"100 a year ? Love can be very cruel.
But Mr. Bronte's curate bore its torments patiently
and bravely for several years. Indeed, until the very end
of the year 1853, somehow he restrained the torrent
of his pent-up feelings.
Then . . . Charlotte has herself described the scene.
" On Monday evening," she wrote, " Mr. Nicholls
was here to tea. I vaguely felt without clearly seeing,
as without seeing, I have felt for some time, the meaning
of his constant looks and strange, feverish restraint.
As usual Mr. Nicholls sat with papa till between eight
286
THE HUSBAND OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE
and nine o'clock. I then heard him open the parlour
door as if going. I expected the clash of the front
door. He stopped in the passage ; he tapped ; like
lightning it flashed on me what was coming. He
entered ; he stood before me. What his words were
you can guess ; his manner you can hardly realize ; nor
can I forget it. Shaking from head to foot, looking
deadly pale, speaking low, vehemently, yet with diffi-
culty, he made me for the first time feel what it costs a
man to declare affection where he doubts response. . . .
He spoke of sufferings he had borne for months, of
sufferings he could endure no longer, and craved leave
for some hope."
But what hope could Charlotte give ? What could
she say ? She knew not what to do. She found it
hard to be cruel, very hard, even though only in order
to be kind. So she took the line of least resistance,
and asked Mr. Nicholls first to refer the matter to her
father. She had a very shrewd idea as to what would
be his opinion ; so also had Mr. Nicholls. He dared
not, he said, approach Mr. Bronte — alone at any rate.
Charlotte replied that she would go with him — and
hated herself for saying so. But her hopes had not
deceived her. Mr. Bronte", in fact, grew inordinately
angry when he heard of his curate's audacity, and so
violently did he swear and rave at the unhappy man
that even Charlotte was moved to indignation and to
pity, forgetful for the moment that her father was
acting exactly as she had hoped he would.
287
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
The truth is, Mr. Bronte, having never in his life
done anything to help his daughter, attributed her
success almost entirely to his own unaided efforts.
Charlotte knew this ; she knew that her father now
longed to see her make a brilliant marriage. Hence
her appeal to him. And hence, also, what happened
subsequently. By his very violence, in fact, Mr. Bronte
did much to defeat both his own and Charlotte's object,
for where pity ends and love begins no man can say,
the one often is mistaken for the other ; and pity
Mr. Bronte most certainly had awakened in his
daughter's heart, pity and a sense of real regret for her
brutal conduct.
But surely Mr. Nicholls' wretched, hapless lot would
have stirred any woman's pity. For days, the unhappy
man neither ate nor spoke, refusing to see anybody, barely
moving outside the door of his house, the pattern of
abject misery.
And his behaviour puzzled Charlotte greatly. Was
his distress genuine ? Or was he suffering merely from
a wounded pride ? She could not tell. " He never was
agreeable or amiable," she wrote, " and is less so now
than ever, and alas ! I do not know him well enough to
be sure that there is truth and true affection or only
rancour and corroding disappointment at the bottom of
his chagrin. In this state of things I must be and I am
entirely passive. I may be losing the purest gem, and to
me far the most precious life can give — genuine attach-
ment— or I may be escaping the yoke of a morose temper."
288
THE HUSBAND OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE
Yet could her woman's instincts not have known
the truth ? Surely they must have told her that she was
robbing herself of that very gift which she required to
make her life complete. Be this as it may, she did not
yet relent. Nor yet did Arthur Nicholls abandon hope ;
still he clung grimly to his post. Not until the follow-
ing May did he at last admit defeat and decide to go
away from Haworth.
Then, on the eve of his departure, he called at
the rectory to bid farewell to the man with whom he
had worked for ten long years. The vicar received
him alone; and Mr. Nicholls left the house without
even hearing Charlotte's voice. " But," the latter wrote
afterwards, " perceiving that he stayed long before
going out of the gate and remembering his long grief,
I took courage, and went out, trembling and miserable.
I found him leaning against the garden door in a
paroxysm of anguish, sobbing as a woman never
sobbed. Of course, I went straight to him. Very
few words were exchanged, those few barely articulate.
Several things I should have liked to ask him were
swept entirely from my memory. Poor fellow ! But
he wanted such hope and encouragement as I could
never give him."
It was a sorry scene. " However," was Charlotte's
comment, " he is gone — gone, and there's an end to it."
Yes ; but an end which proved merely to be the true
beginning. After Mr. Nicholls' departure, Charlotte
felt strangely lonely at Haworth ; a sort of emptiness
u 289
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
crept into her life ; and the future now loomed before
her, blank and desolate. " In all this," she wrote, " it
is not I who am to be pitied at all, and, of course, nobody
pities me. They all think in Haworth that I have dis-
dainfully refused him. If pity would do Mr. Nicholls
any good, he ought to have and I believe has it."
But Charlotte needed pity too ; in her heart she knew
it. The villagers had understood Mr. Nicholls better
than she had. Perhaps then, she felt, after all they
were right in their belief. Perhaps she had thrown
deliberately away that which to her was the most
precious gem that life could offer — a " genuine attach-
ment." And she regretted bitterly her hasty action.
Mr. Bronte, also, regretted his. He missed his late
curate sadly, for, although he tried several in his place,
he could not find another who suited him.
So it came about that, one day in April, 1854,
his daughter timidly suggested that he should ask
Mr. Nicholls to return. Her father wondered at the
suggestion, but consented to it, although he knew — so
of course did Charlotte — what that return would mean.
Mr. Nicholls knew also. That perhaps was why he came.
And he came immediately.
IV
" While thankful," Charlotte wrote, a few weeks
later, " to One who seems to have guided me through
much difficulty, much and deep distress and perplexity
of mind, I am still very calm, very inexpectant. What
290
THE HUSBAND OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE
I taste of happiness is of the soberest order. I trust
my husband. I am grateful for his tender love to me.
I believe him to be an affectionate, a conscientious, a
high-principled man ; and if with this I should yield to
regrets that fine talents, congenial tastes and thoughts
are not added, it seems to me I should be most pre-
sumptuous and thankless."
Nor had Mr. Nicholls been deceived in himself. He
knew exactly what were Charlotte's feelings for him ;
knew that she entertained for him no more than a respect
and passive liking. But he had no fears for the future ;
he relied on the strength of his own great devotion in
the end to win her for him utterly. And in this spirit
he almost forced her to become his wife, this woman
who had known so many of life's sorrows, so few of its
joys.
The ceremony was performed very quietly in the little
church at Haworth on the 29th of June. And on that
day ended the career of the author of " Jane Eyre,"
"Shirley," and " Villete." Thenceforth she ceased to be
a novelist. She found it impossible to work and also be
a wife. " Whenever Arthur is in," she declared, " I
must have occupations in which he can share, or which
will not at least divert my attention from him — thus a
multitude of little matters get put off till he goes out,
and then I am quite busy."
Exacting, Arthur Nicholls may have been, but such
he intended to be ; he wished to have a woman for his
wife, not merely a genius. Despite, then, his little
291
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
tyrannies, he proved himself a rare, devoted husband ;
and Charlotte never had occasion to regret that she
had married him. At any rate, she wedded in strict
accordance with her own philosophy. "No young lady,"
— so she once declared — " should fall in love till the
offer has been made, accepted, the marriage ceremony
performed, and the first half-year of wedded life has
passed away."
In applying her own theories to herself, however,
Charlotte made two mistakes. When she married,
she forgot that she was no longer a young lady ; and,
before falling in love, she waited not for a half, but
nearly a whole year.
It was the 3ist of March, in fact, 1855, Mrs.
Nicholls, then on the verge of motherhood, woke from
a long and heavy sleep — and, opening her tired eyes,
looked around her. Then she noticed her husband. He
was kneeling at her bedside, praying.
Feebly she stretched out her hand towards him. "I'm
not going to die, am I ?" she said. "He will not separate
us. We have been so happy." The words were barely
audible, but they were almost the last that Charlotte
Bronte ever said. Her mission in life already had been
fulfilled.
A few hours later a solemn booming of the bell
above the church told Haworth that the last of the
parson's children had sunk into her final sleep.
Then Mr. Nicholls once more went out into the world
alone — a man who had loved once, but surely not in vain.
292
King George III
and Hannah Lightfoot
GEORGE, PRINCE OF WALES
AFTERWARDS KING GEORGE III
From an engraving after a painting by R. Houston
XI
KING GEORGE III
AND HANNAH LIGHTFOOT
HE reputed marriage of King George III and
Hannah Lightfoot is one of the most pro-
found and fascinating mysteries in all the
annals of romance. Nothing can be proved
with certainty concerning it ; it is as traditional as the
story of King Alfred burning the cakes. For this
reason, some people cleverly maintain that Hannah
Lightfoot was a myth. But this is ridiculous.
Undoubtedly she existed. Undoubtedly King
George III, as Prince of Wales, met her, loved
her, and eloped with her. But what happened after
this no man can tell ; the veil of mystery is impene-
trable. Did the Prince marry her ? Did he have
children by her ? Where did she live ? When did
she die ? One can only conjecture. Documentary
evidence is scant and unreliable.
Still, there are countless legends, and legend in-
variably is based at least on fact. Besides, so many are
the legends, and from such different sources do they
spring, that it would be absurd to regard them all as
295
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
fiction. In detail they may be false; in substance they
must be true. And it is from this tangled mass of
legend and tradition that the story of the romance, as
printed on these pages, has been woven into a con-
secutive narrative. Of course, it cannot claim to be
authentic. None the less, it approaches surely very
near the truth. Perhaps the very mystery which sur-
rounds the facts supports this argument.
Secrets are not kept without good reason.
The love affairs of most royal personages are common
knowledge. King George IV's entanglement with Mrs.
