“Holmhurst, Jan. 22.—George Sheffield is here. He says that the Russian Minister’s wife at Washington called her dog ‘Moreover,’ because of ‘Moreover the dog came and licked his sores.’ ”
“Holmhurst, Jan. 24.—‘No,’ says Lea, ‘everything is not improving. I always say that everything has been going to the bad since the pudding lost its place.’
“ ‘Why, what can you mean?’
“ ‘Oh, in the old days, the good old days, the pudding always used to be before the meat, and then people were not so extravagant at the butcher’s. Why, old Mr. Taylor[70] used to say to me, “You know, marm,” says he, “we used to tak’ a bit of the dough when the bread was rising, and slip in an apple or two without peeling ’em, and bake ’em in the oven, and that was our dinner you know, marm.” ’
Journal (The Green Book).
“Jan. 25, 1874.—Somehow I have felt as if this volume was closed for ever—closed away with the sweet presence which was so long the sunshine of my life. Yet to-day, while I am alone, sitting once more in the sacred chamber where I have watched her through so many days and nights, I feel constrained to write once more.
“How all is changed to me since then: I can hardly feel as if the two lives were related—hardly as if they could belong to the same person.
“Wonderfully, mysteriously, time has healed—no, not healed, but soothed, even this wound. At first I felt this must always be impossible, life was too blank, but imperceptibly, stealthily, other interests asserted their power, and though the old life is always the life to me, yet I feel all is not over.
“I have always talked of my Mother, and it has been a great comfort. At first it almost shocked people that I should do it. Perhaps the very fact of talking and writing about her myself, and her life being now so much talked of by others, has dried up the agony of my own inner desolation by force of habitude. Yet, oh, my darling! there is never a day, seldom an hour, in which I do not think of her; and sometimes when I am alone,
‘When to the sessions of sweet silent thought,
I summon up remembrance of things past,’
I take one of her sketch-books, one of her journals or mine, and with them go back into our old life—thus she looked—thus she spoke—thus she smiled.
“At first I was kept up by the sacred work of the ‘Memorials,’ and the necessity of fighting against the violent family opposition to them. This seemed a duty which rose out of her grave, the one duty for which I was prepared to sacrifice everything else in the world. I was determined to fulfil it at whatever cost to myself. And I have fulfilled it—not so well perhaps as I might have done if Arthur and Mary Stanley had not tried to trample and stamp all the spirit out of it. They condemned the book violently and furiously before they read it, and, after reading it, they never had the courage to rescind opinions expressed so frequently and publicly. Still, the world says that it is well, and it will still keep her lamp burning brightly, so that her earthly work is not over yet, and she can still guide others heavenward through the darkness. Besides, not only in the ‘Memorials,’ but in all else, I have felt the truth of Joseph Mazzini’s advice—‘Get up and work; do not set yourself apart. When the Evil One wanted to tempt Jesus, he led Him into a solitude.’
“I was one winter in Spain with Miss Wright. Then not much more than my first desolate year had passed, and I had still that crushed lacerated feeling of utter misery; but I tried to be as bright as I could for my companion’s sake. Last year I was in Italy, and though very ill, and though I felt poignantly the first return to the old scenes, it was better, and all old friends were most kind.
“The dear cousin of my mother’s life, Charlotte Leycester, has been here each year for some months, and other guests come and go through the summer, so that little Holmhurst still gives pleasure.
“At first I was very, very poor, and it was a struggle to have a home; but latterly my books have brought in enough to keep the house, and a great deal to give away besides, which has been most opportune, as several members of the family have sorely needed helping. I have also a little Hospice, where I receive those whom I hear of as in need of thorough change, mental and physical, for a month, sets of sunshine-seekers succeeding each other. My dear Lea is still left to me, and is my greatest comfort, so associated with all that is gone.
“My books have made me almost well known after a fashion, and people are very kind, for, with what Shakspeare calls ‘the excellent foppery of the world,’ many who used to snub me now almost ‘make up to me,’ and all kinds of so-called ‘great people’ invite me to their houses. Sometimes this is very pleasant, and I always enjoy being liked. I do not think it is likely to set me up; I have too strong a feeling of my own real inferiority to the opinion formed of me. Intellectually, I am so ill grounded that I really know nothing well or accurately; and if I am what is called ‘generous,’ certainly that is no virtue, for it pleases myself as well as others. I think it is still with me as George Sand says of herself, ‘Je n’ai pas de bonheur dans la vie, mais j’ai beaucoup de bonheurs.’
“To-morrow I am going abroad again. It is almost necessary for my books; and though I feel bitterly leaving Lea and the little home, I like my mother’s adopted son to earn a reputation; that is all I care for, except that it is always a pleasure to give pleasure. There is a sentence, too, of Carlyle’s which comes back to me—‘We are sufficiently applauded and approved, and ought now, if possible, to go and do something deserving a little applause.’ ”
XVII
LITERARY WORK AT HOME AND ABROAD
“Ohne Hast, aber ohne Rast.”—Goethe.
“Leisure and I have taken leave of one another. I propose to be busy as long as I live, if my health is so long indulged to me.”—John Wesley.
“To seek fame is even a solemn duty for men endowed with more than ordinary powers of mind. First, as multiplying the ways and chances by which a useful work comes into the hands of such as are prepared to avail themselves of it; secondly, as securing for such a work that submissiveness of heart, that docility, without which nothing really good can be really acquired; and lastly, because the individuality of the author, with all the associations connected with his name and history, adds greatly to the effect of a work.”—Coleridge to Sir G. Beaumont.
“For ever I wrastle, for ever I am behind.”—Gower, Confessio Amantis.
“ ’Tis not in mortals to command success;
But we’ll do more, Sempronius—we’ll deserve it”
—Addison, Cato.
THE success of “Walks in Rome,” and the great pleasure which I had derived from the preparation of my “Days near Rome,” made me undertake, in the spring of 1874, the more ambitious work of “Cities of Northern and Central Italy,” in preparation for which I left England at the end of January, accepting on the way an oft-repeated invitation from Mr. and Mrs. de Wesselow to their beautiful home at Cannes.
Journal.
“Villa