“I wonder if you ever saw Coventry Patmore here, who died lately. He often came to Holmhurst during the latter part of his residence at Hastings, where he wrote ‘The Angel in the House’ in memory of his first wife, and in memory of his second spent most of the large fortune she had brought him, £60,000, in building a beautiful church, S. Mary Star of the Sea; and whilst building it, though always a devout Catholic, imbibed, from being brought into close contact with them, a hatred of priests which never left him. The existence of ‘In Memoriam’ may be said to be due to Patmore. When young, he and Tennyson lodged together at some house in London, where they had a violent quarrel with their landlady, and left suddenly in a huff. Once well away, they recollected that the MS. of ‘In Memoriam’ was left in the cupboard of their room with the unfinished ham and the half-empty jam-pot. The timid Alfred would not face the wrath of the landlady, but Patmore went back to get it. He found the woman cleaning her doorstep and told her that he was come to get something he had left behind. ‘No,’ she said, ‘there was nothing, and she had seen quite enough of him, he should not go upstairs.’ But the slim Patmore took her by surprise, slipped past her, rushed up to the room, and from the jam cupboard extracted the MS., and made off with it in spite of her imprecations.
“Tennyson recognised what Patmore had done at the time, and said he should give him the MS. But he never did; he gave it to Sir J. Simeon, who left it to his second wife. When Tennyson’s MSS. rose so much in value, his family asked for it back, and Lady Simeon has promised that it shall go back at her death. In another generation, if Tennyson’s fame lasts so long, it will probably be sold for a large sum.
“Apropos of poets, pleasant old Miss Courtenay was talking to me the other day of how Browning was beyond all things a man of the world rather than a poet. When she saw Mrs. Browning at Naples long ago, and expressed some surprise at his being so much with Lockhart, who was then in his last serious illness, Mrs. Browning said, ‘Yes, and isn’t it delightful that Mr. Lockhart likes him so much; he told me the other day, “I like Robert so much because he is not a damned literary person!’”
“The clergyman in the little iron tabernacle of a church at our gate seemed to some to preach at me last night for not having been at the morning service, at which there was the Sacrament. He was quite right. I really might have gone, for I had no ‘boys’ here, and I was not merely kept away by my detestation of sermons, so seldom, what Spurgeon said they should be, ‘the man in flower;’ but I never thought of it, and was very busy at home about a thousand things. But though I revere the Sacrament as a holy commemorative ordinance, I cannot feel as if it did one the slightest good, except as concentrating one’s thoughts for a few minutes on sacred memories. James Adderley, the monk-preacher, says there are many who regard the Sacrament like a ‘mourning ring;’ and that is exactly how I look upon it. I cannot understand how people can consider such a mere commemorative service ‘a thing to live by,’ as they call it; and all the transubstantiation idea is to me too truly horrible. If I were dying—dying, I mean, in the trembling hope of a near blessed reality—the reception of this mere type would be no comfort to me. Then, also, as I am on the confession tack, I do not believe for one instant in ‘original sin;’ rather, as Solomon—who had much personal knowledge of the subject—says, that ‘God hath made man upright, but he hath sought out many inventions.’[554] ... And yet, truly, in my own way, I always feel that—
‘Malgré nous, vers le ciel il faut tourner les yeux.’”[555]
Journal and Letters.
“Chesters, Northumberland, Oct. 6.—All my dread of visits passed away when they began. Capital indeed is Milton’s advice—
‘Be not over-exquisite
To cast the fashion of uncertain evils.’
And then I know one ought to go into the world ‘as a fireman on duty,’ which Cardinal Manning said was his only way of visiting it for thirty years. One thing a man who pays a good many visits should always be certain of—never to outstay his welcome. It would be dreadful to see one’s hostess begin to have the fidgets. It is safest—at latest—to go by the eleven o’clock train, but a good and pleasant plan is to take leave overnight, and be gone the next morning. I was full of enjoyment at Penrhyn Castle—the genial and charming family, the great variety of the guests, and the excursions, in spite of furious storms, into the Welsh hills. Then I was with a most kind bachelor host, Fred Swete, at Oswestry, and spent the day at Brogyntyn with Lord Harlech, a perfect example of old-fashioned courtesy and kindness. In his grounds is a long terrace with a glorious view over the plains and hills of Shropshire, including the beloved Hawkestone range of my childhood. The next day, at the Brownlow-Towers’ pleasant house at Ellesmere, a little girl of eight was most amusingly fin de siècle. ‘Now, darling, you must go up to the schoolroom and stay there,’ said her mother after luncheon. ‘No, darling, no,’ answered the child. ‘I must not, darling,’ with an exact imitation of its mother’s manner, ‘for I’ve been listening, and it’s going to be interesting.’
“We made delightful excursions from Lutwyche to draw at Bridgenorth and an old moated grange called Elswick, meeting Lady Boyne and her party, who came from Burwarton as to a half-way house.