My great love for anything of historic romance, however, rendered the Louis Philippe revolution the overwhelming interest of this quarter, and put everything else into the shade. In the preceding autumn the murder of the Duchesse de Praslin had occupied every one, and we boys used to lie on the floor for hours poring over the horrible map of the murder-room which appeared in the "Illustrated," in which all the pools of blood were indicated. But that was nothing to the enthusiastic interest over the sack of the Tuileries and the escape of the Royal Family: I have never known anything like it in after life.
I have often heard since much of the immoralities of a public-school life, but I can truly say that when I was there, I saw nothing of them. A very few boys, however, can change the whole character of a school, especially in a wrong direction. "A little worm-wood can pollute a hive of honey," was one of the wise sayings of Pius II. I do not think that my morals were a bit the worse for Harrow, but from what I have heard since of all that went on there even in my time, I can only conclude it was because—at that time certainly—"je n'avais pas le goût du peché," as I once read in a French novel.
At Easter, 1848, I left Harrow for the holidays, little imagining that I should never return there. I should have been very sorry had I known it. On the whole, the pleasurable "adventures" of a public-school life had always outweighed its disagreeables; though I was never in strong enough health for any real benefit or enjoyment.
IV
LYNCOMBE
"Les longues maladies usent la douleur, et les longues espérances usent la joie."—Mme. de Sévigné.
"One adequate support
For the calamities of mortal life
Exists, one only—an assured belief
That the procession of our fate, however
Sad or disturbed, is ordered by a Being
Of infinite benevolence and power,
Whose everlasting purposes embrace
All accidents, converting them to good."
—WORDSWORTH.
"Condemned to Hope's delusive mire,
As we toil on from day to day
By sudden stroke or slow decline
Our means of comfort drop away."
—JOHNSON.
"It is well we cannot see into the future. There are few boys
of fourteen who would not be ashamed of themselves at forty."
—Jerome K. Jerome.
OF all the unhappy summers of my boyhood, that of 1848 was the most miserable. When I left Harrow at Easter, I was very really ill. The iron frame which had been made for my back had seriously injured the spine which it was intended to cure, and a bad fall down the school steps at Harrow had increased the malady. When Sir Benjamin Brodie saw me, he said that I must lie down for at least the greater part of many months, and that a return to Harrow was quite out of the question. This, however, was concealed from me at first, and when I knew it, I was too ill to have any regrets. We went first to Torquay, stopping on the way to visit Mrs. Alexander, a person who afterwards, for some years, bore a large share in our life. In her youth, as Miss Mary Manning, she had been a governess in the family of Sir John Malcolm, and, while living with the Malcolms at Hyde Hall near Cambridge, had been the most intimate early friend of my Uncle Julius. People generally thought that he had been engaged to her, but this, I believe, was never the case. She had married a Mr. Alexander, a physician at Edinburgh, who soon left her a widow, and since that time she had possessed no settled home. She was very tall, serene, and had a beautiful countenance, and her old-fashioned dress was always wonderfully refined and in keeping with her appearance. She seemed to have the power of imposing her own personality upon her surroundings, and subduing the life and movement around her into an intellectual as well as a physical calm. She had a melodious low voice, a delicate Scotch accent, a perfectly self-possessed manner, and a sweet and gentle dignity. In conversation she was witty and genial, but never rude. With wonderful power of narration, she had the art of throwing unspeakable interest and charm over the most commonplace things: yet she never exaggerated. All the clever men who came in contact with her were bound under her spell. Whewell, Worsley, Landor, Bunsen, Sedgwick adored her, and did not wonder at my uncle's adoration. Saint-Amand's description of Mme. de Maintenon might have been written for her—"Elle garda, dans sa vieillesse, cette supériorité de style et de langage, cette distinction de manières, ce tact exquis, cette finesse, cette douceur et cette fermeté de caractère, ce charme et cette élévation d'esprit qui, à toutes les époques de son existence, lui valurent tant d'éloges et lui attirèrent tant d'amitié."
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.