Fitzherbert, for example, was recognized even in public.
But in that case there was no need for mystery, the
Hanoverian dynasty being then firmly established on
the throne. Besides, the Royal Marriage Act of 1772,
which made it impossible for a member of the Royal
Family to marry without the King's consent, ipso facto,
rendered the union legally invalid.
When George III, on the other hand, is alleged to
have married Hannah Lightfoot, this Bill had not been
passed. By right, therefore, the Quaker bride would,
in due course, have become Queen ; her descendants
heirs to the throne ; and the King himself, after his
subsequent marriage to Princess Charlotte, guilty of
an offence no less than bigamy.
Hence the need for secrecy. Yet how that secret
came to be preserved is a truth utterly mysterious ;
though one, it may be, which throws a not ungracious
light both upon George and Hannah. The woman,
296
KING GEORGE III AND HANNAH LIGHTFOOT
at any rate — be this story more than idle fable — clearly
did not marry for position ; she married because she
loved, and she asked only for love in return for the love
she gave. Unlike the Court ladies of her day, Hannah
was not an ambitious, self-seeking woman, but, in reality,
the dear, sweet, simple little Quaker girl of legend.
And, as such, George loved her, loved her dearly.
Of this there can be no doubt. Not until he became
King did he desert her and take to himself a royal
consort. And he hated himself even then for doing
so; indeed — and this is the truth — he yielded to the
advice of his ministers only in obedience to that
real sense of public duty which was his, and which
singles him out, despite his faults, as at least the most
sincere and noble-hearted man among the Hanoverian
Kings.
What Hannah Lightfoot meant to him he told to
no man. This stands greatly to his credit, for he
lived, it must be remembered, in an age when a man
was esteemed among his fellows in proportion to the
number and the daring of his love affairs. It was
fashionable to be a cad.
The status of women, in fact, and the ideal of woman-
hood never have been lower than they were during
the days of George's boyhood. Marriage was a mere
name, a farce, a convenience, and, at any rate, prior to
the passing of the " Act for the Preventing of Clandes-
tine Marriages,'1 in 1753 — an Act, incidentally, which
met with unqualified opposition from almost every
297
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
section of the community — the holy state of matrimony
was literally an odious commodity, bought and sold in
an open market.
Between October 19, 1704, and February 12, 1705,
no fewer than 2,942 marriages were " solemnized " at
the Fleet alone, without the publication of banns, even
without licence ; whilst at his chapel in Brookfield
Market Place, now Curzon Street, the notorious
Alexander Keith united in a single day as many as one
hundred couples.
This amazing gentleman readily dispensed with all
formality. He asked no awkward questions, he made
no inquiries ; the presence of witnesses— provided,
of course, that he received his fees — he regarded
as quite unnecessary; he did not even insist upon the
signing of the register. And, on more than one occa-
sion, he is said to have married a woman to another
woman in order to enable her thereby to evade her
debts by saying that she had a husband somewhere
who could be held responsible for them.
Now Keith was but one among many. The Church,
in fact, had fallen into a lamentable state of debasement ;
and her servants, especially the lower clergy, tempted,
no doubt, by the wretched smallness of their stipends,
instead of acting as the guardians of morality, grew fat
and rich and profligate by legalizing vice.
On several occasions, Pennant declared, writing in
1778, while walking in the neighbourhood of the Fleet
prison, he had been accosted by the parson, who prowled
298
KING GEORGE III AND HANNAH LIGHTFOOT
up and down outside, and tempted with this question :
" Sir, will you be pleased to walk in and be married ? "
And there were countless so-called clergymen willing to
perform such ceremonies. A dram of gin or a roll
of tobacco often proved reward enough. Yet, accord-
ing to the law, bigamy was a crime punishable with
death.
Now this state of affairs, incredible though it may
seem, has an important bearing on the story of Hannah
Lightfoot. Perhaps, too, it helps further to account for
the mystery which surrounds her life. At any rate, as
King, George gave ample proof of his good endeavours
to preserve the sanctity of marriage in this country, and
to promote the dignity of women. During his reign,
in fact, more was done by legislation to achieve this end
than during any other age in history. Perhaps, then,
one is justified in saying that, as Prince of Wales, he
had the good taste to rise above the meanness of his
environment and to be so foolish as to entertain a pure
and noble passion for a pure and noble woman.
George loved Hannah Lightfoot; loved her as a
woman should be loved, and reverenced her. So he
kept his love a secret. It was much too precious
to be paraded before the vulgar gaze, much too sacred
to be corroded by the breath of scandal. Is this an
unreasonable theory ?
As a king, George III has been much maligned; and
there still is a tendency to scoff at and belittle his talents.
Still, in spite of all, it was while he sat on the
299
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
throne that Britain rose at last triumphant amid her
enemies, and established the mightiest empire in the
world. The work of great Ministers, you say. True-
but he is a great king who knows how to use to the
full the genius of his servants. Surely, then, one may
at least credit him with ideals both as a monarch and a
man.
These ideals his mother implanted in him. She
was a really good woman — perhaps this explains
her intense unpopularity in the country — and from
the very outset determined to prevent her son from
becoming tainted by the profligacy of the Court. And
the Court of his grandfather, King George II, was
notorious even among the notorious Courts of Europe.
But the heir to the throne, thanks to a mother's wisdom,
passed his childhood in comparative seclusion at Leicester
House. There he lived in an atmosphere of almost
suburban respectability. Nor did he suffer through
it. On the contrary, although a son of the disreputable
Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales, he grew to become
a clean, healthy-minded young Englishman. UA nice
boy," one writer calls him. It is a fitting description.
Brilliant he may not have been ; but he possessed a
goodly store of common sense, and to a prince this is a
quality perhaps of greater value even than are brains.
What is more, unlike his forbears, he was gifted with
imagination, and something approaching a real love for
beauty. Thus he became a patron of the arts, not
merely because he happened to have been born a prince,
300
KING GEORGE III AND HANNAH LIGHTFOOT
but because he appreciated lovely things, and liked to
associate with, and use his power of honouring, those
who made them.
Is it to be wondered at, then, that he became a
sentimentalist ? Surely it is only the natural corol-
lary. At any rate, he did become a sentimentalist.
And this is the only answer that can be given to those
who laugh at the suggestion that, at the age of fifteen-
and-a-half, he could have fallen seriously in love — this,
and the fact that at the age of fifteen-and-a-half he did
fall seriously in love, and needless to say with a woman
much older than himself. But, in those days, it was
only fit and proper for a boy to fall in love ; one
could not begin too young. Besides, there is such a
thing as calf-love. What does Calverley say ?
" The people say that she was blue,
But I was green, and loved her dearly ;
She was approaching thirty-two
And I was eleven, nearly."
Some authorities, incidentally, declare that George was
only eleven years of age when first he met Hannah
Lightfoot. This, it would seem, is doubtful. None
the less, there is a delightful picture of the boy prince
dallying, during a stay at Hampton Court, with the
object of his youthful passion.
" On Richmond Hill there lives a lass
More bright than May-day morn ;
Whose charms all other maids surpass,
A rose without a thorn.
301
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
This lass so neat^ with smile so sweet,
Hath won my right good will ;
I'd crowns resign to call thee mine,
Sweet lass of Richmond Hill."
Still, one must pass this story by as fable. Besides,
there is no need to burden Hannah Lightfoot with the
onerous rtle of the "Sweet lass of Richmond Hill'*;
she is sufficiently fascinating alone as the " Fair Quaker."
And as such George first saw her some time later ; in
fact one evening when going to the opera with his
parents.
ii
Now the Opera House then occupied the site at
present filled by His Majesty's Theatre, and apparently
at the back of the building was an entrance specially
reserved for the use of the Royal Family. This door
opened into Market Street, a narrow passage which ran
from Pall Mall to Jermyn Street. Now at the Pall Mall
corner of Market Street stood the shop of a certain Mr.
Wheeler, a linen draper, and, it would seem, a successful
one — perhaps because he always kept a cask of good ale
with which to regale his customers.
Now it was there, sitting in the shop window to watch
the royal procession pass, that Prince George first saw
Hannah Lightfoot.
At the time he could have had but a fleeting glance of
her, for the royal party were as usual proceeding to the
opera in chairs, attended only by footmen and, perhaps, a
302
KING GEORGE III AND HANNAH LIGHTFOOT
dozen Yeomen of the Guard. But that one glance was
enough. George had seen and had been conquered.
Nor later did the vision of the blushing maiden's beauty
prove to have been a sweet illusion.
But how came Hannah to be at Mr. Wheeler's shop ?
Well, partly because Mr. Wheeler was a Quaker, and
therefore a man given to good works ; but chiefly
because he had need of somebody to assist him in the
management of his business, and, incidentally, of his
large and growing family.
As a matter of fact, Hannah was his niece, the
only daughter, it would seem, of his sister, Mary,
whose husband, Matthew Lightfoot, shoemaker, of
Wapping, had died in 1732, leaving his family in
desperate poverty. Perhaps, then, the girl had been
fortunate to find a home in her uncle's house. But she
had to work there ; indeed, every moment of her day
was occupied — not that she objected, for being a Quaker,
work came to her as second nature. Still, despite her
Quaker training, perhaps because of it, she took a very
live interest in the grand world and in people of high
degree. So it happened that on the evening in ques-
tion she came to be sitting in the shop window — after
closing hour — a demure and charming little figure.
Now perhaps it was this, her very simplicity, which
won Prince George's fancy. In her sombre but dainty
Quaker dress, unpainted, unpatched, quite free from
artificiality, she must have appeared in delightfully
refreshing contrast to the ladies with whom normally he
303
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
came in contact, for, as already has been said, George
was " a nice boy." And without a doubt the little shop
girl was very beautiful. Indeed, an unknown writer
has declared, "With her dainty little head running over
with golden curls, large blue eyes dancing with merri-
ment or mischief, dimpled cheeks with a bloom as delicate
as any peach, and with as petite a figure as that of a sylph,
we cannot wonder that Hannah, whose charms were
enhanced by her demure Quaker dress, set going pit-a-
pat the hearts of every gallant whose eyes fell on so fair
a vision."
