"'Now I will tell you a story about Hare. When Hare was a little child he lived at Rome: you know what we call it?—("Oh yes, papa, Babylon.")—Well, he lived at Babylon, and he was a very good little boy then, but he used to walk about dressed in scarlet, for they all wore scarlet there. One day a man was seen in the streets, very beautiful, a stranger with silver wings. And he said, "Are you little Hare, and would you like to go with me and learn how to be good?" for he was an angel. And little Hare said, "Oh yes, that is what I always like to be and try to be, and I shall like very much to go."
"'So the angel took little Hare up and carried him away on his back: and his poor mother went up and down the streets of Babylon crying and wringing her hands, for she did not know where her dear boy was gone.
"'But the angel carried Hare to the Happy Island, where all manner of little children were living—Ada and Angelina, and numbers of others. All these little children came to Hare and asked why he came there in his scarlet dress without getting it washed, because they all wore white robes, and they told him he must get his robes washed too. But he said he liked his scarlet clothes, and did not wish to have white robes like theirs, and he was very sullen and angry.
"'So then the angel and the children left him alone and took no notice of him. But after a time he observed that all the other children had little wings while he had none, and he felt sorry when the great angel passed by every day and took no notice of him, and at last he said, "How sorry I am to have spoken as I did, and how much I should like to have my robes washed and made white like those of the Happy Island children."
"'And the instant he said these words, his scarlet dress fell off, and he had beautiful white robes given him, and he felt a strange sensation in his shoulders, for little wings were growing there. And all the little children came up and kissed him, and cried, "Hosanna! hosanna! he is good; and he has got little wings like us."
"'So Hare lived on in the island, till, one day, the angel said, "Have you ever thought what your poor mother is doing now, and would you not like to go back to her?" And Hare said, "But can I always be good and have white robes and wings if I go back to Babylon?" And the angel said, "No, but you can try," and he took Hare on his back and flew off and off till he came to Babylon, where he set Hare down in the streets: and all the people looked at him, and when they saw his white robes and his wings, they said, "Why, there is a little angel come!"
"'And Hare went to his mother when she was asleep, and when she awoke she thought it was a dream, but he said, "No, mother, it is no dream. I have been in the Happy Island all this time, and I have come back good." Then his mother, when she saw his wings, said, "Oh, go on being good, and then your wings will grow larger and larger, till at last you will not only be able to go back yourself to the Happy Isle, but to take me with you." And Hare wished to do this, but nevertheless Babylon is a bad place, and as he went out in the streets his dress became soiled with their mud, and he mingled and played with its children till his wings grew smaller and smaller, and at last they fell off altogether.
"'Still, if you were to examine Hare on the bare shoulders when he is undressed, you would see the stumps where the wings were.'"
On the 17th of November I went up to London for the funeral of the Duke of Wellington on the following day. Very late at night Arthur Stanley arrived, having travelled day and night from Rome on purpose. We had to set off at four o'clock next morning to reach our reserved seats in St. Paul's, though I do not think the service began till twelve. We were four hours in the long chain of carriages wending at a foot's pace towards St. Paul's. A number of curious cases of robbery occurred then. I remember one, of an old gentleman in a carriage before us, who was leaning out of the carriage window with a pair of gold spectacles on his nose. A well-dressed man approached him between the two lines of carriages and said, "Sir, don't you know that you're very imprudent in leaning out of the carriage window on this occasion with such a very valuable pair of gold spectacles upon your nose? An ill-disposed person might come up and whip off your spectacles like this"—and, suiting the action to the word, he whipped them off, and escaped between the opposite line of carriages, leaving the old gentleman without any chance of redress.
The ceremony in St. Paul's was sublime beyond any power of words to describe. I recollect as one of the most striking features the figure of Dean Milman—bent almost double, with silver hair—who had been present at the funeral of Nelson in 1806, when he "heard, or seemed to hear, the low wail of the sailors who encircled their Admiral." My mother saw the procession from the Bunsens' house at Carlton Terrace.