“He talked of Holman Hunt’s picture of the Home at Nazareth, ‘the most unnatural thing that ever was painted, and the most unnatural thing in it the idea that the Virgin should be keeping her “preciosities” in the carpenter’s shop.
“He talked of Landor, of the grandeur and unworldliness of his nature, and of how it was a lasting disgrace to England that the vile calumnies of an insolent slanderer had been suffered to blight him in the eyes of so many, and to send him out an exile from England in his old age.
“He complained much of his health, fretting and fidgeting about himself, and said he could form no worse wish for the devil than that he might be able to give him his stomach to digest with through all eternity.
“We walked out with him in the street, one on each side. I saw the cab-drivers pointing and laughing at the extraordinary figure, and indeed it was no wonder.
“At Mrs. Thornton’s I met Miss Thackeray at dinner, and have seen her since. She is charming, well worthy to be the authoress of her books. She said till the money for ‘Old Kensington’ was spent, she should rest. She spoke of the happiness of bringing up her little niece, of the surroundings of young life which it gave her. She talked much of the ‘Memorials,’ and of the problem how far it was well to be contented with a quiet life as God sent it, and how far one ought to seek for work for Him. When I said something of her books and their giving pleasure; she said, ‘Now let us skip that last sentence and go back to what we were saying before.’
“Colonel and Mrs. Henderson (of the Police Force) were at dinner. He said his father had been executor to old Lord Bridport, who had a box which no one was ever allowed to open, and of the contents of which even Lady Bridport was ignorant. After Lord Bridport’s death, the widow sent for Colonel Henderson to look into things, and then said, ‘I wish you would open that box; one ought to know about it.’ Colonel Henderson did not like doing it, but took the box into the library and sat down before it, with candles by his side. Immediately he heard a movement on the other side of the table, and, looking up, saw old Lord Bridport as clearly as he had ever seen him in his life, scowling down upon him with a furious expression. He went back at once to Lady Bridport and positively refused to open the box, which was then destroyed unopened. He said, ‘I shall never to my dying day forget the face of Lord Bridport as I saw him after he was dead.’
“In Wilton Crescent I saw Mrs. Leycester, who was just come from Cheshire. She said:—
“A brother of Sir Philip Egerton has lately been given a living in Devonshire, and went to take possession of it. He had not been long in his rectory before, coming one day into his study, he found an old lady seated there in an arm-chair by the fire. Knowing no old lady could really be there, and thinking the appearance must be the result of an indigestion, he summoned all his courage and boldly sat down upon the old lady, who disappeared. The next day he met the old lady in the passage, rushed up against her, and she vanished. But he met her a third time, and then, feeling that it could not always be indigestion, he wrote to his sister in Cheshire, begging her to call upon the Misses Athelstan, sisters of the clergyman who had held his living before, and say what he had seen. When they heard it, the Misses Athelstan looked inexpressibly distressed and said, ‘That was our mother: we hoped it was only to us she would appear. When we were there, she appeared constantly, but when we left, we hoped she would be at rest.’
“About ‘ghost-stories’ I always recollect what Dr. Johnson used to say—‘The beginning and end of ghost-stories is this, all argument is against them, all belief is for them.’
“I have had a charming visit here at Ascot to the Lefevres, the only other guest being old Mr. Cole of South Kensington, the incarnation of ‘Father Christmas’ or of ‘Old King Cole.’ He talked of the facility of getting money and the difficulty of keeping it. He said that when he wanted money for a Music School, he asked Sir Titus Salt for a subscription. Sir Titus asked him what he wanted him to give. ‘Whatever you think will look best at the day of judgment,’ said Mr. Cole. Sir Titus signed a cheque for £1000.