Unfortunately, this dainty description does not tally
with the only known portrait of Hannah, a painting
by Sir Joshua Reynolds — and why did Sir Joshua
paint her if this story be all a myth ? Here she
is seen as a dark-eyed girl, with an expression hauntingly
sad and pensive. But this picture belongs to a later
date when sorrow had already told its tale upon her
face.
Still petite, Hannah most certainly could not have
been. Short, it is true, she was ; but short and plump
— " rather disposed to embonpoint" one critic tactfully
remarks. And as " the possessor of a fair, unsullied
face," she could not fail, we are told, to attract attention
at a time when small-pox had left but few women un-
marked.
Be this as it may, Hannah was pretty — fact and
legend are unanimous — bewitchingly pretty. She
enslaved the Prince immediately. One glance was
304
HANNAH LIGHTFOOT
From an engraving after a painting by Sir Joshua Reynolds
KING GEORGE III AND HANNAH UGHTFOOT
enough. Henceforth he found frequent occasion to
attend the opera ; Market Street came invariably to
be included in the itinerary of his daily walks and
daily rides ; and, it is said, he used often to visit
Mr. Wheeler's shop, and there — for I suspect that
Mr. Wheeler dealt mainly in ladies' underclothing —
buy the most useless and absurd apparel.
Now could Hannah have been so innocent as not
to guess the reason of this patronage ? She may have
been a simple little maid, but still she was a woman,
and somewhere within her woman's soul she must have
entertained a woman's hopes, ambitions, and love for
admiration. And the admiration of Prince George — it
was not a gift lightly to be waived aside.
He was an attractive boy, taller than most of the
Hanoverian princes, strong, well-made and dignified,
with a clear complexion, regular features, twinkling
eyes, and the very whitest of white teeth ; in fact, he
just what an English prince should be. And his
smile — it even turned the hearts of the blase ladies
about Court. But they never saw the ardent love-
glances which Hannah saw !
Surely, then, although he was six or seven years her
junior, clad in his princely clothes, his hair powdered,
a jewelled sword at his side, he must have appeared
to Hannah a veritable god. What a contrast to the
men whom she was accustomed to meet in her uncle's
parlour ! Yet that he would ever deign to speak to
her she hardly ventured to imagine, even in her dreams.
x 305
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
But the Prince, for his part, soon began to see that it
would be quite impossible for him to rest content for
ever, worshipping from afar, with only an occasional
stolen word upon which to feed his love. Something
must be done, and done immediately. That became
very clear. So he set about forthwith to find a
someone in whom he could confide, and who would
help him to gain the entree to that mysterious inner
room in Mr. Wheeler's house. But whom could he
seek ? That was his difficulty. The problem cer-
tainly was one which called for very discreet and serious
consideration.
in
Now George was no fool. And in selecting that
someone he displayed a wisdom worthy of a more
mature, experienced man. In short, his choice fell
upon Elizabeth Chudleigh, the arch-adventuress of the
day, the very woman to do what he required of her.
She had begun life in quite a humble way, but owing
partly to her own determination, and partly to her
beauty, had secured, at an absurdly early age, the
appointment of maid of honour to George's mother,
the Princess of Wales. And at Court, despite the
Princess's strict notions on decorum, she contrived to
lead a life of reckless gaiety, until, after playing havoc
with the hearts of every available and eligible member
of the peerage, she condescended eventually to bestow
her hand upon the youthful Duke of Hamilton.
306
KING GEORGE III AND HANNAH LIGHTFOOT
While he was abroad, however, completing his educa-
tion she carried on a violent flirtation with a young
naval officer, called Hervey — of course, merely pour
passer le temps^ for Hervey, being only a nephew to the
Earl of Bristol, was, in Elizabeth's eyes, hardly worth
worrying about, although, it is true, he stood a very
fair chance of succeeding to the barony of Howard de
Walden and a half of the estates of the Earl of Ports-
mouth.
Still, what was this in comparison to a duke-
dom ? A mere nothing. But, alas, contrary to the
old adage about fond hearts and absence, her ducal
lover, while abroad, seemed to forget completely the
existence of the fair enchantress awaiting him at home.
Never a word did she hear from him. And, as perhaps
was only natural, piqued by this seeming indifference,
she allowed her affaire with the other man to become
more serious, until at last, partly because she could see
no other means of satisfying Hervey's adoration, but
mainly because the idea struck her as being romantic
and bizarre, she eloped with him.
What she had done in haste she began immediately
to repent at leisure. Indeed, the folly of her act was
only too apparent. And to make matters worse, she
did not even like the man whom she had married.
How could she then have been so silly, she angrily
demanded of herself, as to endanger her position at
Court by contracting such an alliance ? Fortunately
Hervey had gone to sea soon after the ceremony. For
307
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
the present, then, her secret was safe. Of course, many
people must have guessed the truth, but this did not
perturb Elizabeth greatly ; she made a point of know-
ing so many of other people's secrets that nobody
dared retail her own. She knew this. And so, when
it suited her convenience, she had no compunction in
herself declaring the marriage null and void. Nor did
she even trouble to secure a judicial confirmation of
her own decree. It was absurd, she thought, to regard
so haphazard and slipshod a contract as legally binding.
In 1769, therefore, when the opportunity presented
itself, she allowed herself duly, and without a single
twinge of conscience, to be wedded to the Duke
of Kingston. The wedding was the most brilliant
social function of the season ; for days it was the talk
of London ; and King George III, accompanied by
his queen, attended the ceremony in person.
No sooner had she become Duchess of Kingston
than Hervey, quite unexpectedly, succeeded to a vast
fortune and the earldom of Bristol ! Such a contin-
gency Elizabeth never for a moment had anticipated ;
she had no idea that even Fate could be so whimsical.
Still, she did not allow the humour of the situation to be
wasted on her ; and found much comfort in the thought
that it was certainly more interesting to be a duchess
and a bigamist than merely a humdrum, respectable
countess.
Still, she was somewhat worried ; her present
position, to say the least of it, was dangerous. But
308
KING GEORGE III AND HANNAH LIGHTFOOT
for a while everything went well ; so well, in fact,
that Elizabeth was just beginning to think she had
needlessly alarmed herself, when, with a paralysing
suddenness, the bomb of her own creation burst.
She found herself called upon to answer to a
charge of bigamy. At the time she was abroad —
in Rome, I believe ; where she had just been received
with almost regal honours by the Pope — and nothing
was further from her mind than the publicity of the
Law Courts.
At any rate — so she consoled herself — the inevitable
must happen sooner or later. Undaunted, therefore,
she claimed her rights as Countess of Bristol (!),
and insisted on the case being heard in the House of
Lords.
Of course, she lost it. But defeat did not drain her
resources. England had become impossible to her ;
that was all. So she set about to find fresh worlds to
conquer, and, what is more, she conquered them — first,
the Court of Russia, then that of Frederick the Great.
Such, then, was the woman whom Prince George
chose as his confidante. And how could he have made
a wiser choice ? One surely can picture Elizabeth
listening to the shy story of his love, caressing him
with her voice, sympathizing with his chivalry, pro-
mising her help, and all the while wondering how much
she stood to make out of the transaction.
Far in these, the early days of her career, money was
essential to her — she had none save what she earned by
309
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
her wits. But George, no doubt, cared nothing for the
expense ; at any rate when he found that his agent arranged
everything to perfection, and enabled him to keep safe
and secret trysts with his little Quaker girl at the house
of a certain Mr. Perryn, who lived in the village of
Knightsbridge.
These meetings were very bliss indeed ; they
amply justified the cost. And, since Mr. Perryn was
one of Hannah's uncles, his house, of coursej was
an eminently proper place of meeting. Elizabeth
Chudleigh must have wheedled the man very cleverly.
Indeed, despite his austere Quakerism, she made him
quite romantic, and, when he died, he left Hannah an
annuity of ^40.
But, before long, news of those secret meetings
reached the ears of the Prince's mother, and his tutor,
the Earl of Bute. They very easily put one and one
together, and although they thought the affair to be
merely a youthful infatuation, decided that it must be
stopped immediately.
But how ? To whom, could so delicate a mis-
sion be entrusted ? Why not to Elizabeth Chud-
leigh ? Bute hated the woman — she knew too much
about him — none the less, he admitted her quali-
fications. In his opinion, he said, the Princess could
not make a better choice. And so the matter was
settled, for Elizabeth, needless to say, accepted the task
readily ; the situation appealed to her ; it seemed to
provide infinite possibilities of artistic treatment. Besides,
310
KING GEORGE III AND HANNAH LIGHTFOOT
with careful management, her dual duties should prove
highly remunerative.
First, then, she set to work to pacify the Prince's
mother. There was nothing to worry about, she said.
A husband must be found for Hannah. That was all.
Probably she would live very happily with him.
And King Cophetua would very soon forget his
little beggar-maid.
What could be simpler ?
Then, no doubt, she spun a similar story to Mr.
Wheeler, appealing to his Quaker conscience to assist
her in removing the girl from danger. Now Mr.
Wheeler, thoroughly alarmed by Mistress Chudleigh's
words — until then he had no idea that the blight of
royal favour had fallen on one of the daughters of his
house — readily agreed to every proposition that she
made. In fact, he knew not how to be grateful enough
to this dazzling lady who had come from Court most
graciously to help him in his hour of need, and to
avert from his Quaker home so unthinkable a tragedy
as scandal.
