“V. Schœlcher.
“Permettez moi de vous prier de me rappeler au souvenir de Madame la Doctoresse, et de M. le Dr. Hoggan.”
It was M. Schœlcher who effected in 1848 the abolition of Negro Slavery in the French Colonies. He was a charming companion and a most excellent man. I interceded once with him to make interest with the proper authorities in France for the relaxation of the extremely severe penalties which Louise Michel had incurred by one of her extravagances. To my surprise, I learned from him that I had gone to head-quarters, since the matter would mainly rest in his hands. He was Vice-President,—practically President—of the Department of Prisons in France. He repeated with indulgence, “Mais, Madame, elle est folle! elle est parfaitement folle, et très dangereuse.” I quite agreed, but still thought she was well-meaning, and that her sentence was excessive. He promised that when the first year of her imprisonment was over (with which, he said, they made it a rule never to interfere so as not to insult the judges,) he would see what could be done to let her off by degrees. He observed, with more earnestness than I should have expected from one of his political school, how wrong, dangerous and wicked it was to go about with a black flag at the head of a mob. Still he agreed with my view that the length of Louise Michel’s sentence was unjustly great. Eventually the penalty was actually commuted; I conclude through the intervention of M. Schœlcher.
M. Schœlcher was the most attractive Frenchman I ever met. At the time I knew him, he was old and feeble and had a miserable cough; but he was most emphatically a gentleman, a tender, even soft-hearted man; and a brilliantly agreeable talker. He had made a magnificent collection of 9,000 engravings, and told me he was going to present it to the Beaux Arts in Paris. While sitting talking in my drawing-room his eye constantly turned to a particularly fine cast which I possess of the Psyche of Praxiteles, made expressly for Harriet Hosmer and given by her to me in Rome. When he rose to leave me, he stood under the lovely creature and worshipped her as she deserves!
We had also many delightful American visitors, whose visits gave me so much pleasure and profit that I easily forgave one or two others who provoked Fanny Kemble’s remark that “if the engineers would lay on Miss P. or Mr. H. the Alps would be bored through without any trouble!” Most of my American friendly visitors are, I rejoice to say, still living, so I will only name them with an expression of my great esteem for all and affection for several of them. Among them were Col. Higginson, Mr. George Curtis, Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Livermore, Mr. and Mrs. Loring-Brace, Rev. J. Freeman Clarke, Rev. W. Alger, Dr. O. W. Holmes, Mr. Peabody, Miss Harriet Hosmer, Mr. Hazard, Mrs. Lockwood, and my dearly beloved friends, W. H. Channing, Mrs. Apthorp, Mrs. Wister, Miss Schuyler and Miss Georgina Schuyler. Sometimes American ladies would come to me as perfect strangers with a letter from some mutual friend, and would take me by storm and after a couple of hours’ conversation we parted as if we had known and loved each other for years. There is something to my mind unique in the attractiveness of American women, when they are, as usual, attractive; but they are like the famous little girl with the “curl in the middle of her forehead,”—
“When she was good, she was very, very good;
When she was bad, she was horrid”!
The wholesome horror felt by us, Londoners, of outstaying our welcome when visiting acquaintances, and of trespassing too long at any hour, seems to be an unknown sentiment to some Americans, and also to some Australian ladies; and for my own part I fear that being bored is a kind of martyrdom which I can never endure in a Christian spirit, or without beginning to regard the man or woman who bores me with most uncharitable sentiments. My young Hindoo visitors drove me distracted till I discovered that they imagined a visit to me to be an audience, and that it was for me to dismiss them!
I met Longfellow during his last visit to England at the house of Mr. Wynne-Finch. His large, leonine head, surmounted at that date by a nimbus of white hair, was very striking indeed. I saw him standing a few moments alone, and ventured to introduce myself as a friend of his friends, the Apthorps, of Boston, and when I gave my name he took both my hands and pressed them with delightful cordiality. We talked for a good while, but I cannot recall any particular remark he may have made.
Mr. Wynne-Finch was stepfather of Alice L’Estrange, who, before her marriage with Laurence Oliphant was for a long time our most assiduous and affectionate visitor, having taken a young girl’s engouement for us two elderly women. Never was there a more bewitching young creature, so sweetly affectionate, so clever and brilliant in every way. It was quite dazzling to see such youth and brightness flitting about us. An old letter of hers to my friend which I chance to have fallen on is alive still with her playfulness and tenderness. It begins thus:—