November 5, 1845.
PREFACE.
There are some people in the world whose pride is so great or so little, that the remarks of any individual, respecting their condition, do not affect them one way or the other. Such a person was Lady Hester Stanhope; and I beg leave, at the outset of this work, to apprize the reader, in the most explicit terms, that I have published nothing, in what I am about to submit to his perusal, which she would not have desired to be now made known. As a professional man, who was for many years her physician, I may naturally be supposed to feel a deep interest about her; and, when I had seen her, in the first epoch of her peregrinations, dwelling in palaces, surrounded with all the luxuries common to her rank, and courted and admired by all who had access to her, I could not but be poignantly affected in beholding the privations to which she was latterly subjected. My object being to portray a character which is not duly appreciated by people in general, I could devise no better means than that of giving a diary of her conversations, wherein her observations on men and things fall naturally from her own mouth.
Whilst I acknowledge my own unfitness for such a work, my chief reason for undertaking it is the possession of numerous memoranda, resembling the unfashioned marble fresh from the quarry, rudely shaped, but, to the philosopher and moralist, bearing the marks of the soil from whence it was taken. Had I entrusted them to abler hands, to form into a more perfect composition, the materials might have been embellished, but it would have been at the expense of their originality.
Lady Hester Stanhope, noble by birth and haughty by nature, had carried out from England all the habits of her order: but a prolonged residence in the East amongst the Turks induced her to reflect on the different customs of those around her, and she adopted by degrees all such as she thought had good sense for their basis. Every year brought her nearer to the simplicity of nature, and taught her to throw down those barriers with which pride, reserve, and etiquette have hedged in persons of rank in this country—barriers, favourable to a complete separation between the rich and poor, between the high and low, but which have also excluded our aristocracy from the enjoyment of many of the pleasures of life, and have too often made them the slaves of their own greatness.
The following pages are faithful transcripts of Lady Hester Stanhope’s conversations. In the thousand and one nights that I have sat and listened to them, I have heard enough to compile an uninterrupted history of her life from her infancy to her death; but, of course, much has been necessarily suppressed, and much more forgotten: the reader, therefore, must content himself with a less continuous narrative, which, it is hoped, will not prove uninstructive, and is, at all events, strictly true. The phraseology of the speaker is religiously preserved, as will be readily acknowledged by those who have known her. In many instances it is but little conformable with the present style of English conversation: but any alterations made in it, to suit the fastidiousness of some tastes, would, by destroying the fidelity of the picture, shake the authenticity of what remains.
I have touched slightly on Lady Hester Stanhope’s religious opinions; and although I am quite sure that a traveller was seldom, if ever, allowed to depart from her presence without an insight into her sentiments on these points, even from the little I have said, it will be plain that not one has done her justice in speaking of them.
I sincerely trust that nothing will be found in the following pages which can with just cause wound the feelings of any living person: and it is to be borne in mind that chagrin and disappointment had soured Lady Hester’s temper, and put her out of humour with all mankind; so that her praise and blame must be received with all due reservation.
Before I conclude, I think it necessary to add a few lines respecting the last months of her existence. Lady Hester Stanhope died, as far as I have been able to learn, unattended by a single European, and in complete isolation. I was the last European physician or medical man that attended her, and I was most anxious and willing (foreseeing her approaching fate as I did) to continue to remain with her: but it was her determined resolve that I should leave her, and those who have known her can not deny that opposition to her will was altogether out of the question.