Together, the two of them, the anxious draper and
the arch-adventuress, set about to find a mate for
Hannah. Eventually they chose a man named Axford,
the son of a grocer who lived on Ludgate Hill. Why
they selected him, it is not easy to understand, for
he was much younger than Hannah, and apparently
one of the very few men who did not want to marry
her. But fortunately he was poor, and the promise of
311
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
a handsome dower served admirably as a bribe. And,
indeed, it should have. A handsome dower, a hand-
some wife — grocers' assistants do not meet with such
offers every day ! Immediately, therefore, a ceremony
was arranged. It took place on December n, 1753,
at Keith's celebrated chapel.
But Hannah ! Cannot one picture her feelings, and
pity her, as she stood before the altar by the side ot
this mean little grocer's assistant ? Demure, obedient
little girl, she had not courage to resist ; none the
less, sorrow and disappointment surged through her
pulses. " Place not your trust in princes — place not
your trust in princes." The saying echoed and re-
echoed through her mind. Now, at last, she realized
its truth.
And yet, was not her prince, her George the very
pattern of all chivalry ? Oh why, then, she prayed,
as mechanically she swore " to love, cherish, and to
obey" a man whom she disliked intensely, could he not
come and, like the princes of her fairy tales, save her
from her hideous fate ?
That love's young dream should end thus abruptly —
it was more than she could bear. Place and power, she
cared for neither ; love was all she wanted, the love of
her gay young cavalier. Tears, bitter tears, aught
but bride-like, welled to her eyes as, leaning on her
husband's arm, she walked slowly down the chancel
steps, down the aisle, and so out of the church.
At that very moment a coach dashed up, drawn by
312
KING GEORGE III AND HANNAH LIGHTFOOT
four steaming horses. It stopped before the church.
A man jumped out. A moment later Hannah was
lying helpless in his arms, being lifted bodily into the
carriage. A postillion slammed the door. A whip
cracked. And, before the poor startled little bride had
time to realize what was happening, the heavy carriage
rolled away, leaving the new - fledged bridegroom
standing, amazed and helpless, in the doorway of the
church.
Just then a woman slipped away unnoticed through
the curious little crowd which had assembled. She
had come purposely to witness this comedy, and her
eyes sparkled with merriment.
The woman was Elizabeth Chudleigh.
And presently, when Hannah dared open her eyes
again, she found herself seated in the coach by the side
of George, Prince of Wales !
IV
Until that dramatic moment when he arrived
before the church, the Prince, of course, had been
sublimely ignorant as to Hannah's intended marriage.
But surely he must have realized something was wrong.
Perhaps Elizabeth had told him that his mother was
watching him, and that for the present, therefore, he
must neither communicate with nor expect to hear from
Hannah. No doubt, this explanation satisfied. He
trusted his agent implicitly.
3 13
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Then suddenly one morning — the morning of Decem-
ber ii — he received word from her, bidding him hasten
to Keith's Chapel with all speed, prepared for any
emergency.
Forthwith he summoned his coach — by some strange
chance he found it ready, waiting ! — jumped in, and set
out for Mayfair. Not a moment had been wasted, and
he arrived before Keith's Chapel just as the bride and
bridegroom were emerging. At a glance he realized the
situation. To delay, obviously would be fatal. With
scant courtesy, therefore, as already has been shown, he
pushed Master Axford on one side, his body quivering
with emotion, his eyes aflame with love and anger,
seized Hannah in his arms, and bundled her into the
coach, shouting to the postillions to drive — drive any-
where. They had already received their orders ; and
the coach rumbled off.
But Master Axford, what of him ? What did he do ?
For a moment, dazed and bewildered by the suddenness
of the unexpected, he knew not what to think, or how
to act.
At this one cannot wonder. Romance — Romance
with a big R — very, very rarely penetrated the small
world in which he lived. He was merely a grocer's
assistant, quite dull, very respectable. And, really, the
situation in which he found himself might have surprised
a man very much more experienced in such matters.
Yet Master Axford, for all that, was a man of spirit.
It is true he cared but little for Hannah ; he had
' 3H
KING GEORGE III AND HANNAH LIGHTFOOT
married mainly for her dower, and that he had received
already. None the less, he could not stand tamely by,
and allow her to be kidnapped on her wedding-day
before his very eyes. No man can tolerate being
fooled.
So he called bravely for a horse. Some one lent him
one. He mounted in haste, and perhaps none too grace-
fully, gathered the reins in his hands, and set out in hot
pursuit. But a long start had been secured by the
Prince's coach, and now it appeared no more than a
speck in the^far distance. Still, the untrammelled horse-
man gained ground rapidly, and soon approached within
hailing distance. At yonder turnpike, surely he could
not fail to overtake the fugitives. He dared even to
rein in his horse a little, and, summoning all the courage
and dignity at his command, schooled himself for the
great moment.
But then— "Royal Family! Royal Family ! "—he
could hear the voice of the postillion clearly. Instantly
the gate swung open, and the coach passed through
without being checked, even for a minute, in its mad,
reckless course. But before the horseman could follow,
the heavy barrier had closed again with a clang of
triumph.
" Zounds ! " Utterly exasperated, and, indeed, not
without reason, Master Axford waxed angry, and
fumbled in his pockets for a coin. Haste made him
clumsy ; and his indignation, instead of hurrying the
turnpike man, only provoked him to ribald merriment.
315
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
Thus several precious minutes were wasted before the
outraged husband found himself again upon the road ;
and by that time the coach had already disappeared from
sight. Still he hastened forward, and now with a renewed
determination, until at length he arrived at cross roads.
Here his troubles began in very earnest. Which way
had the fugitives taken ? He could only guess. So
he tried each road in turn ; but without success. He
had lost them, lost them utterly ; and from then until
the day of his death, he neither saw nor heard again
from Hannah Lightfoot. She vanished completely.
Nor can posterity even trace her wanderings. What
remains to be told of her history is pure conjecture.
That on April 17, 1759, she went through some form
of marriage with the Prince of Wales, this may be
accepted as tolerably authentic. What happened sub-
sequently is all mysterious.
It would seem, however, that after he had successfully
eluded Master Axford, the Prince drove Hannah to
some safe place of refuge, either at Kew or Richmond —
perhaps ultimately he took her to the house of his old
friend, Mr. Perryn of Knightsbridge. There, at any
rate, he could continue his rudely interrupted wooing
without further danger, and without offending the
proprieties, while making definite arrangement for the
future. Something of this sort must have happened,
since, for a while, Hannah continued to communicate
regularly with her mother.
These letters, though not available for reproduction,
KING GEORGE III AND HANNAH LIGHTFOOT
are, it is said, still in existence, and in them frequent
reference is made to " a Person," " a certain Person,"
"the Person." Now, who could this "Person" have
been ?
Master Axford ? No, surely not ; Hannah had no
occasion to allude to him so guardedly. Then the
Prince ? Ah ! who else ? And in her letters Hannah
makes it clear how much she loved him, and how
implicitly she trusted him. So long as it was in his
keeping, she had no fear for the future. At this time,
then, George must have had, at any rate, free and easy
access to her.
But quite suddenly those letters ceased ; and thence-
forth it is impossible to find anywhere an authentic
reference to Hannah Lightfoot. What happened no
man can tell ; even legend is silent. Perhaps some one
betrayed the lovers. Or perhaps — this is the most
likely theory — Bute and the Prince's mother, for a
second time surprised their secret, and forthwith
took steps — possibly again with Elizabeth Chudleigh's
connivance — to whisk the girl away to some place where
George could not even hope to find her.
Be this as it may, in some way the secret leaked out,
or something happened which made it necessary for the
Prince and Hannah temporarily, at any rate, to separate.
And it is a significant fact that, at about this same time,
the Society of Friends should solemnly have expelled
Hannah from their order. It would be ridiculous to
maintain that so severe a step was taken simply because
31?
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
she married Isaac Axford. He was an eminently re-
spectable young man, quite eligible, and, although not
himself a Quaker, certainly came of a Quaker family.
Moreover, although the Society of Friends discussed
the affairs of Hannah Lightfoot at several meetings,
not once is her husband mentioned by name in the
minute-book.
Surely, then, it was not to the Axford marriage that
the good Quakers took exception, but to Hannah's
subsequent entanglement with the Prince. The Quakers
certainly knew something — something which they dared
not voice in public or in that plain-spoken language
which is the proud boast of their order.
But George was far too ardent a young wooer to be
baffled by so small an obstacle as the disappearance of
his lady-love. Find her he would ; he swore to himself
that he would never rest until he had. Mystery only
whetted his determination.
And find her he did — eventually. Where or when
or how is not on record. All that can be said is that he
found her, and that, on April 17, 1759, he married her.
But how could he marry her ? Was she not already
wedded to Isaac Axford ? 1
1 According to one theory, the Prince really was married to Hannah
Lightfoot at Keith's Chapel on December n, 1753, Axford acting
merely as proxy at the ceremony. This is an ingenious belief and by no
means unromantic. Nor does it disprove the story as narrated in these
pages. On the contrary it merely makes it necessary to regard the sub-
sequent elopement as a splendid piece of bluff, magnificently stage-managed,
perfectly acted. And this perhaps is not at all improbable.
318
KING GEORGE III AND HANNAH LIGHTFOOT
Of course she was. But according to the terms of the
Act for Preventing Clandestine Marriages, the marriage
would certainly have been held invalid. Now, although
it did not come into force until Lady Day, 1754, the
Bill had been passed by Parliament in June, 1753, six
months prior to the Axford-Lightfoot wedding. From
its provisions, moreover, Jews, Quakers (both sects
have strict ceremonials of their own), and members
of the Royal Family were deliberately excluded.
