“In the afternoon Victoria took me to Lady Sligo’s new house, to which, instead of the suitable name of Altamont,[519] she has insisted on giving that of Mount Brown. It is beautifully situated on a wooded platform above the town of Guildford. I thought the inside of the house very charming, but Frank Thomas, the architect, who was with us, objected because ‘there was too little of the architect, and too much of Lady Sligo in it,’ which seemed to me just its greatest recommendation.
“‘May I tum in?’ said a little boy, knocking at his little sister’s door. ‘No, oo mayn’t,’ answered the little sister. ‘May I tum in now?’ said the little boy. ‘Yes, oo may,’ answered the little sister. ‘And why mightn’t I tum in before?’ said the little boy. ‘Because Mammy said oo wasn’t to see me in my chemise, and now I’ve taken it off,’ answered the little sister.”
“Dec. 8.—‘I see some pictures by amateurs,’ said Mr. Eddis this morning, ‘which produce the same effect that we was does in conversation: it is because they have never studied the grammar of art.
“‘You would scarcely remember Chantrey, I think. He was always a kind friend to me. He rose quite from the ranks, and began as a carver of wood. Rogers was always said to have a table which had been carved by Chantrey.
“‘Lord Eldon sat to me three times, and, while he sat, told me all the story of his life, so when that Life was published, it was all familiar to me: he had told it all. He was unsuccessful as a lawyer in early life, had no practice whatever, and his friends advised him to throw up the profession altogether. Only two friends urged him to wait just a little longer, and he took their advice, and in that “little longer” the tide turned, and carried him on to the Chancellorship: “And then,” said Lord Eldon, “I was able to provide those two friends with very good places.’”
In December 1893 my “Story of Two Noble Lives” appeared, and was warmly welcomed by the upper classes of society—“the public” for whom it was especially written. The last time I had gone out with Lady Waterford, we walked up and down the little ilex avenue by the churchyard at Highcliffe. She spoke then of the great and increasing desolation of her life, and said, “If I survive Charles Stuart, there will not be any one left who would even put up a monument to me.” At the time I inwardly said, “I will,” and held firm to that resolution; and from what people say of the book, I feel that I may venture to regard it, though very unworthy, as a memorial of my dear Lady and her so-beloved sister. Lady Canning’s is the better portrait, for her letters remained; the destruction of all Lady Waterford’s best letters has prevented an equally good picture of her life being produced. General Stuart and many other of Lady Waterford’s friends assured me that a detailed memoir of her was impossible; but no good work was ever successfully carried through which has not at one time seemed impossible.
It was curious, on going to London, to see how opinions differed about the book—how one heard, “Oh, all the interest is confined to Lady Canning,” or, “Of course all one’s sympathies are with Lady Waterford; it is only Lady Waterford one cares for,” or, “The old French history is the only point of interest.” The Reviews were just the same, wishing that the first, or the second, or the third volume were excluded—“the general public would have been sure to welcome the book if it had been much shorter.” But that was exactly the welcome I did not care that it should receive. The general public had no interest in, could not understand, and was not constituted to benefit by such “noble lives,” while the inner circle for whom they were intended could always skip—skip a whole volume if it pleased, just as suited the reader. “Le plus grand malheur d’un homme de lettres n’est peut-être pas d’être l’objet de la jalousie de ses confrères, la victime de la cabale, le mépris des puissants du monde; c’est d’être jugé par des sots.” I was, however, very grateful for the letter of “a Radical,” well known, though quite unknown to me, who wrote that the book had shown him that he had often talked and written of what he had known nothing about, of a class he had misjudged or judged only from individuals, and that “the Story” had taught him what noble, devoted, unselfish lives might belong to the class he had maligned, and that he would never speak against it—in generalities—again. Lady Cork was furious because the married life of Lord and Lady Canning had not been painted as cloudlessly, beatifically happy. But how could I do this with all the written evidence before me? And, after all, what made Lady Canning’s so perfectly “noble” a life was that, however much she suffered, she allowed her mother and sister to live and die under the impression that she was the happiest of wives.
A very large first edition—5300 copies—was produced. I felt these would be called for, and that such an edition would probably cover the very heavy expenses. But the sale of the book is not likely to go on; the generation contemporary with the two sisters will have passed away. For myself, if I like a book, I prefer that it should be very long. It enables you to make a real acquaintance with the people described, to learn to love them perhaps, and to be very sorry to part with them. I wonder if it will be so if some of these—very long—journals are ever made public.
