when two lives were so closely entwined as ours, one could not go on alone. She had often even spoken of “when we die.” But God does not allow people to die of grief, though, when sorrow has once taken possession of one, only hard work, laboriously undertaken, can—not drive it out, but keep it under control. It is as Whittier says:—
“There is nothing better than work for mind or body. It makes the burden of sorrow, which all sooner or later must carry, lighter. I like the wise Chinese proverb: ‘You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you may prevent them from stopping to build their nests in your hair.’ ”[1]
I had felt the gradual separation of death. At first the sense of my Mother’s presence was still quite vivid: then it was less so: at last the day came when I felt “she is nowhere here now.”
It was partly owing to the strong impression in her mind that I could not survive her that my Mother had failed to make the usual arrangements for my future provision. As she had never allowed any money to be placed in my name, I had—being no legal relation to her—to pay a stranger’s duty of £10 per cent on all she possessed, and this amounted to a large sum, when extended to a duty on every picture, even every garden implement, &c.[2] Not only this, but during her lifetime she had been induced by various members of the family to sign away a large portion of her fortune, and in the intricate difficulties which arose I was assured that I should have nothing whatever left to live upon beyond £60 a year, and the rent of Holmhurst (fortunately secured), if it could be let. I was urged by the Stanleys to submit at once to my fate, and to sell Holmhurst; yet I could not help hoping for better days, which came with the publication of “Walks in Rome.”
Meanwhile, half distracted by the unsought “advice” which was poured upon me from all sides, and worn-out with the genuine distress of my old servants, I went away in March, just as far as I could, first to visit the Pole Carews in Cornwall, and then to the Land’s End, to Stephen Lawley, who was then living in a cottage by the roadside near Penzance. I was so very miserable and so miserably preoccupied at this time, that I have no distinct recollection of these visits, beyond the image on my mind of the grand chrysoprase seas of Cornwall and the stupendous rocks against which they beat, especially at Tol Pedn Penwith. I felt more in my natural element when, after I had gone to Bournemouth to visit Archie Colquhoun,[3] who was mourning the recent loss of both his parents, I was detained there by his sudden and dangerous illness. While there, also, I was cheered by the first thoughts for a tour in Spain during the next winter.
To Mary Lea Gidman.
“Penzance, March 13, 1871.—I know how much and sadly you will have thought to-day of the last terrible 13th of March, when we were awakened in the night by the dear Mother’s paralytic seizure, and saw her so sadly changed. In all the anguish of looking back upon that time, and the feeling which I constantly have now of all that is bright and happy having perished out of my life with her sweet presence, I have much comfort in thinking that we were able to carry out her last great wish in bringing her home, and in the memory of the three happy months of comparative health which she afterwards enjoyed there. Many people since I left home have read some of the ‘Memorials’ I am writing, and express a sense of never having known before how perfectly beautiful her character was, and that in truth, like Abraham, they ‘entertained an angel unawares.’ Now that dear life, which always seemed to us so perfect, has indeed become perfected, and the heavenly glow which came to the revered features in death is but a very faint image of the heavenly glory which always rests upon them.”
To Miss Wright.
“Stewart’s Hotel, Bournemouth, March 30, 1871.—The discussion of a tour in Spain comes to me as the pleasant dream of a possible future. … It is of course easy for us to see Spain in a way in a few weeks, but if one does not go in a cockney spirit, but really wishing to learn, to open one’s eyes to the glorious past of Spain, the story of Isabella, the Moorish dominion, the boundless wealth of its legends, its proverbs, its poetry—all that makes it different from any other country—we must begin in a different way, and our chief interest will be found in the grand old cities which the English generally do not visit—Leon, Zaragoza, Salamanca; in the wonderful romance which clings around the rocks of Monserrat and the cloisters of Santiago; in the scenes of the Cid, Don Roderick, Cervantes, &c.
“You will be sorry to hear that I am again in my normal condition of day and night nurse, in all the varying anxieties of a sick-room. I came here ten days ago to stay with Archie Colquhoun, whom I had known very little before, but who, having lost both father and mother lately, turned in heart to me and begged me to come to him. On Tuesday he fell with a great crash on the floor in a fit, and was unconscious for many hours. … It was a narrow escape of his life, and he was in a most critical state till the next day, but now he is doing well, though it will long be an anxious case.[4] You will easily understand how much past anguish has come back to me in the night-watches here, and I feel it odd that these duties should, as it were, be perpetually found for me.”
In May I paid the first of many visits to my dear Lady Waterford at Highcliffe, her fairy palace by the sea, on the Hampshire coast, near Christ Church, and though I was still too sad to enter into the full charm of the place and the life, which I have enjoyed so much since, I was greatly refreshed by the mental tonic, and by the kindness and sympathy which I have never failed to receive from Lady Waterford and her friend Lady Jane Ellice. With them, too, I was able to discuss my work in all its aspects, and greatly was I encouraged by all they said.
For many years after this, Highcliffe was more familiar to me than any other place except my own home, and I am attached to every stone of it. The house was the old Mayor’s house of Les Andelys, removed from Normandy by Lord Stuart de Rothesay, but a drawing shows the building as it was in France, producing a far finer effect than as it was put up in England by Pugin, the really fine parts, especially the great window, being lower down in the building, and more made of. In the room to which that window belonged, Antoyne de Bourbon, King of Navarre, died. The portraits in the present room of the Duchess of Suffolk and her second husband, who was a Bertie, have the old ballad of “The Duchess of Suffolk” inscribed beneath. They fled abroad, and their son Peregrine, born in a church porch, was the progenitor of the present Berties. I have myself always inhabited the same room at Highcliffe—one up a separate stair of its own, adorned with great views of the old Highcliffe and Mount Stuart, and with old French furniture, including a chair worked in blue and red by Queen Marie Amélie and Madame Adelaïde. The original house of Highcliffe was built on land sold to Lord Stuart by a Mr. Penlees, who had had a legacy of bank-notes left him in the case of a cocked-hat—it was quite full of them. Mr. Penlees had built a very ugly house, the present “old rooms,” which Lord Stuart cased over. Then he said that, while Lady Stuart was away, he would add a few rooms. When she came back, to her intense consternation, she found the new palace of Highcliffe: all the ornaments, windows, &c., from Les Andelys having been landed close by upon the coast. I always liked going with Lady Waterford into the old rooms, which were those principally used by Lady Stuart, and contained a wonderful copy of Sir Joshua which Lady Waterford made when she was ten years old. There was also a beautiful copy of the famous picture of Lord Royston, done by Lady Waterford herself long ago; a fine drawing of the leave-taking of Charles I. and his children—Charles with a head like the representations of the Saviour; and a portrait of the old Lady Stuart, “Grannie Stuart,” with all the wrinkles smoothed out. “Oh, if I am like that, I am only fit to die,” she said, when she saw it.[6]
I have put down a few notes from the conversation at Highcliffe this year.
“Mr. M. was remonstrated with because he would not admire Louis Philippe’s régime. He said, ‘No, I cannot; I have known him before so well. I am