It might have been passed, then, directly to accom-
modate George and Hannah, for Axford, being neither
Jew nor Quaker, was bound down to its terms, whilst
Hannah, being a Quaker, and George, a member of
the Royal Family, were left free to marry as they
liked.
The Society of Friends alone could take exception
to Hannah's actions, and they had taken exception
already, and emphatically.
And then, again, even the conscientious Master Axford
eventually took the law into his own hands and, with-
out troubling to have his former marriage rescinded, led
another woman to the altar — this time the lady of his
choice, a certain Mary Bartlett.
Before taking this step, it is true, he waited six long
years, and left no stone unturned which might reveal a
clue to Hannah's whereabouts. So perhaps one cannot
regard his action as unjustified. Nor was it so rash
as it may seem. At any rate, Master Axford had no
occasion to fear a charge of bigamy, since a public
319
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
inquiry into his affairs would clearly lead to undesirable
disclosures.
Even he was shrewd enough to realize this, and
shrewd enough,^ moreover, to delay his marriage with
Mary Bartlett until the summer of 1759. Now George
is alleged to have married Hannah Lightfoot in
the April of that self-same year. Certainly, then, it
would seem that Axford had heard of that ceremony,
heard enough, at any rate, to make him feel safe in
following his future monarch's lead.
But did George go through a form of marriage with
Hannah Lightfoot ? That is the important question.
Officially, of course, the marriage has been denied re-
peatedly ; reasons of State have rendered such denials
necessary.
None the less, a just and impartial consideration
of the evidence can lead only to one verdict. In
the first place, although hot-headed and impetuous,
George, Prince of Wales, was not a rake. He was
" a nice boy," and it is most improbable that he would
have been content merely with an irregular alliance. And
it is surely still more improbable that Hannah ever
would have sanctioned such a tie — even with a prince.
She had been trained strictly as a Quaker and is known
to have been a girl with deep convictions. Nor did
George escape their influence. He always took great
interest in the Quaker movement.
Again, there is the evidence of the marriage certifi-
cate. As a matter of fact, this probably is worthless,
320
KING GEORGE III AND HANNAH LIGHTFOOT
for two certificates have been produced. According
to the one the ceremony was performed at Kew, accord-
ing to the other, at Peckham. But both agree as to the
name of the officiating clergyman ; both, moreover, agree
as to the date. And the contention that some sort of
wedding did take place is perhaps supported by the
following document : —
"This is to certify to all it may concern that I
lawfully married George, Prince of Wales, to Hannah
Lightfoot, April iyth, 1759, and that two sons
and a daughter were their issue by such marriage.
"J. WILMOT,
" CHATHAM,
"J. DUNNING."
Now this and all other papers relating to the marriage
were produced in court in 1866, during the hearing
of the celebrated case of " Ryves v. Attorney-General."
Of course, they were condemned as forgeries ; the judges
had no alternative. But it is interesting to note that
they gave this opinion in spite of the fact that the hand-
writing expert called in by the Crown, a certain Mr.
Netherclift, a man of standing and sure integrity, de-
clared them to be genuine. A fiercely searching cross-
examination could not shake his belief that George
himself had signed the alleged certificates. Of Wilmot's
signature he was absolutely certain, and he honestly
believed those of Chatham and Dunning also to be
genuine.
Y 321
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
All these documents, moreover, since have been
impounded, and although kept at Somerset House,
nobody may see them — not even by paying the customary
shilling.
Perhaps, then, in spite of everything, this story is not
altogether mythical.
Be this as it may, the lovers' married happiness at any
rate could not have lasted long. Indeed, barely had
they been made man and wife when a new and crushing
misfortune befell them. George, Prince of Wales, found
himself suddenly raised to the dignity of King. And,
in one moment, love's castle, so laboriously constructed,
fell to the ground, shattered like a house of cards.
To be a king, in fact as well as name, the Prince had
been born, and nursed, and trained. " George, be King."
From earliest childhood an adoring mother had preached
this doctrine in his ears. To see him a great ruler, not
merely a figure-head, was the summit of her ambitions.
Nor was she to be disappointed ; the seeds of her advice
had not fallen upon barren ground.
Indeed, from the moment that he became King,
George III, resolved to be King and to be a good king.
The magic force of power seized hold of him, and held
him spellbound, while within him dawned the conscious-
ness of a great responsibility. Kingship eliminated his
manhood ; self became absorbed in duty. And before
this, his duty to his country, his duty to the dynasty
322
KING GEORGE III AND HANNAH LIGHTFOOT
he represented, all other obligations faded into nothing-
ness. Opportunity, in short, had made the man, not
the man the opportunity.
But, as King, it behoved him before all things to
ensure the Protestant succession. Hitherto the sage
advice of counsellors who urged him to take a royal
consort to himself had moved him only to anger. Now
all was different. He needed an heir ; his people
demanded one of him. And so, after long and anxious
communion with himself — what were his true feelings
one can only imagine — he informed his astonished
Ministers that he had "come to a resolution to demand
in marriage the Princess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-
Strelitz, a princess distinguished by every eminent
virtue and amiable endowment.'*
He had never seen the lady, but rumour declared her
to be thoroughly domesticated, and very simple. So
George, perhaps, hoped to find in her a meek and worthy
consort, who would be able to interest herself in the
welfare of his poorer subjects without demanding from
him a love that he could never give. Forthwith, then,
he sent Lord Harcourt to her with a formal offer of
his hand.
The Princess was darning stockings when the am-
bassador arrived. Nor did she consider the nature of
his mission sufficiently important to justify her in ceasing
work. In fact, she listened to the proposal with the
most astonishing indifference ; then expressed herself
quite willing to comply with the King of England's
323
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
wishes ; and, after submitting to the customary ordeal
of a marriage by proxy, straightway set out to meet
her husband.
It was not a romantic scene, the meeting. Char-
lotte looked bored. George was absurdly nervous,
though he assured his mother later in the evening that
he already felt a " great affection " for the bride. This
was very tactful of him, for, although amiable, Char-
lotte could not lay claim to beauty.
" Her person," according to Horace Walpole, " was
small, and very lean, not well made ; her face
pale and homely, her nose somewhat flat and mouth
very large." But, despite these personal defects, Queen
Charlotte proved herself one of the best of the wives
of the Kings of England. Even Walpole was impressed
by the beauty of her hair. The people adored her.
And George at any rate respected and admired her
always. She almost won his love. Perhaps she would
have, had it not been bestowed already.
But to Hannah this gift had brought little comfort,
now that disgrace and contumely had been heaped
upon it. George, he who had sworn eternal love and
loyalty to her, had been faithless. It was this which
stabbed her like a knife. She did not understand that
duty ever could demand so big a sacrifice. A tender,
clinging little wife, she was not a great adventuress
gambling with life, but just a woman, innocent and very
human, a little shop-girl who loved with all her simple
soul.
324
KING GEORGE III AND HANNAH LIGHTFOOT
Position held no attractions for her ; she cared
not for place and power. Still, she was George's
wife, and, if she could not be his queen surely no other
woman could be. They were tears of shame, not
jealousy, which dimmed her eyes. To think that in
return for all that she had given, she must go out into
the world an exile, and be forced to wander, homeless
and forlorn, from place to place, so that no man might
know who or where she was. It seemed a cruel fate.
All that was left to her was a memory, the memory of
what might have been. And yet, brave little soul, for
the sake of this memory, she cheerfully obeyed love's
bidding.
After all, then, this is a very human story, despite its
complications and calamities. Nor can even the glamour
of romance deprive it of its sadness. There are no
letters, it is true, no treasured relics to recall the anxious
achings of Hannah's wounded heart. But this surely
only makes her love the more pathetic — and the more
noble, for not a single word of bitterness did she leave
behind her ; and only one of protest.
" Hannah Regina " — thus proudly she signed her will.
During her lifetime she made no endeavour to assert
her rights. This she did for George's sake ; she did
not wish to make his task more difficult. And he was
not ungrateful or unsympathetic. They, who suffer in
silence, suffer most. He knew this, and, although he
could not bring peace and happiness to the woman he
had wronged, he did not forget her children — and his.
325
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
The daughter ultimately married an officer in the In-
dian Army. And of the sons, the elder settled eventually
in America, after fighting bravely in the War of Inde-
pendence for his father and his King ; but the younger,
it would seem, was sent to South Africa, and there given
a large estate on condition that he would neither marry
nor return to England. In his case precautions were
necessary, for, it is said, he was the living image of his
father.
But what did Queen Charlotte know ? Probably
everything ; George himself, it may be, told her the
truth. At any rate, so long as Hannah lived she did
not believe herself to be the King's lawful wife, and,
after Hannah's death, insisted that he should marry her
again. The ceremony was performed secretly at Kew
in 1765. The exact date is not known ; nor is the
place of Hannah's burial.
But she did not die unmourned. " My father would
have been a happier man," King George IV is reported
to have said, " had he remained true to his marriage
with Hannah Lightfoot." Perhaps he would. And,
maybe, it was not merely the heavy crown of kingship
which later deprived him of his reason. There are
heavier burdens for the mind to bear even than the
cares of State.
326
The Story of Princess Amelia
PRINCESS AMELIA
an engraving by R. Graves after a fainting by Sir Thomas Lawrenc
XII
THE STORY OF PRINCESS AMELIA
(HIS is not a romance rich in daring deeds
of chivalry, in stirring episodes and powerful
situations. It is merely a little love story,
quite simple, very dainty. In fact, had the
heroine been other than the daughter of a king prob-
ably it would never have been written ; she would have
married the hero in the usual way, and with him, no
doubt, would have lived happily ever afterwards.
But the heroine was born the daughter of a king ; she
was a princess of the blood royal, and the heritage of
birth stood in her path of happiness, an insuperable
obstacle.
