The winter of 1853 was a very sad one. I found my dearest mother very feeble and tottering, and it was a constant grief to me to see the patient, worn look of illness in her forehead as she leant back in her chair. She would occupy herself, however, as usual in cutting out clothes for the poor, saying that her own sufferings from the cold forbade her not trying to prevent theirs. I scarcely ever ventured to leave her for a moment as long as we stayed at home, always inventing an excuse to walk behind her whenever she went upstairs, for fear she should suddenly fall. On the 20th of December, the Stanleys being absent at Canterbury, we went up to their empty house in Grosvenor Crescent. Here the winter was much preferable to that at Lime, and on the whole my mother suffered less; but my life was that of a constant sicknurse, scarcely ever away from her. When I was, I generally went in the dusk to the National Gallery—too late to see the pictures, but I liked to wander about in the almost empty rooms, and to feel that they were there, and knowing no one in London myself, to make imaginary histories about the one or two figures which still lingered, finding the same odd refuge as myself from the turmoil of the town. In reading my journal of this winter, I can recall the days of intense anguish I went through, seeing before me, as I thought, the realisation of Dr. Chapman's verdict that softening of the brain had definitely set in for my dearest mother. As the year closed in gloom, I looked forward with terror to what the next would bring, to the probability of not having another year to surround her with my love, to ward off every sorrow. Whilst conscious that my character had certainly expanded under the happier life I had been leading at Oxford, and that the interests of my friends there had become as near my heart as my own, I realised that all I could be and do for my own mother was no mere duty, it was the outpouring of my whole soul; for I did not entertain an angel unawares. At the New Year my mother's attacks increased; often she was unable to see and became almost unconscious. Yet by the 21st of January she had rallied so much that I was able to return in tolerable comfort to Oxford.
To MY MOTHER.
"University College, Jan. 22, 1854.—My dearest mother will often have thought of her child in his college home: and how often have I thought of my own mother, and longed to be by her to watch and take care of her still. I feel the blank on the staircase, now my hand has nothing to do in helping you. It is a comfort that you have plenty of nurses to take care of you; but the great comfort of all is that you now no longer want me.
"I have new rooms now in the 'New Buildings.' They are not very large, but the sitting-room has the charm of a beautiful oriel window overhanging the High Street, with a cushioned seat all round and a small writing-table in the middle: and the view is delightful."
I think it was during the Easter vacation of this year that a day of national humiliation was appointed on the outbreak of the Crimean War. Severely indeed was the fast-day observed at Hurstmonceaux. At Lime we had nothing to eat but bread, and for dinner some boiled sea-kale, a vegetable which I have ever since associated with that time; and I have a vivid remembrance of the serio-comic face of our butler, John Gidman, when we were ushered into the dining-room, with the table laid out as usual, and, when the covers were taken off, only that amount of food was displayed. In theory Aunt Esther was always urging the duty not only of a saintly, but of an ascetic life, and it was not her fault that the only cell where she could herself carry out in practice her austere views was an orange-scented library lined with rare folios or precious works of art.
This, the second year of my Oxford life, was very enjoyable. Not intending to read for honours, for which I had no ambition (as my mother, unlike many parents, would have had no pleasure whatever in my obtaining them, but, on the contrary, would have regarded them as a most undesirable "snare"), I had plenty of time for other things, and pursued those studies of French, Italian, History, and Archæology which have been far more really useful to me than any amount of Latin and Greek. My devotion to George Sheffield showed itself, amongst other ways, in writing a story every week, which was presented to him on Sunday. Many of these stories, though I forget them, must, I now believe, have been rather interesting. Lady Sheffield used to keep them, and, as they all referred to things and people long past, George and I used to make schemes of publishing them some day in a black cover adorned with a white skull and cross-bones, under the title of "Dead Dust,"—an idea which, I am thankful to say, was never carried out. With Troutbeck and Duckworth I used to attend and make copious notes of the lectures of Professor Philips on Geology, which sometimes assumed a peripatetic form.
To MY MOTHER.
"Oxford, June 9, 1854.—At half-past ten yesterday, Troutbeck, Duckworth, Bowden, and I, met the Professor and twenty-eight fellow-geologists at the station. The Professor was dressed in a queer old brown suit, and we were all armed with hammers, and baskets to carry provisions and bring back fossils. We took the train to Handbro', on the outskirts of Blenheim Park, and no sooner arrived there than the Professor, followed by his whole lecture, rushed up the railway bank, where he delivered a thrilling discourse on terrebratulæ, which are found in that place, and for which we all grubbed successfully immediately afterwards. And in that extraordinary manner we perambulated the country all day—getting on a few yards, and then stopping to hear a lecture on some stone the Professor had spied in the hedge, or which one of the party had picked up in the road. Greatly did we astonish the villages we passed through. 'What be's you all come professionising about, zur?' said one old man to me. We had luncheon in the remains of a Roman villa with mosaics."
"In the evening we went to the Professor's 'Soiree.' Here I found it much more amusing to listen to his sister's discourse about 'poor dear Buckland—my friends Whewell and Sedgwick—my dear friend Faraday—my very celebrated uncle, and my also celebrated brother,' than to attend to the Professor himself, who was exhibiting photographs of the scenery and geology of the moon."