"'That is precisely what strikes me as the greatest advantage,' said Mrs. Gregory; 'surely one cannot think too much of the other world. To feel that spirits are constantly watching you, and grieving or rejoicing over you, must surely tend to keep you from a great deal of evil. I have known many infidels entirely converted to a new and Christian life by what they have seen with me—Mr. Ruskin, for instance. I asked Mr. Ruskin one day what he believed, and he answered "Simply nothing." He afterwards came to my house several times when I had séances, and then he took my hands, and with tears in his eyes said, "Mrs. Gregory, I cannot thank you enough for what you have shown me: it will change my whole life, for because I have seen I believe." Mr. Pickersgill the artist was another instance. Certainly hands often appear to me, but I like to see them. If you had lost any one who was a part of your life, would you not like to know that you were receiving a message from those you loved? You need not be afraid of the messages I receive. Just before I came here I received this message—"Keep close to God in prayer." There was nothing dreadful in that, was there? Was not that a beautiful message to receive. But sometimes the spirits are conflicting. There are good and bad spirits. If the messages are not such as we should wish, then we know the bad spirits are there. All this is in the Bible, "Ye shall try the spirits, whether they be good or evil." This is one of the means of grace which God gives us: surely we ought not to turn aside from it.'
"Afterwards I asked Lady Robinson her experience. She said that she had been at one of the séances, but nothing appeared and 'the Indicator' gave nothing decided. She said it was conducted most seriously, with all religious feeling. She described Mrs. Gregory as not only praying at the time, but living in a state of prayer, and she believed that the messages were granted in answer to real faith. She said quantities of people had seen the hands appear. Mrs. Gregory had a very large séance at Sir William Gomm's in London, and Lady Gomm asked for an outward sign before she would believe. A bodiless hand then appeared, and, taking up a vase with a plant in it from a china dish upon the table, set it on the floor, and then breaking a flower from the plant, came and laid it in Lady Gomm's lap: all the company saw it.
"I told the Taylors what I had heard. Sir Alexander said that he thought the chief good of such a clever physician as Mrs. Gregory's husband (Dr. Gregory of the powders) appearing would be to write a prescription for the living."
While we were at Pau, my sister wrote much to me upon the death of Cardinal Wiseman, to whom she was greatly devoted, and whom I have always believed to be a most sagacious and large-hearted man. His burly figure upon the sands at Eastbourne used to be very familiar to me in my boyhood. I heard Monsignor Capel, who afterwards attained some celebrity, preach his funeral sermon at Pau.
"Thirty years ago," he said, "there were only six Catholic churches in London; now there are forty-six. Then there were six Catholic schools in London; now there are at least three in each of these parishes—one for boys, one for girls, and one for infants. Then there were only 30,000 Catholics in all England; now there are two millions, one-ninth of the whole population of the country. Then there were no religious Orders except the Jesuit Fathers, who had lingered on from the Reformation, flying from one Catholic house to another, and administering the sacraments in fear and trembling; now there are in London the followers of St. Francis and St. Dominic, the Passionist Fathers, the Redemptorists, and at least twelve nunneries of English ladies. All this change is in a great measure due to Cardinal Wiseman, the founder of the English hierarchy. He entered on his labours in troublous times: with the enthusiasm and love of splendid ritual which he imbibed as a Spanish boy, with the ecclesiastical learning of Italy, with the dogmatic perseverance and liberality which he drank in with his English education. He chose as the title of his bishopric the see of the last martyred English bishop, and he also thirsted for martyrdom."
These notes are curious as showing how the rapid growth of Catholicism in England, which we Protestants are so unwilling to recognise, had advanced under Cardinal Wiseman's leadership.
At L'Estelle my mother daily revived, and was soon able to sit out on the sunny balcony, for the valleys of the Pyrenees were already quite hot, though the trees were leafless and the mountains covered with snow. It was long, however, before I ventured to leave her to go beyond the old convent of Bétharram, with its booths of relics and its calvary on a hill. When she was stronger, we moved to Argelès, a beautiful upland valley, whence excursions are very easy to Cauterets and Luz. Afterwards we visited Eaux Chaudes and Eaux Bonnes; but though the snow was too deep to allow of mountain rambles, the heat was already too intense for enjoyment of the valleys. We had left Pau without a sign of vegetation, and when we came back three weeks later, it was in all the deadest, heaviest green of summer. So it was a great refreshment to move at once to Biarritz, with its breezy uplands, covered with pink daphne, and its rolling, sparkling, ever-changing sea, so splendid in colour. To my mother, Biarritz was a complete restorative, and she was able there to take up her drawing again, to enjoy seeing friends, and to enter into the interests and peculiarities of the curious Basque country.
We visited many of the Basque churches, which are always encircled within by three galleries, except over the altar. These galleries are of black oak. The men sit in the galleries, and the women below, and they enter at different doors. In the churchyards the graves have all little crosses or Basque head-stones with round tops, and they are all planted with flowers. The houses all have wide overhanging roofs and external wooden galleries. Bidart and Cambo are good specimens of Basque villages. Bidart is a beautiful place on the road to S. Jean de Luz, and has a church with the characteristic overhanging belfry and high simple buttresses. A wide entry under the organ-loft is the only entrance to the church. In the hollow below is a broken bridge reflected in a pool, which is golden at sunset, and which, with the distant sea and sands, and the old houses with their wooden balconies scattered over the hillside, forms a lovely picture. Here I stayed one evening to draw with Miss Elizabeth Blommart, an acquaintance we made at Biarritz (afterwards our friend for many years), while my mother and Lea walked on, and descended from the opposite hill upon the sands. We had often been told of the treacherous waves of Bidart, but could not have believed in danger—so distant, beyond the long reaches of sand, seemed the calm Atlantic, glistening in the last rays of sunlight. To our horror, when we had nearly finished our drawing, we looked up, and saw my mother and Lea coming towards us pouring with salt water from cloaks, bonnets, everything. They had been walking unsuspiciously on the sands three-quarters of a mile from the sea, when suddenly, without any warning, a great wave surrounded them. My mother was at once swept off her feet, but Lea, with her usual presence of mind, caught her cloak and rolled it round her arm, and plunging herself deep into the sand, resisted the water and held her mistress till the wave receded, when they made their escape. A few days afterwards an Englishman with his little dog was walking in the Bay of Bidart; the man escaped, but the dog was swept out to sea.
Cambo is two hours' drive from Biarritz—a most pleasant watering-place on a high terrace above the Nive, with pergolas of vines and planes, a churchyard which is a perfect blaze of lilies and roses, and an inn-garden which is full of lovely flowers. Close by is the opening to the Pas de Roland, a grand little gorge where the Nive rushes through the mountains—a finer Dovedale. A rocky path ascends by the side of the stream and climbs a succession of steeps to la roche percée, through which it passes to a little hamlet and old bridge. Eighteen miles farther is S. Jean de Port, whence one can ride to Roncesvalles.