The path of true love, however, almost invariably
is beset with difficulties. And this is a platitude which
calls for no apology, since, laugh at it though one may,
one cannot despise it. At any rate, one cannot explain
it ; it is a mysterious truth which has echoed through-
out the ages, and still re-echoes. Love is a whimsical,
capricious force, utterly insensible to the fitness of
things. In this, perhaps, lies one of the secrets of its
infinite attractiveness.
329
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
But that Princess Amelia should have learned to love
a commoner was perhaps inevitable, if only for the
reason that she happened to be a daughter of King
George III, a monarch whose grey hairs literally were
brought to the grave by his own and the matrimonial
complications of his children. Indeed, almost without
exception, the members of his perverse and numerous
family, each followed the father's example, and con-
tracted or strove to contract a mhalliance.
No wonder, then, eventually he was forced to beg
Parliament to make it illegal for members of the
Royal Family to marry without the Crown's consent.
The amorous entanglements of his heir alone provided
sufficient reasons for the passing of such a measure.
Mrs. Fitzherbert, although, no doubt, in many ways an
admirable lady, obviously did not possess certain attri-
butes most necessary to a Queen of England. And
of seeking to make it possible for her to be recognized
as such, George, Prince of Wales, was absolutely
capable. This his father knew ; he knew only too
well that nothing gave the Prince greater joy than to be
able to do something calculated to cause annoyance, irre-
spective of the other consequences.
Still, one cannot help regretting that Amelia also
should have been infected with the family weakness.
Fate surely ought to have sent in her way some great
and brilliant, fascinating prince who would have loved
her, claimed her as his bride, and set her up as queen
of his dominions. It may be, Fate tried but
330
THE STORY OF PRINCESS AMELIA
failed to do so, for brilliant, fascinating princes are, no
doubt, so very few in number that it is quite impossible
always to find one for the youngest of the fifteen chil-
dren even of a King of England. At any rate, Princess
Amelia never found her prince. And so, presumably,
it came about that she lost her heart to a commoner.
But this was a lamentable happening. Amelia was
a girl whom neither the breath of scandal nor the breath
of sorrow ever should have been allowed to touch.
Gentle, high-minded, and refined, in her were centred
all the family virtues ; she was very different from the
other children of King George' III. And those other
children were devoted to her, so also was the Queen ;
and the nation adored her. But to the King she was
the most precious thing in life ; George idolized her,
and not without reason, for in return she idolized
him too.
The Princess was born on August 7, 1783, at Queen's
House, a building which in 1825 emerged eventually
from the hands of misguided architects as Buckingham
Palace. The two children who had preceded her into
the world had both died young. Care, therefore, was
lavished upon Amelia, the last born, for she too was
delicate, even as a baby — alarmingly delicate.
Unlike her sisters, then, who had been kept closely
to their books, Amelia, in accordance with her doctor's
orders, was allowed to live a normal, healthy life, with
the result that she developed into a natural English
girl -- artistic, musical, and, it is said, a "great
331
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
horsewoman," whilst her precocious, fascinating little
ways made her in very truth the idol of the British
public.
u Full as tall as Princess Royal, and as much formed,
she looks," wrote Madame d'Arblay in 1798, "seven-
teen, although only fourteen, and has a Hebe blush, an
air of modest candour, and a gentleness so caressingly
inviting of voice and manner that I have seldom seen
a more captivating young creature."
And a captivating young creature she was indeed.
What is more, as she increased in years she improved
greatly both in health and beauty. " Even dear Amelia,"
the King wrote to Bishop Hurd, of Worcester, in
January, 1800, "is with gigantic steps, by the mercy
of Divine Providence, arriving at perfect health." "She
was," he continued, "on the 24th of last month, con-
firmed at her own request by the Archbishop of Canter-
bury, who seemed much pleased in the preparatory
conversation he had with her — at being well grounded
in our holy religion and the serious task she has under-
taken upon herself."
n
In the following year, however, the King's mind again
gave way beneath the s^ain of his various troubles,
political and domestic. The affairs of the Prince of
Wales, a " delicate domestic trouble on which," accord-
ing to Jesse, the tactfully discreet historian, " there is no
occasion to dwell," were a sorry worry to him.
332
THE STORY OF PRINCESS AMELIA
Fortunately, this attack of mental aberration did
not last long ; and in the summer the King again was
well enough to pay his usual visit to Weymouth. And
with him went Princess Amelia. The state of her health
made a change of air advisable ; and so greatly did she
benefit from it that, in the autumn, instead of returning
to Windsor with her father, she remained at Weymouth,
attended only by Miss Gomme, her governess, and
General FitzRoy, the King's favourite equerry, who,
at George's special request, stayed on at Weymouth
solely in order that he might accompany the Princess on
her daily rides.
Now, at this time, the Hon. Charles FitzRoy was
a man thirty-eight years of age, twenty years older, that
is to say, than Amelia. The second son of Lord South-
ampton, he was himself of semi-royal descent, his uncle,
the Duke of Grafton, being a direct descendant of King
Charles II.1 But the first duke's mother had been
Barbara Villiers, and so, of course, there was a bar
sinister on the family escutcheon, which alone, needless
to say, made it impossible for FitzRoy even to hope
ever of being recognized as Amelia's husband. This
he knew ; so did Amelia ; but knowledge could not
restrain desire ; and during those weeks at Weymouth
1 The belief has been expressed that Charles FitzRoy was himself
a son of George III by Hannah Lightfoot. But then, there are people
prepared to believe anything in the name of romance, and the only evi-
dence in favour of this theory is the King's affection for the General and
the fact that FitzRoy and Amelia were forbidden to marry.
333
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
she learned in her romantic little heart to love very
dearly her kindly, handsome soldier escort.
Whilst he ... well ! he was only a man, and found
a something infinitely attractive in the charms of blush-
ing eighteen.
But he strove hard to resist it ; he did not wish to
compromise the girl, for he was a noble, generous man ;
and, as a loyal servant of his King, could not bring him-
self to betray the trust which George had reposed in
him.
Now love is a force never to be despised. Indeed,
even when love and honour are antagonistic, the former
often proves to be the stronger. FitzRoy' s acquaint-
anceship with Amelia, therefore, soon ripened into a
closer tie.
This nothing could prevent ; it was the inevitable,
for even after their return from Weymouth rarely did
a day pass upon which the Princess and equerry did not
meet ; they were thrown frequently into each other's
company.
FitzRoy always accompanied the monarch on his
morning rides. Amelia went also. In the evening,
again, he would often join the King and Queen for
a game of cards. And so would Amelia. But the
King never suspected for a moment that it was more
than a mere decree of chance which, day after day, gave
to her FitzRoy as partner. Nor did he seem to notice
or be surprised that, when out riding, the Princess rode
always side by side with the equerry.
334
THE STORY OF PRINCESS AMELIA
Only Miss Gomme observed these things ; and she
knew not what to do, for Amelia was heedless of warn-
ings and advice. Hoping, then, that the girl's infatua-
tion would prove merely to be a passing fancy, for a
while she held her peace. But when, after a year,
instead of waning, the girl's devotion continued to grow
stronger, Miss Gomme deemed it wrong to preserve her
silence longer, for both Amelia's health and spirits
clearly were being undermined by some unattainable
desire.
Accordingly, prompted by the best of motives, Miss
Gomme confided her fears in Amelia's sister Mary,
who in turn told the secret to Miss Goldsworthy. Now
Miss Goldsworthy happened to be as deaf as a post —
so deaf, in fact, that, as Fanny Burney declared, it was
impossible to tell her anything " but by talking for
a whole house to hear every word." So, of course, the
whole house heard of Amelia's infatuation. And, in con-
sequence, Amelia was furiously angry. Miss Gomme's
interference, she maintained, was quite uncalled for ; and
she wrote an indignant letter to her mother protesting
strongly against that misguided but well-meaning lady's
conduct.
On hearing the news, Queen Charlotte made it her
first concern to keep the King in ignorance ; it would
be a cruel blow to him, she felt, to know that Amelia,
his youngest and favourite child, had followed the
example of her elders, and yielded to an unwise affec-
tion.
335
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
So, first, she endeavoured tactfully to allay the
storm ; and with this object in view, addressed to
Amelia a pacific letter, a remarkable document, of pro-
digious length, in which she barely alluded to FitzRoy,
but sought merely to justify the conduct of Miss
"Gum."
The latter, she assured Amelia, " being put about all of
you as a Trusty Person to direct and instruct you, is,
by Her Situation, bound in honour to put you on your
Guard if she knows of anything that would be likely
to injure you. You will, my dear Amelia," she added,
" be sensible that neither by words nor by looks did
I through the whole Winter show you any disapproba-
tion. In the beginning of Our Settling in Town I was
ignorant of what had passed ; and when I knew it
I took no notice of it, being sure that Miss Gum's
advice being well considered must upon any Person
which professes Religious Principles have taken every
Necessary effect, particularly as You want neither Sense
nor Penetration, and consequently must feel that she
was a friend to you."
The letter concluded with some sage motherly counsel.
" A Wise Man," wrote the Queen, " bears with a Fool,
and a Good Man bears up under distress, nay, even
bears injury with Patience ; and I pray to God that you
may become both wise and good. I beseech you let
no offence whatever lead you to judge hastily of a
Fellow Creature ; be always watchful of yourself in
every step you take ; beware of Flatterers — choice of
336
THE STORY OF PRINCESS AMELIA
your friends, and do not destroy your Health and
Happiness by fancying things worse than they are, and
by your following this advice You not only prove your
affection to me, but insure to You the warmest Love
" Your affectionate Mother and Friend
" Charlotte."
Amelia's outraged feelings were not, however, thus
to be pacified. It is true she sent in reply to her
mother's letter a polite and dutiful acknowledgment,
but she refused to forgive Miss Gomme, declaring thai
if the latter dared to interfere again, she would appeal
immediately to the King for her dismissal.
