“June 19.—Dined with Lord Ravensworth—a very pleasant party, to meet poor Lord Durham, whom I had not seen since his great sorrow. He looks as if he had cried night and day ever since, and did cry in a corner when a touching song was sung about a young wife. I was very glad to meet him again. He is quite devoted to his thirteen children, and the eldest girl, of thirteen, manages everything.”
“July 3.—The most extraordinary thing the Shah has done has been offering to buy Lady Margaret Beaumont (to carry off to Persia) for £500,000!”
“July 24, 1873.—I went to luncheon with Lady Barrington, and found her still in tears for the Bishop of Winchester’s[61] death. He had dined with her a few days before, and she had spoken of the pleasure it would be to him to go to Farnham. ‘Oh, I shall never go to Farnham,’ he said; ‘the old Bishop of Winchester will long survive me;’ and so it was. ‘Oh, what a joyful surprise for him!’ said Carlyle when he heard of the Bishop’s sudden death. ‘He is our show man for the Church of England,’ Hugh Pearson used to say.
“Dined at Lord Salisbury’s, and sat between Miss Alderson and Lady Cork. I had always heard of Lady Cork as one of the best talkers in London, but was not prepared for such a display of summer lightning as it was. Here is a trifling specimen.
“Lord Salisbury.—‘I am so glad he speaks English. I find it such an extra fatigue to have to struggle with a foreign tongue, and to think of the words as well as the ideas.’
“Lady Cork.—‘Well, I am afraid when I talk, I think neither of the one nor the other.’
“Lord S.—‘Yes, but then you come of a race’ ...
“Lady C.—‘Wha-a-at, or I had better use that most expressive French expression ‘Plait-il?’ ... We have only one English sentence which would do as well—‘I beg your parding’—with a g.’”
“July 26.—I reached Chevening about 6 P.M. It is a dull square white house with wings, but was once red, and was designed by Inigo Jones, from whom it retains the old plan, not only of the building, but of the straight avenue, the lake, and the fountain with water-lilies before the door. Between the house and the lake is the loveliest of flower-gardens, a wilderness of old-fashioned flowers, most perfectly charming. Here Lady Stanhope was sitting out with Lord and Lady Carnarvon and Lord and Lady Mahon. Lord Carnarvon is agreeable and his wife most lovely and piquant. Lady Mahon, very prettily dressed en bergère, looked like a flower herself as she moved in her bright blue dress through the living labyrinth of colour.
“Lady Carnarvon gave an amusing account of her visit to Dulwich College, of which her husband is a governor, and how she had produced a great effect by remarking that they used a new pronunciation of Latin; ‘and my little girl behaved very well too, and, though she was most awfully bored, smiled and bowed at all the right moments.... We came away before the speeches, which were all quite horrid, I believe, except Carnarvon’s, and that I am quite sure was very nice indeed.”