“Day before yesterday I was startled with a cipher telegram. My first thought was, ‘Row in Cuba! I shall have no end of bother!’ It turned out to be this: ‘President has nominated you to England [this President was Hayes]. He regards it as essential to the public service that you should accept and make your personal arrangements to repair to London as early as may be. Your friends whom I have conferred with concur in this view.’”
Then Mr. Lowell says that he was afraid of its effect on Mrs. Lowell, who was recovering from a long and desperate illness; but she was pleased, and began to contrive how he might accept. He goes on, “I answered, ‘Feel highly honored by President’s confidence. Could accept if allowed two months’ delay. Impossible to move or leave my wife sooner.’”
When I was in Madrid I heard this story. The two months’ delay did not prove necessary. Just at this juncture poor Mrs. Lowell was confined to her bed, and had been for some time. It happened that a candle set fire to the bed-curtains. The attendants fell on their knees to implore the assistance of the Holy Mother, but Mrs. Lowell sprang up and herself took the direction of the best methods for extinguishing the flames. So soon as nurses and others could be brought into shape, it proved that the adventure had not been an injury to their mistress, but rather an advantage. The doctor was summoned at once, and within a very short time was able to say that Mrs. Lowell could be removed with care and sent by steamer to England. Mr. Lowell was said to have telegraphed at once to Washington that he could transfer his residence immediately, as he was asked to do. Accordingly, by a well-contrived and convenient arrangement, the invalid was taken by rail to the sea, thence by steamer to England, and arrived there, with her husband, with no unfavorable results to her health.
In this sketch of Mr. Lowell’s life in Madrid I have not attempted, and indeed have not been able, to introduce even the names of the friends in whose society Mr. Lowell took pleasure while in Spain. But American scholars, and indeed the scholars of the world, have been so much indebted to Señor Don Pascual de Gayangos, whose recent death has been so widely regretted, that I ought not to close this chapter without referring to him.
This gentleman is another of the distinguished men born in 1809. In early life he studied in France. He visited England and married an English lady. When he was but twenty-two years of age he held a subordinate place in the administration at Madrid. He returned to England while yet a young man, and resided there. Articles of his will be found in the “Edinburgh Review” at that time. After the Oriental Society published a translation by him of “Almakkari’s History,” he was appointed professor of Arabic in Madrid. He had studied Arabic under De Sacy.
Every American student in Spain for the last half-century has been indebted to his courtesy, and, I may say, to his authority in Spain. As one of the humblest of those students I am glad to express their obligation to him.
His only daughter, a charming lady, married Don Juan Riano, a distinguished archæologist, who is, I think, now in the diplomatic service of the Spanish government. Her son, Don Pascual’s grandson, is secretary to the queen, or has been so lately. All of them were near friends of Lowell.
CHAPTER XIV
MINISTER TO ENGLAND
Mr. Lowell had declined the suggestion that he should go to England when Mr. Hayes’s administration came in. But one need not say that when he now determined to go to England, he went there with the pleasure with which every one of our race visits what we still call the “mother country.” His ancestry, his education, and the studies in which he had taken the very broadest interest, all made him love England.