The Queen was greatly alarmed at this. Her husband's
burden of cares already was as much as he could carry —
domestic worries, difficulties with Parliament, sedition
in Ireland, the " insolence " of Napoleon — it would
prove fatal to him to add another. That he should
find yet another skeleton in the family cupboard must,
the Queen thought, inevitably prove too much for his
endurance.
It seemed imperative then to keep Amelia's affairs a
secret, or, better still, that they should be hushed up
altogether. The morning rides, the card parties, at
any rate, must continue uninterrupted, otherwise the
King might ask questions which would be hard to
answer ; for the rest the Queen relied on her daughter's
discretion and good sense. Parents have a way of
treating their youngest children indulgently. It may
z 337
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
be, they learn from the elder ones the folly of trying
to act in any other way.
Once again, then, the little romance was allowed to
pursue the even tenor of its way, just as though nothing
had happened. And soon, very soon in fact, the lovers
came to an understanding between themselves, a secret
understanding, but still a very definite one. This the
following letter proves. It is the earliest of the Princess's
love letters now extant.
" My own dear Angel, — I don't know why, but I
felt so full that I was quite distressed at speaking to
you. . . . How cruel we did not play together (at
cards) ! I thought your manner to me still as if you
had doubts about me. ... I tell you honestly how
jealous I am I don't know ! And I dread your hating
me. I hope I shall be able to give you this walking
to-day at Frogmore. My own dear love, I am sure
you love me as well as ever. If you can give me a
kind look or word to-night pray do, and look for me
to-morrow morning riding ; don't leave me ! Don't
send anything over till this evening, you dear Angel.
I go to chapel to-morrow morning — now do sit where
I can see you, not as you did last Sunday morning.
Good God, what I then have suffered. Do have your
hair cut and keep it for me. Promise, after you go
up to town for the Meeting of Parliament, you will
sit for me for I long for my picture. . . . Did you
tell P.W. (Prince of Wales) how wretched we both are ?
I hoped yesterday, at latest last night, I should have
338
THE STORY OF PRINCESS AMELIA
heard from you. I dare say you have not time, and,
as you wrote that precious note before you went, I
ought to have been satisfied but that I never am, separate
from you, dear Angel. ..."
in
Now Queen Charlotte, I trow, had no idea that the
affair had advanced so far as this. I very much doubt
even if Miss Gomme had ; or, for that matter, anybody,
save perhaps the Prince of Wales. Amelia confided all
her little troubles in him ; she was really fond of her
eldest brother. For some curious reason, all his sisters
were. And Amelia's affection, at any rate, the Prince
returned in full. So, now that she too had embarked
on the troubled waters of romance, he gladly lent her
the assistance of his advice and considerable experience.
Why, he asked, should his sister not marry the man
she loved ? Marry him, Amelia replied, how could
she ? The Royal Marriage Act declared emphatically
that she could not marry without first obtaining the
Sovereign's consent ; and to ask for that — why, it would
be a mere waste of words and time.
The Prince laughed. " Nonsense ! " he exclaimed,
" why ask the King's consent at all ? " And then, no
doubt, he proceeded to show how that it was as easy
to drive the proverbial coach -and -four through the
Royal Marriage Act as through any other Act of Parlia-
ment. In fact, in this it happened to be easier than in
339
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
most cases, since a clause had been inserted and passed,
which, to all intents and purposes, defeated the object
of the Bill.
If any member of the Royal Family, it declared,
" being above the age of twenty-five years, shall persist
in his or her resolution to contract a marriage dis-
approved of, or dissented from, by the King . . . then
such descendant, upon giving notice to the King's
Privy Council, which notice is ... to be entered in
the books thereof, may at any time from the expiration
of twelve calendar months after such notice given . . .
contract such marriage . . . and such marriage shall
be good . . . unless both Houses of Parliament shall,
before the expiration of the said twelve months, ex-
pressly declare their disapprobation. . . ."
And, in the happiness of this discovery, it seemed
impossible to Amelia that both Houses of Parliament
could be so heartless as to forbid her to marry Charles
FitzRoy. What harm could such a marriage do ? She
was very far removed from the succession, and, for that
matter, only too gladly would renounce her claims.
Forthwith, then, she decided to avail herself of the
indulgent clause.
But, alas ! several years must elapse before she could
do so. She would not be twenty-five until 1808 ; and
even then she would have to wait another year before
she could hope to marry.
Yet wait she would. Nothing should shake her
loyalty now. No, even though all the crowns of
340
THE STORY OF PRINCESS AMELIA
Europe were to be laid before her feet in turn, coldly
she would reject each of them. And, as proof of her
resolve, she assured FitzRoy that already she was his
" wife in spirit " ; and she took to making use of his
initials when signing her letters to him. Now, absurd
though it may seem, this pretty, childish fancy often
has been used to support the belief that the Princess
and FitzRoy already were man and wife — a belief which
is barely worth denying, for Mrs. Villiers, who was
Amelia's constant and most intimate companion during
her later years, has testified to its utter falsity.
But surely the Princess's letters alone are sufficient
refutation.
" My ever beloved Angel," she wrote on yth of Feb-
ruary, 1807, "I do hope I shall see you. How I long
for it ! This is a fine day for Ld. B's1 marriage, which
I hope is a good omen for him, but to me it is melan-
choly, for I envy those who can marry. I shall send
you some commissions to execute for me — that is, to
get a watch mended, my curb-chain . . . etc., and to
get me some snuff. ... If I should meet you out, will
you, my dear love, come up to me ? Remember, you
must come to my side of the carriage, and I sit on the
right side. . . ."
Or, again : " Your dear letter — O, what a treasure !
I shall keep it and read it over and over every day. I
do esteem you and love you the better. If we go to
town you shall hear to-night, but I hope not. I long
1 Lord Bagot.
341
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
for a comfortable ride. Pray don't alter in your manner
to me in anything, you dear Angel. I really must
marry you, though inwardly united, and in reality that
is much more than the ceremony, yet that ceremony
would be a protection. O my precious darling, how
often do I say — would to God my own husband and
best friend and guardian were here to protect me and
assist me, as 1 am sure was destined in Heaven, I should
have nothing to fear."
"I envy those who can marry"; "I really must
marry" — such phrases surely prove that no secret
ceremony had been performed; whilst, incidentally, the
allusion to snuff in the former of these letters may help
to show that, in spite of all that has been said and
written on the subject, the modern girl really is not so
horribly modern after all.
She may smoke and play games like a man, but her
predecessors, it would seem, took snuff like men-
even the gentle Amelia. Yes, but Amelia, it may
be, took snuff only when she had FitzRoy to cook
it for her, and because now she did not mind what she
did, now that she was twenty-four years old. In
another twelve months she would be twenty-five.
And then — the thought of laying her petition before
the Privy Council thrilled her wildly, so that, despite
ill-health, she was in an ecstasy of happiness.
As a matter of fact, she was too happy. Confident
now that her love ultimately would triumph, she threw
discretion to the winds, ceasing to make any effort to
342
THE STORY OF PRINCESS AMELIA
conceal her feelings. " Conscious innocence," declared
Mrs. Villiers, " prevented her from pausing to consider
the opinion of the world, and she gloried in her attach-
ment to so honourable and upright a man as Charles
FitzRoy." This, of course, was very silly of her.
At any rate, her " conscious innocence " involved the
unhappy girl in a series of overwhelming misfortunes,
for which really she had only herself to blame. Her
reckless conduct, in short, set the tongue of gossip
wagging ; rumours spread rapidly in all directions, and
before long the story of her Kttle love affair became
public knowledge — or, rather, an exaggerated version
of that story. In vain her sisters pleaded with her,
urging her to be cautious. Amelia would not, could
not listen to reason.
And so the climax came. In October, 1807, Miss
Gomme, who had already received several anonymous
letters accusing her of connivance, being fearful on her
own account, endeavoured to throw the responsibility
on the Queen, and was foolish enough to declare openly
that Her Majesty had promised to sanction the marriage
so soon as the King were dead. The Queen, as was
only natural, greatly angered by this and similar state-
ments, forthwith called a family council to devise some
course of action. Amelia waited anxiously to hear the
verdict.
" I had just sealed my letter to you," she wrote
to FitzRoy, "when F. (the Duke of York) en-
tered, who I had seen half an hour before in the
343
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
passage, saying he was coming to me. I thought he
had come to talk of my affairs, when he shut the door
and said, c I have something to say. All is well now,
but there has been a sad row about you and F. R.,
owing to a d d Miss Gomme; and the Q. has be-
haved most nobly, for — as hurt and outrageous as
yourself — she has sent me to the Tower Lodge to
speak to her, and to represent the improper conduct
she has shown. . . .' Fk. (Frederick) told her (the
Queen) I was wretched, that kindness might save me,
but harshness would lead me to some sad step ; but
that my attachment was fixed and never could change,
and, if we acted as we lately had, no one had a right to
find fault. The Q. said, c I will support her and the
family must.' . . ."
Under the circumstances there was nothing else she
could say, for she found herself on the horns of a most un-
fortunate dilemma. Dismiss or even offend Miss Gomme
she dared not ; the woman had lived too long at Court
and learned so many secrets that, as the Queen saw
only too clearly, if ruffled, she could prove a very
dangerous enemy. On the other hand, to be severe
with Amelia would be obviously a fatal policy. It would
simply drive the Princess to lay an appeal before the
King ; and that was a catastrophe which must be
avoided at all costs. Accordingly she sought refuge in
ignorance, and addressed a letter to Amelia in which
she tried to give the impression that, until now, she had
never regarded the girl's infatuation seriously.
