“To some Americans she met she said, ‘We hate you for your politics: we hate you for your prosperity: we hate you for your manners: and ... I don’t wonder at it.’
“Mrs. Sartoris had more talent, but Mrs. Kemble had the greater genius. Those who met her recognised it at once. I heard one who loved her best say, ‘She married Mr. Butler because, for once in her life, she was a fool. He was very faulty as a husband, but she was so imperious, no one could have lived with dear Mrs. Kemble.’
“When Mr. Cummings was taking the duty in the chapel at Dresden, they lived in the same house. Mrs. Cummings wishing to be civil, after some time sent her card, and asked if she might wait on Mrs. Kemble. The daughter came up at once and explained, very civilly, that her mother now saw no one, so Mrs. Cummings thought no more about it. But some time after, as she was sitting alone in her room, came a tap at the door, and on her opening it, she saw a lady in black velvet and lace, closely veiled, who startled her by saying in sepulchral accents, ‘I’m come to say that I shall never come again.’—‘Oh, is that really you, Mrs. Butler?’ said lively little Mrs. Cummings, and the sound of her real name, unheard for years, made her quite pleasant, and she came in, and was glad to hear of many mutual friends in the Berkshire of Massachusetts. But unfortunately Mrs. Cummings made some allusion to Shakspeare, and ‘I did not come here to speak of Shakspeare,’ said Mrs. Kemble in her most awful accents, and the charm was broken.
“When in Boston long ago, while she was reading in public, she ordered dresses, pink and blue satin, at the great shop, the Marshall & Snelgrove of the town, but gave no address. The shopmen were afraid to ask her. The manager felt he must run after her and ask where the things should be sent. Unfortunately, to attract her attention, he touched her. ‘Unhand me, ruffian,’ she shouted in her most ferocious tone. ‘And such was the man’s terror,’ said my informant, ‘that, though he was quite young, his hair was turned white that night.’
“From personal vanity she was absolutely free. Miss Hosmer once expressed her regret that she had been photographed in a hat—‘We would so much rather have seen your head.’—‘My dear,’ said Mrs. Kemble, ‘my sister, and my friends, and you yourself expressed a wish to possess my photograph, so, as I was passing a photographer’s shop, I just went in and flopped down and was photographed as I was.’
“A lady was once alluding to the hope she entertained of reducing her figure. In her most tragical voice Mrs. Kemble said, dwelling on every syllable, ‘With a hereditary tendency to fat, nor exercise, nor diet, nor grief may avail.’”
To Mrs. C. Vaughan and Journal.
“Longford Castle, Salisbury, Jan. 18.—I have been five days in this magnificent old place, and it has been a very interesting visit—and weird, from being with people to whom the other world is so very near, who seem to be as intimate with the dead as with the living, and who think no more of ‘receiving a message’ from one of their ‘guiding spirits’ than we should of a note from an ordinary acquaintance. These spirits, the wise ‘Huldah,’ the scientific ‘Iganesis,’ the sympathetic ‘Echord,’ the evangelistic ‘Ernest,’ and ‘Semirus,’ the wise physician, are the friends of the Radnors’ daily life. There comes a rap, such a noise as we should speak of as ‘only the furniture,’ and then it is supposed that one of the spirits has something to say, and a pencil is put into the hand of a medium. One cannot say that she writes, for she often even goes fast asleep! but it writes, frequently volumes—not the sprawling incomprehensible stuff which I have often seen before from ‘Planchette,’ but clear MS. in different handwritings, and purporting to come from one of the spiritual friends. Personally, I should say that most of these communications were not the least worth the immense amount of time and thought given to them. The letters—‘messages’—from Echord and Ernest, are excellent certainly, but mild and affectionate religious platitudes, such as might be written by an Evangelical clergyman of rather poetical tendencies. They all, however, speak of the dead as not asleep, but in action: of there being no ‘place,’ but ‘a state’ after death: of existence after death being a process through gradations. None of the spirits have seen ‘God,’ but ‘the dear Master,’ ‘the sweet Master,’ is ever with them and amongst them. The communications from Semirus are more important. He is the great physician, and his advice has provided means of healing and safety for numbers, where earthly physicians have proved powerless or helpless. The Bishop of Salisbury has been scandalised at the state of things at Longford and felt impelled to come and testify against it. He recognised all that happened as fact, as every one must, but denounced it as ‘devilry,’ saying that the owners of the castle were risking their own souls and all the souls around them. They answer: ‘It was said to Christ, Thou hast a devil.’
“The great medium is Miss K. Wingfield, now aged about twenty-six. The Radnors have known her and her family most intimately for many years, and are certain of her absolute trustworthiness with regard to what she hears or writes. She is almost as a daughter to them, and they have watched the development of her psychical powers, through various steps, with the greatest interest. Her most remarkable gift is automatic writing, which has been given in many languages, several with which she is wholly unacquainted (including a very old form of Chinese, only decipherable at the British Museum), and in many different handwritings. When her hand writes, or rather the pencil in her hand, she has never the least idea of what is being written. A divining rod has unfailing power in her hands.
“The really remarkable communications are those which have reference to History. In August 1889, Sir Joseph (then Mr.) Barnby, came down to Longford to play the organ at Lady Skelmersdale’s marriage. One day at this time Miss Wingfield’s hand wrote a communication in strange old-fashioned characters, which purported to come from one ‘John Longland.’ When asked why he came, he said that he had been brought ‘by the influence of Mr. Barnby, whose music he had heard in Eton College Chapel, where he was buried.’ Later in the day, the party went to Salisbury Cathedral, and while Lady Radnor and Miss Wingfield were sitting in the Hungerford Chapel (the freehold family pew of the Radnor family), Mr. Barnby played. Whilst he was playing, Miss Wingfield saw, as in a vision, various scenes enacted, culminating in a procession of monks and other ecclesiastics with banners and canopies: one of these, a grave-faced man, came up to the chapel and looked in at her through the bars. At the same time he announced (by loud raps on the wainscot, which is the ordinary means of communication) that he was John Longland, that it was he who had written in the morning, and that he had come to the cathedral because he had been Dean there in 1514, and that he had more to tell. Another vision in the cathedral showed the gorgeous ceremonial of a consecration, which was announced to be that of one Brian Duppa, Bishop of Salisbury: in a third vision, Brian Duppa was again seen, lying dead in his coffin.