“June 22.—Yesterday I went to Oxford, and came in, without intending it, for Commemoration. I will never go there again if I can help it. It is like visiting a grave of happy past years.”
“June 28.—Went to Holland House. The deep shade of its lofty avenue is enchanting as one turns in from the baking street of Kensington. Lady Holland sat in the inner room, with her sweet face encircled by the prettiest of old-fashioned caps. Beau Atkinson was with her, with a lovely little Skye dog in his arms, and Lady Lilford with her two fine boys. After talking some time, we wandered into the gardens under the old cedars. When we came in, old Mr. Cheney was leaning over Lady Holland’s chair, chuckling to himself over the dogmatic self-assertion of Mr. Hayward,[204] who was talking to her of books, the value of which he considered to be quite decided by his opinion of them. Especially he talked of Ticknor’s Memoirs, so remarkable because, though he was an American of the most lowly origin, it is evident that when he came to Europe he not only saw the best society of every country he visited, but saw it intimately—which could only have been due to his own personal charm.
“Dined at Lady Barrington’s. She said I must be presented, and George Barrington said he should present me.
“L. was full of a dinner she had been at at Count Beust’s. The Prince Imperial was there, who had always hitherto been regarded as only a pleasant boy, but who electrified them on this occasion by a remarkable flash of wit. It had been impossible to avoid asking the French Ambassador, but Count Beust had taken especial pains to make it as little offensive as possible. He took in the Princess of Wales to supper and placed her at the same table with the Prince Imperial. The Comte and Comtesse d’Harcourt were at another table with the Prince of Wales. Suddenly an offensive pushing man, first secretary to the French embassy, brought Mademoiselle d’Harcourt to the Prince Imperial’s table and sat down. The Prince was very much annoyed. Looking up at a picture of the Emperor of Austria, he asked if it resembled him—‘I do not remember him, I was so very young when I saw him,’ and then in a louder tone, ‘I wonder how the French Ambassador represents the Republic of France on the walls of his rooms.’”
“June 29.—Yesterday I went down into Kent for Miss Virginia Smith’s wedding with young Francis Villiers,[205] toiling in a cab with Lady Craven over the hot chalky hills. The breakfast was at Selsden Park, a lovely place belonging to a child-heiress, Erroll Smith’s daughter.
“Dined with Lady Head, and we went on together to Baroness Burdett Coutts’, where Irving read Macbeth to an immense company, chiefly bishops and archbishops and their belongings. The reading was stilted and quite ineffective.”
“June 30.—A most pleasant party at Lord Ducie’s—Mr. and Miss Froude, Sir James Lacaita, Miss Grant the sculptress, Lord Aberdeen and Lady Katherine, Lord Northbrook and Lady Emma Baring, Lord Camperdown, Mr., Mrs., and Miss Gladstone, Lord Vernon, George and Lady Constance Shaw-Lefevre, &c.
“There was very agreeable conversation, chiefly about Macaulay’s Life—of his wonderful memory and the great power it gave him. Gladstone said the most astonishing thing about him was that he could remember not only the things worth knowing, but the most extraordinary amount of trash. He described another man he knew who, after once reading over the advertisement sheet of the Times, could repeat it straight through.
“In the evening I was asked to tell a story, and did, feeling that if Irving amused people for about three hundred nights of the year, it was rather hard if I declined to amuse him on one of the remaining sixty-five. He enjoyed it more than any one else, and lingering behind, when all were gone but Mrs. Gladstone and one or two others, said, ‘Now that we are such a very small party, do tell us another.’”
“July 6.—Went by rail with Mr. Ralph Dutton and ‘Beauty Stephens’ to Syon. It is a great house in a low-lying park, on the edge of which the Thames is marked by its great lines of tall sedges and the barges going up and down with music through the flat meadow-lands. On the parapet of the house is the poor old lion from Northumberland House. The lime-trees were in flower, scenting the whole air.