This is one view of Mrs. Alexander, and, as far as it goes, it is perfectly true. But scarcely any characters are all of one piece. She was also boundlessly subtle, and when she had an object in view she spared no means to attain it. For her own ends, with her sweetness unruffled, she would remorselessly sacrifice her best friends. The most egotistical woman in the world, she expected every one to fall under her spell, and calmly and gently but consistently hated any one who escaped. Whilst she almost imperceptibly flattered her superiors in rank and position, she ruthlessly and often heartlessly trampled upon those whom she (sometimes wrongly) considered her inferiors. She demanded sovereignty in every house she entered, and she could always find a way to punish rebellion. She made herself friends that "men might receive her into their houses," and when she had once entered them she never relaxed her foothold.
There is a description in the Life of George Sand which might be well applied to this view of Mrs. Alexander—"Elle était une personne glacée autant que glaciale. … Ce n'était pas qu'elle ne fut aimable, elle était gracieuse à la surface, un grand savoir-vivre lui tenant lieu de grace véritable. Mais elle n'aimait réellement personne et ne s'intéressait à rien qu'à elle-même."
When we first saw Mrs. Alexander, she was living in a small lodging at Heavitree near Exeter. In the following year she came to Hurstmonceaux Rectory for three days and stayed three weeks. The year after she came for three weeks and stayed five years. From the first she was supreme at the Rectory, ruling even Aunt Esther with unswerving and ever-increasing power; but on the whole her presence was an advantage. Her education and strong understanding enabled her to enter into all my uncle's pursuits and interests as his wife could never have done, and to outsiders she was usually suave, courteous, and full of agreeable conversation.
Uncle Julius and Aunt Esther visited Rockend when we were there, and as my aunts when together generally acted as foils to each other, I should have been at liberty to enjoy the really beautiful place—its delightful gardens, storm-beaten rocks, and the tower where Aunt Lucy "made her meditations"—if I had been well enough; but I had generally to spend the greater part of the day lying upon the floor on a hard backboard and in a state of great suffering. It was often an interest at this time to listen to Uncle Julius as he read aloud in the family circle passages connected with the French Revolution, Kingsley's "Saint's Tragedy," which had then recently appeared, or the papers which my uncle and his friends were then contributing to the Magazine for the People which Kingsley was getting up. No one read so well as Uncle Julius—a whole whirlwind of tragedy, an unutterable depth of anguish and pathos could be expressed in the mere tone of his voice; and it was not merely tone; he really thus felt what he read, and so carried away his listeners, that all their actual surroundings were invisible or forgotten. Those who never heard Julius Hare read the Communion Service can have no idea of the depths of humility and passion in those sublime prayers.
In everything Uncle Julius was as unsuited to the nineteenth century as he well could be. He used to declare that he never would read a book which he knew would interest him, till the exact mood of his mind was fitted for it, till the sun happened to be shining where it ought, and till weather and time and situation all combined to suit the subject and give its full effect, and he usually had numbers of books by him waiting for this happy conjunction, but, when it arrived, he did the books full justice.
I never saw any one so violent, so unmitigated in his likes and dislikes as Uncle Julius, so furious in his approval or condemnation. "Il avait une grande hardiesse, pour ne pas dire effronterie," as Bassompierre wrote of the Duke of Buckingham. In his despotic imperiousness he had no sympathy with the feelings and weaknesses of others, though inexpressible pity for all their greater misfortunes or sorrows.
Another person of whom we saw much at this time was the really saint-like Harry Grey, my mother's first cousin, who was living at Babbicombe. He was heir to the Earldom of Stamford (to which his son afterwards succeeded), but a clergyman, and very poor.
I was so ill when we returned home, almost everything I ate producing violent sickness, that it is astonishing my health should not have been considered a primary object. A few weeks of healthy life on moors or by the sea-side, with freedom from the gnawing mental misery and depression under which I suffered, would probably have restored me; a visit to German baths might have cured me, and saved years of ill-health. Had the family only had any practical common-sense! But, on religious grounds, it was thought wrong to contend against "the wonderful leadings of God's Providence"—pain was "sent" to be endured, sickness as a tractor to draw its victims to heaven; and all simple and rational means of restoration to a healthy and healthful life were disregarded. Sago with brandy in it was provided instead of meat for my physical, and an inexhaustible supply of tracts, hymns, and little sermons for my mental digestion. Patient endurance of suffering, the following of the most unpleasant path which duty could be thought to point out, and that without hope of either reward or release, were the virtues which even my mother most inculcated at this time.
Then a private tutor was sought for—not by knowledge, not by inquiry at the Universities, not by careful investigation of attainments for teaching, but by an advertisement. The inquiry as to all the letters which answered it was whether they appeared to be "those of truly pious men"—i.e., whether they were written in the peculiar phraseology then supposed to denote such a character. At last one was accepted, and a tutor arrived, who was—well, I will not describe him further than as certainly the most unprepossessing of human beings: Nature had been so terribly hard upon him.
With this truly unfortunate man I was shut up every morning in the hope that he would teach me something, a task he was wholly unequal to; and then I had to walk out with him. Naturally there were scenes and recriminations on both sides, in which I was by no means blameless. But daily my health grew worse, and scarcely a morning passed without my having an agonising fit of suffocation, from contraction of the muscles of the throat, gasping for breath in misery unutterable. The aunts said it was all nervous. I have no doubt it was: I have had plenty of experience of hysteria since, and it is the most dreadful disorder that exists.
At last my