344
THE STORY OF PRINCESS AMELIA
"You are now beginning to enter into years of dis-
cretion," she wrote, " and will, I do not doubt, see how
necessary it is to subdue at once every Passion in the
beginning, and to consider the impropriety of indulging
any impression which must make you miserable, and be
a disgrace to yourself and a misery to all who love you.
Add to this the melancholy situation of the King at
this present moment,1 who, could he be acquainted of
what has passed, would be miserable for all his life, and
I fear it would create a breach in the whole family."
Having despatched this motherly exhortation, the
Queen felt happier than she had for many a day ; her
letter, she thought, could but have the desired effect,
and she prided herself on the tactful manner in which
she had averted a very delicate family scandal.
As a matter of fact, her action proved the very
reverse of tactful. Queen Charlotte had shut her eyes
to the truth too long to be justified now in posing as
the wise and thoughtful parent. And Amelia resented
bitterly this hypocritical attitude, so bitterly that she
began seriously to consider the question of eloping.
Indeed, it was only by appealing to her affection for her
father that Mrs. Villiers finally was able to dissuade her
from going to FitzRoy then and there, and imploring
him to put an end to all delay.
Still, even had Mrs. Villiers failed, there can be little
doubt but that Amelia's lover himself would have
succeeded, for his was not the character of the dauntless
1 George III was mad.
345
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
hero of romance, prepared under all circumstances to
assume the initiative. After all, Charles FitzRoy was
merely a solid, phlegmatic Britisher, and the fire of duty
burned in him ever more brightly than the flame of
love ; and the fire of discretion more brightly than either.
Besides, were he to take the law into his own
hands and obey the dictates of his heart, he must in-
evitably lose his position at Court. And that — for he
was only a younger son — he could not afford to do ;
his small fortune was much too slender to support a dis-
inherited princess, especially an extravagant one. Even
as things were, Amelia owed him ^"5,000, which she
had borrowed recently. True, she had spent it all on
charity. None the less, she had spent it !
IV
FitzRoy then, also, urged her to be patient, and to
consider all her actions carefully. " Dear as you are to
me," he wrote, " you cannot wonder, after the confidence
you have reposed in me, my feeling every circumstance
that regards you more than that regards me, and I
firmly believe we both feel this mutually. Judge then
how anything injurious to you and above all your
blessed virtue and character is galling to myself."
But even her lover's wise admonitions proved un-
availing. Amelia, mad with impatience, was heedless
of the consequences of her indiscretions. And so it
came about that the inevitable happened.
346
THE STORY OF PRINCESS AMELIA
In the spring of 1808, the King learned the story of
his daughter's love affair. For a moment he could not
believe it. That Amelia, little Amelia whom he loved and
trusted, could be guilty of such a folly — yes, and FitzRoy
too — seemed incredible ; the shock unnerved him.
But soon anger took the place of surprise and dis-
appointment, and then . . . exactly what happened can
only be imagined ; but father and daughter certainly
exchanged some angry, bitter words. Indeed, seeing
that the Princess subsequently referred to the King as
her " late father," the interview must have been a very
stormy one. And to Amelia this quarrel with her father
came as the culmination of her troubles, especially
seeing that now, in her hour of need, the family all
forsook her — with one exception ; the Prince of Wales
alone stood by her. His help fortified her not a
little. He begged his little sister not to worry. If
only she would be patient, he said, all would be well.
Besides, in a few months she would be twenty-five, and
then . . .
But this was meagre consolation. Amelia despaired
now ever of seeing the day of her emancipation. Her
health, long overtaxed, had broken down completely
beneath the weight of all her sorrows ; and the symptoms,
unmistakably those of consumption, already gave the
doctors cause for serious alarm. The shadow of death
lay broad across her path. Amelia herself could see it.
" You will, my own dear Charles," she wrote, " receive
this when your torment is gone for ever — remember, my
347
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
own darling, since I first knew you I have never ex-
perienced anything but kindness, and be assured my
affection and esteem has only increased with my knowing
you better. ... I owe you all my happiness and comfort.
Situation has prevented my wishes being realized which
inwardly they have long been, and I consider myself as
your lawful wife. May God bless you and make you
happy. Don't forget me, and think of her who died
blessing and loving you, and who lived only for you."
Thus, while the poor girl lay very ill, rapidly, so it
seemed, sinking to her grave, the slow months rolled
by. Spring gradually gave way to summer. August
came at last. The Princess was still alive ; and, on the
yth day of the month, attained the age of twenty-five.
For a while she rallied bravely ; hope and excitement
breathed new life into her. Perhaps even yet, she
thought, it might be allowed to her to marry. Forth-
with, she laid her petition before the Privy Council ;
then wrote to her eldest brother to tell him of her
action.
" I determined long ago," she said, " to act as I now
do ; ... and according to the Act made by my late
Father, I find I must inform you and the Privy Council
through the Lord Chancellor ; . . . and I hope as my
whole comfort depends on this event, that you will not
be my enemy. ... It is not a hasty action of mine, . . .
besides I never could marry where I could not give my
affections, and General FitzRoy possesses all my affec-
tion, and nothing can alter that. . . . Deceive you I
348
THE STORY OF PRINCESS AMELIA
never will, and I think it best to tell you I have
delayed taking any step with him for his peculiar posi-
tion about my Father, and not to hurt my Father.
That being removed, I feel it owing to myself to act
decidedly, and never can I alter in any one idea I have
determined on. Therefore that is useless, and we
should be trifling with each other were I to let you
suppose that was possible."
This done, the Princess, buoyed up by hope, set
herself patiently to wait. Then, as the months passed,
and still Parliament uttered no word of dissent, hope
became confidence. The girl's health and spirits both
revived.
The change, however, was merely a fleeting rally ;
she could restrain, but she could not throw off
the fatal malady which had assailed her ; and now
gradually it fastened its grim hold again.
Bravely she struggled with it, but in vain ; the
dawn of each day found her weaker. " She has so
little chance of happiness in this world," Mrs. Villiers
wrote, " that I believe it is selfish to wish her to live,
and with such a mind as hers she must be pretty
certain of happiness in the next. The longer her illness
lasts the more perfect she appears. I never in my life
met with such sweetness of temper and resignation as
hers, and such wonderful consideration for all those
who she thinks love her."
But the King, poor man, was overwhelmed with
sorrow when at last he realized that Amelia's life was
349
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
ebbing out. He felt that, in a very large measure, he
had been the cause of her suffering, and would have
done anything to atone for his harshness. " His whole
soul," a Court chronicler has said, " became absorbed in
the fate of his daughter ; he dwelt on it with harassing
and weakening grief and despair. On some occasions
he kept the physicians, when they made their report,
two or three hours in minute inquiries ; indeed so rest-
less was his anxiety that he was accustomed to receive
a report every morning at seven o'clock, and afterwards
every two hours of the day."
Amelia, and Amelia's happiness, meant everything to
him now in his lonely blind old age. And surely there
is something truly pathetic in his loving tenderness.
For the girl's one transgression against his wishes he
forgave her wholly. Indeed, whenever he visited her,
as he did every afternoon, he always brought General
FitzRoy with him. He knew that this would give her
pleasure. And there, by her bedside, father and lover
would sit talking to her. But the King did not know
that Amelia used also to receive clandestine visits from
the General.
Nor was he meant to know ; these meetings were
arranged by Amelia's sisters, Mary and Augusta ;
and the hours thus spent alone with her faithful lover
were quite the happiest that she lived.
But even they were numbered At last came the
afternoon of the ist of November. At three o'clock
the King and his equerry called as usual to see the
350
THE STORY OF PRINCESS AMELIA
sufferer. As they entered the room, the Princess raised
herself on her pillows, and stretching out her arm took
her blind father's hand in hers. Then she slipped a
ring on his finger, a ring which she had had specially
made for him. On it was a crystal tablet containing
a lock of her hair, and inscribed with these words : —
" Amelia — Remember Me."
" Pray wear this for my sake," she said, " and I hope
you will not forget me."
"That I can never do," replied the King. "You
are engraven on my heart." Then he burst into tears
and, bending down, kissed her — for the last time.
And FitzRoy could see that kiss must be the last.
He was standing beside the King, and his grief was
harder to bear if only because it had to be endured
in silence.
Now Amelia noticed his sadness — perhaps, too, she
divined the reason of it, for, with a wan, tender smile,
she held out her hand to him. For a moment he bent
over it, pressing it to his lips. Then, without making
any other sign, he turned and, taking his royal master
by the arm, led him gently from the room.
Princess Amelia he never saw again — alive. On the
following day he received a note from Princess Mary.
He recognized the writing, and could guess the subject
of her letter before even he had torn the seal. This is
what the Princess had written : —
" My dear FitzRoy, our beloved Amelia is no
more, but her last words to me were, c Tell Charles I
351
TWELVE GREAT PASSIONS
die blessing him.' Before I leave this house, I obey
her last wishes.
" Far or near, your affectionate friend, Mary."
Thus ends this story. At the funeral, which took
place by torchlight two days later, no room could be
found for the chief and truest mourner. And, although
by will the Princess left most of her possessions to
Charles FitzRoy, the General waived his right to them.
This he did at the Prince of Wales' request. Were
he to press his claim, the Prince declared, not only
would he offend and wound the King, but would make
public the story of Amelia's love for him. This
FitzRoy declined to do. Her devotion was much too
precious to be made the food for gossip ; and her good
name, even in death, of far greater worth to him than
riches.
In 1816 the General married, but still the memory
of Amelia remained vividly in his mind ; there, indeed,
it always lived. And of that memory — the memory
of the girl who had died for love of him — surely even
Mrs. FitzRoy could not be jealous.
WILLIAM BRENDON AND SON, LTD.
PRINTERS, PLYMOUTH
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW
AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS
WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN
THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY
WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH
DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY
OVERDUE.
FEB 4 1943
JUL 31 1944
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