“As you know, I never intended the book, written seventeen and printed two years ago, to appear till after my death, but this year it was so strongly represented to me that then all who would care to read about my earlier years would then be dead too, that I assented to the story up to 1870 being published. To tell the truth, I feel now how sorry I should have been to have missed the amusement of hearing even the most abusive things people say. And certainly, as regards reviews, I feel with Washington Irving, ‘I have one proud reflection to sustain myself with—that I never in any way sought to win the praises nor deprecate the censures of reviewers, but have left my work to rise or fall by its own deserts. If my writings are worth anything, they will outlive temporary criticism; if not, they are not worth caring about.’[563] Yet, yet, just for the sake of variety, I should like some day, as a change to the unknown, to read a really favourable review of something I have written, though I read somewhere, ‘To like to be right is the last weakness of a wise man: to like to be thought right is the inveterate prejudice of fools.’[564]
“One of the things people find fault with is that I have not shown sufficient adoration for Jowett, who was so exceedingly kind to me at Oxford. But I always felt that it was for Arthur Stanley’s sake. Jowett only really cared for three kinds of undergraduate—a pauper, a profligate, or a peer: he was boundlessly good to the first, he tried to reclaim the second, and he adored the third.”
“Blaise Castle, Henbury, Nov. 23.—I came here to charming Mary Harford[565] from Lockinge, where I paid a pleasant visit to Lord and Lady Wantage, meeting a large party. Lady Wantage, beautified by the glory of her snowy hair, was most charming—so thoughtful and kind for every one—‘elle brillait surtout par le caractère,’[566] and though ‘few can understand an argument, all can appreciate a character.’[567] One of the most agreeable guests, a ripple of interesting anecdote, which began even in the omnibus driving up from the station in the dark, was Lord James of Hereford. At dinner he told how Sir Drummond and Lady Wolff had a Spanish dog, who was the best-bred creature in the world. One day its mistress had a visitor who engrossed her so much that she forgot her dog’s dinner. It would not scratch or whine, it was too well conducted, but it went out into the garden and bit off a flower, and came and laid it at its mistress’s feet: the flower was a forget-me-not.
“George Holford of Westonburt was at Lockinge, and very pleasant. Once he walked from London to Ardington, close to Lockinge, where his grandmother, Mrs. Lindsay, was then living. When he was within a mile and a half of it, he saw a man kneeling on the body of another man on the road. He went up to them, called out, had no answer, and at last struck the kneeling man with his stick. His stick went through the man. His story was received at Lockinge with shouts of derision.
“Three years after, at a tenants’ dinner, Lord Wantage told the story of his nephew’s ‘optical delusion’ to the farmer sitting next, who said, ‘It is a very extraordinary thing, my Lord, but a man was once murdered by his servant on that very spot. The servant knocked him down, knelt upon him, and killed him; and ever since the place has had the reputation of being haunted.’”
To Viscount Halifax.
“Jan. 9, 1897.—My Christmas was spent very pleasantly at Hewell, where Lord and Lady Windsor had a large party. Most lovely and charming was the hostess, most stately and beautiful the great modern house by Bodley, greatly improved and embellished since I saw it last. How closely, during a week’s visit, one is thrown with people, whom one often does not see again for years, if ever. It is, as Florence Montgomery says—‘People in a country-house play their parts, as it were, before one, and then the curtain falls, and the actors disappear. The play is played out.’[568] How laden with gifts children are nowadays, and how far too luxurious their life is, as much in excess that way as in the privations and penances which I remember in my own childhood.
“Some people are very angry with me for telling the truth in the ‘Story of my Life’[569] about these young years, when I was suffering ‘from an indiscriminate theological education,’ as Mr. Schimmelpennick calls such, and when I was made so constantly to feel how ‘l’ennui n’a pas cessé d’être en Angleterre une institution religeuse.’[570] And it is not merely the ‘canaille of talkers in type’[571] who find fault, but many whose opinion I have a regard for. They think that the portrait of a dead person should never be like a Franz Hals, portraying every ‘projecting peculiarity,’ but all delicately wrought with the smooth enamelling touch of Carlo Dolce. They wonder I can ‘reconcile it to my conscience’ to hold ‘another estimate of the Maurices to that which has been hitherto popular.’ ‘Collect a bag of prejudices and call it conscience, and there you are!’[572] For myself, I believe, and I am sure it is the discipline of years which tells me so, that the rule of after-death praise is a false one to be regulated by. It is true that there is often an enlightenment from death upon sensations and sympathies towards one who is gone, but I cannot feel that a faithful record of words and actions ought to be altered by the mere glamour of death, which so often gives an apotheosis to those who little deserve it. One of my reviewers says he would like to read a truthful word-portrait of Augustus Hare by one of the persons he describes in print: so should I exceedingly, and most appallingly horrible it would be!
