JOURNAL.
"Lime, March 30, 1856.—My mother and I have had a very happy Easter together—more than blessed when I look back at the anxiety of last Easter. Once when her bell rang in the night, I started up and rushed out into the passage in an agony of alarm, for every unusual sound at home has terrified me since her illness; but it was nothing. I have been full of my work, chiefly Aristotle's Politics, for 'Greats'—too full, I fear, to enter as I ought into all her little thoughts and plans as usual: but she is ever loving and gentle, and had interest and sympathy even when I was preoccupied. She thinks that knowledge may teach humility even in a spiritual sense. She says, 'In knowledge the feeling is the same which one has in ascending mountains—that, the higher one gets, the farther one is from heaven.' To-day, as we were walking amongst the flowers, she said, 'I suppose every one's impressions of heaven are according to the feeling they have for earthly things: I always feel that a garden is my impression—the garden of Paradise.' 'People generally love themselves first, their friends next, and God last,' she said one day. 'Well, I do not think that is the case with me,' I replied; 'I really believe I do put you first and self next.' 'Yes, I really think you do,' she said."
When I returned to Oxford after Easter, 1856, my pleasant time in college rooms was over, and I moved to lodgings over Wheeler's bookshop and facing Dr. Cradock's house, so that I was able to see more than ever of Mrs. Eliot Warburton. I was almost immediately in the "Schools," for the classical and divinity part of my final examination, which I got through very comfortably. While in the Schools at this time, I remember a man being asked what John the Baptist was beheaded for—and the answer, "Dancing with Herodias's daughter!" Once through these Schools, I was free for some time, and charades were our chief amusement, Mrs. Warburton, the Misses Elliot,[111] Sheffield, and I being the principal actors. The proclamation of peace after the Crimean War was celebrated—Oxford fashion—by tremendous riots in the town, and smashing of windows in all directions.
At Whitsuntide, I had a little tour in Warwickshire with Albert Rutson as my companion. We enjoyed a stay at Edgehill, at the charming little inn called "The Sun Rising," which overlooks the battlefield, having the great sycamore by its side under which Charles I. breakfasted before the battle, and a number of Cavalier arms inside, with the hangings of the bed in which Lord Lindsey died. From Edgehill I saw the wonderful old house of the Comptons at Compton-Whinyates, with its endless secret staircases and trap-doors, and its rooms of unplaned oak, evidently arranged with no other purpose than defence or escape. We went on to Stratford-on-Avon, with Shakspeare's tomb, his house in Henley Street, and the pretty old thatched cottage where he wooed his wife—Anne Hathaway. Also we went to visit Mrs. Lucy (sister of Mrs. William Stanley) at Charlecote, a most entertaining person, with the family characteristic of fun and goodhumour; and to Combe Abbey, full of relics of Elizabeth of Bohemia and her daughters, who lived there with Lord Craven. Many of the portraits were painted by her daughter Louisa. A few weeks later I went up to the Stanleys in London for the Peace illuminations—"very neat, but all alike," as I heard a voice in the crowd say. I saw them from the house of Lady Mildred Hope, who had a party for them like the one in Scripture, not the rich and great, but the "poor, maimed, halt, and blind;" as, except Aldersons and Stanleys, she arranged that there should not be a single person "in society" there.
JOURNAL.
"Lime, June 8, 1856.—I had found the dear mother in a sadly fragile state, so infirm and tottering that it is not safe to leave her alone for a minute, and she is so well aware of it, that she does not wish to be left. She cannot now even cross the room alone, and never thinks of moving anywhere without a stick. Every breath, even of the summer wind, she feels most intensely. '"The Lord establish, strengthen you," that must be my verse,' she says."
"June 15.—I am afraid I cannot help being tired of the mental solitude at home, as the dear mother, without being ill enough to create any anxiety, has not been well enough to take any interest, or have any share in my doings. Sometimes I am almost sick with the silence, and, as I can never go far enough from her to allow of my leaving the garden, I know not only every cabbage, but every leaf upon every cabbage."
"June 29.—We have been for a week with the Stanleys at Canterbury, and it was very pleasant to be with Arthur, who was his most charming self."