The Story of My Life, volumes 1-3. Augustus J. C. Hare

must have been soon after this that Frederick Maurice moved to London, and our visits to London were henceforth for several years generally paid to his stuffy chaplain's house at Guy's, where, as I could not then appreciate my host, I was always intensely miserable, and, though a truly good man, Frederick Maurice was not, as I thought, an attractive one. What books have since called "the noble and pathetic monotone"[14] of his life, which was "like the burden of a Gregorian chaunt," describes him exactly, but was extremely depressing. He maundered over his own humility in a way which—even to a child—did not seem humble, and he was constantly lost mentally in the labyrinth of religious mysticisms which he was ever creating for himself. In all he said, as in all he wrote, there was a nebulous vagueness. "I sometimes fancy," "I almost incline to believe," "I seem to think," were the phrases most frequently on his lips. When he preached before the University of Cambridge to a church crowded with dons and undergraduates, they asked one another as they came out, "What was it all about?" He may have sown ideas, but, if they bore any fruits, other people reaped them.[15] Still his innate goodness brought him great devotion from his friends. Amongst those whom I recollect constantly seeing at Guy's, a man in whose society my mother found much pleasure, was John Alexander Scott, whom Mrs. Kemble describes as being mentally one of the most influential persons she had ever known.

      Priscilla Maurice henceforward generally came to Lime soon after our annual return from Shropshire, and usually spent several months there, arriving armed with plans for the "reformation of the parish," and a number of blank books, some ruled in columns for parochial visitation, and others in which the names of all communicants were entered and preserved, so as to make the reprobation of absentees more easy at Hurstmonceaux.

      As she established her footing, she frequently brought one of her many sisters with her: amongst them Esther Maurice, who at that time kept a ladies' school at Reading. Priscilla, I believe, afterwards regretted the introduction of Esther, who was much more attractive than herself, and in course of time entirely displaced her in my mother's affections. "Priscilla is like silver, but Esther is like gold," I remember my mother saying to Uncle Julius. Of the two, I personally preferred Priscilla, but both were a fearful scourge to my childhood, and so completely poisoned my life at Hurstmonceaux, that I looked to the winters spent at Stoke for everything that was not aggressively unpleasant.

      Little child as I was, my feeling about the Maurices was a great bond between me and my aunt Lucy Hare, who, I am now certain, most cordially shared my opinion at this time, though it was unexpressed by either. Otherwise my Aunt Lucy was also already a frequent trial to my child-life, as she was jealous for her little Marcus (born in 1836) of any attention shown to me or any kindness I received. I felt in those early days, and on looking back from middle life I know that I felt justly, that my mother would often pretend to care for me less than she did, and punish me far more frequently for very slight offences, in order not to offend Aunt Lucy, and this caused me many bitter moments, and outbursts of passionate weeping, little understood at the time. In very early childhood, however, one pleasurable idea was connected with my Aunt Lucy. In her letters she would desire that "Baby" might be allowed to gather three flowers in the garden, any three he liked: the extreme felicity of which permission that Baby recollects still—and the anxious questionings with himself as to which the flowers should be.

      From MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.

      "Lime, July 24, 1837.—Augustus continually asks 'Why,' 'What is the reason.' If it be in reference to something he has been told to do, I never at the time give him any other reason than simply that it is my will that he should do it. If it refers to something unconnected with practical obedience, it is right to satisfy his desire of knowledge as far as he can understand. Implicit faith and consequent obedience is the first duty to instil, and it behoves a parent to take care that a child may find full satisfaction for its instinctive moral sense of justice, in the consistency of conduct observed towards him; in the sure performance of every promise; in the firm but mild adherence to every command.

      "He asks, 'Is God blue?'—having heard that He lived above the sky."

      "Stoke Rectory, Jan. 1, 1838.—On Christmas Day Augustus went to church for the first time with me. He was perfectly good and kept a chrysanthemum in his hand the whole time, keeping his eyes fixed on it when sitting down. Afterwards he said, 'Grandpapa looked just like Uncle Jule: he had his shirt (surplice) on.'

      "He has got on wonderfully in reading since I began to teach him words instead of syllables, and also learns German very quickly.

      "Having been much indulged by Mrs. Feilden (Mrs. Leycester's sister), he has become lately what Mary (Lea) calls rather 'independent.' He is, however, easily knocked out of this self-importance by a little forbearance on my part not to indulge or amuse him, or allow him to have anything till he asks rightly. … There is a strong spirit of expecting to know the reason of a thing before he will obey or believe. This I am anxious to guard against, and often am reminded in dealing with him how analogous it is to God's dealing with us—'What thou knowest not now, thou shalt know hereafter.' Now he is to walk by faith, not by sight, not by reason."

      "Lime, May 14, 1838.—Yesterday being Good Friday, I read to Augustus all he could understand about the Crucifixion. He was a little naughty, and I told him of it afterwards. 'But I was good all yesterday, won't that goodness do?' His delight over the flowers is as excessive as ever, but it is very necessary to guard against greediness in this."

      "August 10.—Being told that he was never alone, God and Jesus Christ saw him, he said, 'God sees me, but Jesus Christ does not.'—'But they are both one.'—'Then how did John the Baptist pour water on His head, and how could He be crucified?' How difficult to a child's simple faith is the union of the two natures![16]

      "Two days ago at prayers he asked what I read to the servants, and being told the meaning of the Lord's Prayer, he said, 'I know what "Amen" means. It means, "It is done."'

      "June 11.—Having knocked off a flower on a plant in the nursery, Lea asked how he could have done such a thing—'What tempted you to do such a thing?' He whispered—'I suppose it was Satan.'

      "Yesterday he told us his dream, that a beast had come out of a wood and eat him and Lea up; and Susan came to look for them and could not find them; then Mama prayed to God to open the beast's mouth, and He opened it, and they both came out safe.

      "One night, after being over-tired and excited by the Sterlings, he went to bed very naughty and screamed himself asleep. Next morning he woke crying, and being asked why he did so, sobbed out, 'Lea put me in bed and I could not finish last night: so I was obliged to finish this morning.'

      "Going up to London he saw the Thames. 'It can't be a river, it must be a pond, it is so large.' He called the sun in the midst of the London fog 'a swimming sun:' asked if the soldiers in the Park were 'looking out for the enemy.' 'Does God look through the keyhole?'

      "Two days ago, having been told to ask God to take away the naughtiness out of him, he said, "May I ask Jesus Christ to take away the naughtiness out of Satan? then (colouring he said it, and whispering) perhaps He will take him out of hell.'

      "On my birthday he told Lea at night, 'They all drank her health but Uncle Jule, and he loved her so much he could not say it.'"

      I was now four years old, and I have a vivid recollection of all that happened from this time—often a clearer remembrance than of things which occurred last year. From this time I never had any playthings, they were all banished to the loft, and, as I had no companions, I never recollect a game of any kind or ever having played at anything. There was a little boy of my own age called Philip Hunnisett, son of a respectable poor woman who lived close to our gate, and whom my mother often visited. I remember always longing to play with him, and once trying to do so in a hayfield, to Lea's supreme indignation, and my being punished for it, and never trying again. My mother now took me with her every day when she went to visit the cottages, in which she was ever a welcome guest, for it was not the lady, it was the woman who was dear to their inmates, and, when listening to their interminable histories and complaints, no one entered more into George Herbert's feeling that "it is some relief to a poor body to be heard with patience." Forty years afterwards a poor woman in Hurstmonceaux was recalling to me the sweetness of my mother's