“Lady Salisbury said that her masseuse went constantly to the Queen. She told Lady Salisbury that what appeared to be lameness in the Queen was merely that her feet were too small to support the weight of her body. Her hands are those of a little child.
“She gave the most graphic description of an awful storm she encountered in going to S. Tropez. ‘The rivers, you know, generally flow into the sea, but then the sea flowed into the rivers: it was such a reversion of things.’
“Describing his great-grandfather, Lord Salisbury said he swore so horribly that he used to be called ‘Blastus, the king’s chamberlain.’
“I said how one of the things I most wished to see, Lady Anne Grimston’s[529] tomb, was in Hertfordshire. ‘Oh,’ said Lady Salisbury, ‘I will drive you there in my sledge;’ and so she did, across the snow-laden roads. It is the most extraordinary sight. Lady Anne Grimston was a sceptic, and when she lay upon her deathbed in 1717, her family were most anxious to make her believe in a future state, but she wouldn’t. ‘It is as likely,’ she said, ‘that I should rise again as that a tree should grow out of my body when I’m dead.’
“Lady Anne Grimston died, and was buried in Tewin churchyard, and over her grave was placed a great altar-tomb, with a huge massive stone slab on the top of it. In a year or two, this slab showed signs of internal combustion, and out of the middle of it—out of the very middle of it—grew a tree (some say six different trees, but one could not see in winter), and increased, till, in the time which has elapsed, it has become one of the largest trees in Hertfordshire. Not only that, but the branches of the tree have writhed about the tomb like the feelers of an octopus, have seized it, and lifted it into the air, so that the very base of the tomb is high up now, one with the tree or trees, so are they welded together. Then a railing was put round the tomb, and the tree has seized upon it in the same way, has twisted the strong iron rails like pack-thread, and they are to be seen tangled and twirled high in the branches of the tree. Another railing has now been put, and the tree will behave to it just as before.
“If this tree were abroad, it would become the most popular place of pilgrimage in the world. As it is, thousands visit it—even across the snow a regular path was worn to it. Tewin churchyard preaches more sermons than a thousand clergymen.
“‘I have brought back Mr. Hare a most firm believer in a future state,’ said Lady Salisbury as we re-entered the Golden Gallery at Hatfield, where all the guests were sitting.”
“London, Feb. 2.—I dined with my two friends, Lewis Gilbertson and Frank Cookson, who live so happily together in the charming little canonical house of the former in Amen Court. Gilbertson told me how Mr. Spooner of Oxford, celebrated for his absence of mind, was one evening found wandering disconsolately about the streets of Greenwich. ‘I’ve been here hours,’ he said. ‘I had an important appointment to meet some one at “The Dull Man, Greenwich,” and I can’t find it anywhere; and the odd thing is no one seems to have heard of it.’ Late at night he went back to Oxford. ‘You idiot!’ exclaimed his wife; ‘why, it was the Green Man, Dulwich, you had to go to.’”
To Herbert Vaughan of Llangoedmore.
“April 21.—My visit at Elton has been most pleasant, Lord and Lady Carysfort so kind, the house a climax of comfort, and the party one of old friends, Knightleys, Peels, Lady Tollemache, and beautiful Lady Claude Hamilton the elder. Then the gardens and groves are quite beautiful, especially at this time—