MARIA HARE,
Nov. 22, 1798. Nov. 13, 1870.
Until the Daybreak.
No other words are needed there; all the rest is written in the hearts of the people who loved her.
“I have been thinking lately how all my life hitherto has been down a highway. There was no doubt as to where the duties were; there could be no doubt whence the pleasures, certainly whence the sorrows would come. Now there seem endless byways to diverge upon. But all the interest of life must be on its highway: the byways may be beautiful and attractive, but never interesting.”
“Sept. 26.—I much enjoyed my Peakirk visit to charming people (Mr. and Mrs. James) and a curious place—an oasis in the Fens, the home of St. Pega (sister of St. Guthlac), whose hermitage with its battered but beautiful cross still remains. I saw Burleigh, like a Genoese palace inside; and yesterday made a fatiguing but worth while pilgrimage, for love of Mary Queen of Scots, to Fotheringhay. One stone, but only one, remains of the castle which was the scene of her sufferings; so people wondered at my going so far. ‘Why cannot you let bygones be bygones?’ said young W. to me. However, the church is very curious, and contains inscriptions to a whole party of Plantagenets—Richard, Earl of Cornwall; Cicely, Duchess of York; Edward, father of Edward IV.—for Fotheringhay, now a hamlet in the fen, was once an important place: the death of Mary wrought the curse which became its ruin.”
I have said little for many years of the George Sheffield who was the dearest friend of my boyhood. He had been attaché at Munich, Washington, Constantinople, and was now at Paris as secretary to Lord Lyons. In this my first desolate year he also had a sorrow, which wonderfully reunited us, and we became perhaps greater friends than we had been before. Another of whom I saw much at this time was Charlie Dalison. A younger son of a Kentish squire of good family, he went—like the young men of olden time—to London to seek his fortunes, and simply by his good looks, winning manners, and incomparable self-reliance became the most popular young man in party-giving London society; but he had many higher qualities.
I needed all the support my friends could give me, for the family feud about the “Memorials” was not the only trouble that pressed upon me at this time.
It will be recollected that, in my sister’s death-bed will, she had bequeathed to me her claims to a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds. It was the very fact of this bequest which in 1871 made my poor Aunt Eleanor (Miss Paul) set up a counter-claim to the picture, which was valued at £2000.