“Lord Stratford described going to dine one day with his agent, and meeting there a lady whose name he did not catch, but whom he was told to take down to dinner. In the course of dinner the conversation turned upon some subject of mathematics, ‘And then,’ said Lord Stratford, ‘I did what I have never done at any other time on a mathematical question. I tried to explain it and make it easy for my companion, who listened with polite attention. When I went upstairs I inquired her name, and it was … Mrs. Somerville! I knew her intimately afterwards, and she told me something of her early life, which I regret should not have appeared in her memoirs. Her childhood was passed in Burntisland, whither her brother returned for his holidays, having some school-work to do whilst at home. One day, when he was called out, she took up the Euclid he had been studying. ‘Ah! what curious little designs! let me see if I can understand what it is about.’ And she found that she could, and devoured Euclid with avidity. Afterwards she got hold of her brother’s Æschylus and taught herself Greek in order to read it.
“Lord Stratford talked much of the extraordinary change, not only in politics, but in ‘the way of carrying on politics,’ since he was young.”
“69 Onslow Square, Feb. 4.—Aunt Sophy[166] had a pleasant party yesterday of Theodore Martins, Lady Barker, &c. Mrs. Theodore Martin’s is a fine illuminative face, like that of Madame Goldschmidt. As Helen Faucit she was celebrated as an actress and as having done her utmost to elevate the stage; but I do not admire her reading of Shakspeare, in which I think there is too much manner. He is evidently most excellent. He talked perfectly simply, but only when asked, of his intercourse with the Queen, with whom he must be on happy terms of mutual confidence.
“Feb. 7, 1875.—Yesterday, when I was with Louisa, Lady Ashburton, at Kent House, which is being beautifully arranged, Lady Bloomfield came in and then Mr. Carlyle—weird and grim, with his long coat and tall wizard-befitting hat. He talked in volumes, with fathomless depths of adjectives, into which it was quite impossible to follow him, and in which he himself often got out of his depth. A great deal was about Garibaldi, who was the ‘most absolute incarnation of zero, but the inexplicable perversity and wilfulness of the human race had taken him up, poor creature, and set him on a pedestal.’ Then he went on about ‘the poor old Pope, so filled with all the most horrible and detestable lies that ever were conceived or thought of.’ He was like the man who asked his friends to dinner and said, ‘I am going to give you a piece of the most delicious beef—the most exquisite beef that ever was eaten,’ and all the while it was only a piece of stale brown bread; but the host said to his guests, ‘May God damn your souls for ever and ever, if you don’t believe it’s beef,’ so they ate it and said nothing.
“Then he talked of the books of Mazzini, which were ‘well worth reading,’ and of Saffi, ‘made professor of something at Oxford, where he used to give lectures in a moth-eaten voice.’ ”
“Feb. 11.—Sir Garnet and Lady Wolseley, Miss Thackeray, and others dined. I was not prepared to like Sir Garnet much, a hero is usually so dull, but he is charming, so frank and candid, and most natural as well as good-looking. He has a very young face, though his hair is grey, almost white. Lady Wolseley is remarkably pretty and attractive; Sir Garnet was quite devoted to drawing, and had a great collection of sketches, the work of his life. In the Crimea he drew everything, and it was a most precious collection; but in returning it was all lost at sea. The rest of his drawings he put into the Pantechnicon, where they were every one of them burnt. Miss Thackeray has a sweet voice, which is music in every tone.
“I have frequently seen lately, at the Lefevres’, old Lord Redesdale, with whom we have some distant cousinship through my Mitford great-grandmother. He is very kind, clever, old-fashioned, and always wears a tail-coat. He took us into the far-away by telling us of having heard his father, Speaker Mitford, describe having known a man in Swaledale named Rievely, whose earliest recollection was of being carried across the Swale by Henry Jenkyns (who lived to 160), who recollected having gone as a boy, with a sheaf of arrows and his elder brother on a pony, from Ellerton in Swaledale to Northallerton, to join the army before the battle of Flodden. He would tell all about the battle in a familiar way—‘the King was not there; but the Duke of Suffolk was there,’ &c.
“Much of the conversation in certain houses is now about Moody and Sankey, the American ‘revivalists,’ who are supposed to ‘produce great effects.’ Moody preaches and Sankey sings. They are adored by some, others (including most Americans) think them ‘mere religious charlatans’—and altogether they offer a famous opportunity for all the barking and biting which ‘truly religious people’ often delight in.”
“Feb. 20.—Dined with the Rafe Leycesters in Cheyne Walk, where they have a charming old manor-house with a stone gateway, flagged walk, ancient bay-trees, a wide staircase, and panelled rooms. Mrs. Leycester was picturesquely dressed like a picture by Millais. The company were Mr. and Mrs. Haweis, Mr. and Mrs. Tom Taylor, and the Augustus Tollemaches. It was an agreeable party, and a pleasant dinner in a room redolent of violets.”
“Feb. 21.—Dined with Lady Margaret Beaumont, who talked of dress and the distinction of a gown by Worth, which ‘not only looked well, but walked well.’ ”
“Thorncombe, Feb. 27.—This place is a dell in the undulating hills about five miles from Guildford, very pretty and pleasant; and our new cousin, Edward Fisher, to whom it belongs, is one of the kindest, cheeriest, pleasantest fellows who ever entered a family.
“We have been to see Loseley, which belongs to my old college acquaintance Molyneux—a grand old house, gabled and grey, with a great hall, and richly carved chimney-pieces of white chalk, which looks like marble. It has three ghosts, a green-coated hunter, a sallow lady, and a warrior in plate-armour. The last appeared to the kitchen-maid as she was drawing some beer in the cellar, and almost frightened her out of her wits.”
“London, March 7, Sunday.—Breakfast at Lord Houghton’s, who has adopted Rogers’ custom of social breakfasts. It was a very amusing party—Joaquin Miller[167] the American writer, Henry Cowper, Lord Arthur Russell, &c. There was a young man there whom I did not notice much at first, but I soon found that he was very remarkable, and then that he was very charming indeed. It was Lord Rosebery. He has a most sweet gravity almost always, but when his expression does light up, it is more than an illumination—it is a conflagration, at which all around him take light. Joaquin Miller would have been thought insufferably vulgar if he had not been a notoriety: as it was, every one paid court to him. However, I ought not to abuse him, as he suddenly turned round to me and said, ‘Do you know, I’m glad to meet you, for you write books that I can read.’ Quantities of good stories were told—one of a party given by George IV. as Prince Regent to the Irish