It is pretty plain, from all this, that Lady Hester Stanhope had a persuasion of the coming of a new Messiah: but whether she entertained it as a matter of spiritual faith, or as the groundwork of some great scheme she was bringing to bear, others must decide. Sometimes, one was almost forced to conclude that the constant workings of her brain had impaired it. Add to this, the feverish greediness with which she received all reports of insurrections, revolts, and political changes. Even her servants knew her weakness on these points; and there was not a fellow in her establishment who did not return home every night with some cock and bull story, to feed her diseased imagination; and it was an every-day piece of flattery to say that they had heard that all the power of the Sultan and his Pashas was nothing now, but that the Syt’s protection alone was worth having. Still let it not be supposed that, on any other subject, her faculties were in the least impaired. On every concern of human life, on all other matters, whether common or abstruse, she conversed like an oracle. But she had talked so often of the coming of a Murdah[47] into the world, to chastise the wicked, subdue Christendom and the Moslem countries, and remodel the face of the globe, that even her maids were inclined to believe it, or pretended to do so. Fatôom, the least of them, if praised by her mistress, would ask whether, when the Murdah came, she thought such an humble being as herself might be saved? Whether this was cunning or simplicity, may be doubted; but, from the subsequent misconduct of this girl, in robbing her ladyship, it was most likely the former. Lady Hester, however, encouraged the belief of her future greatness, and would often hold it out as a present temptation for good behaviour to her servants.
Almost all such travellers as came to see her, and who have in their published books spoken of her, mention the two favourite mares, which she kept in expectation of the coming of the Mahedi, and which she never suffered any person to mount. They were called Läila and Lulu. Läila was exceedingly hollow-backed, being born saddled, as Lady Hester used to say, and with a double backbone: she was a chestnut, and Lulu a gray. They were both thoroughbred: they had each a groom, and were taken the greatest care of. The green plat of ground on the east side of the house-wall was set apart entirely for exercising them twice a-day; and round this the grooms, with longes, were made to run them until they were well warmed. This spot was sacred; and, whilst they were at exercise, nobody, neither servant nor villager, was allowed to cross it, or to stand still to look at them, under the penalty of being dismissed her service. Such an order, from its nature, would necessarily be violated very often, but unknown to Lady Hester; for, as she never went out of her house, and could not overlook that side of it, a tacit understanding among the people made them true to their own secrets: but, from time to time, accident, or the unguarded disclosures of some of the maids, made her aware that her orders had been slighted, and then her anger exceeded all bounds. Few were the travellers who were admitted to these mares in their stable; and never was the permission granted, until it had been ascertained that their star would not be baneful to them.[48]
Horses in Syria, for about seven months in the year, are tethered out of doors, where they are fed and littered down. It was under a shed, covered with thatch, shut in at the two sides by a treillage, with three parterres of flowers and shrubs behind them, that these two beautiful animals stood. Every morning, in the summer, the grooms washed their tails, legs, and manes, in soap and water, and watered the ground beneath their feet, to keep them cool; but, during the winter months, they were stalled in their stables, and warm felts covered their delicate limbs. Apis, in his most glorious days, and surrounded by his priesthood, could not have been better attended to.
Lady Hester Stanhope one day assured me that, when her pecuniary difficulties pressed hardest upon her, had it not been for the sake of those two creatures, she should have given up her house and everything to her creditors, sold her pension to pay them, and quitted the country: but she resolved to wait for the consummation of events on their account. “Ah, doctor,” added she, “I recollect, when I was at Rome, seeing, in a beautiful bas-relief, that very mare, with her hollow back made like a saddle. Two Englishmen were standing by, and were criticising the very same thing that caught my attention. ‘How very beautiful,’ said one, ‘is that basso-relievo! but the ancients, somehow, never could set about a good thing without spoiling it. There is that hollow-backed horse—did you ever see such a thing?’ I heard it all, but I made my own observations; and now, you see, I have got a mare of the very same breed.”
There is reason to think, from what her ladyship let fall at different times, that Brothers, the fortune-teller, in England, and one Metta, a village doctor, on Mount Lebanon, had considerable influence on her actions, and, perhaps, her destiny. When Brothers was taken up, and thrown into prison (in Mr. Pitt’s time), he told those who arrested him to do the will of Heaven, but first to let him see Lady Hester Stanhope. This was repeated to her ladyship, and curiosity induced her to comply with the man’s request. Brothers told her that “she would one day go to Jerusalem, and lead back the chosen people; that, on her arrival in the Holy Land, mighty changes would take place in the world, and that she would pass seven years in the desert.” Trivial circumstances will foster a foolish belief in a mind disposed to encourage it. Mr. Frederick North, afterwards Lord Guildford, in the course of his travels, came to Brusa, whither Lady Hester had gone for the benefit of the hot baths. He, Mr. Fazakerly, and Mr. Gally Knight, would often banter her on her future greatness among the Jews. “Well, madam, you must go to Jerusalem. Hester, queen of the Jews! Hester, queen of the Jews!” was echoed from one to the other; and probably, at last, the coincidence of a name, a prophecy, and the country towards which she found herself going, were thought, even by herself, to be something extraordinary. Metta took up the book of fate from that time, and showed her the part she was to play in the East. This man, Metta, for some years subsequent to 1815, was in her service as a kind of steward. He was advanced in years; and, like the rest of the Syrians, believed in astrology, spirits, and prophecy. No doubt, he perceived in Lady Hester Stanhope a tincture of the same belief: and, on some occasion, in conversation, he said he knew of a book on prophecy, which he thought had passages in it that related to her. This book, he persuaded her, could only be had by a fortunate conjunction connected with himself; and he said, if she would only lend him a good horse, to take him to the place where it was, he would procure her a sight of it, but she was never to ask where he fetched it from. All this exactly suited Lady Hester’s love of mystery. A horse was granted him; he went off, and returned with the prophetic volume, which he said he could keep only a certain number of hours. It was written in Arabic, and he was to read and explain the text. The part which he expounded was—“That a European female would come and live on Mount Lebanon at a certain epoch, would build a house there, and would obtain power and influence greater than a Sultan’s; that a boy, without a father, would join her, whose destiny would be fulfilled under her wing; that the coming of the Mahedi would follow, but be preceded by war, pestilence, famine, and other calamities; that the Mahedi would ride a horse born saddled, and that a woman would come from a far country[49] to partake in the mission.” There were many other incidents besides which were told, but which I did not recollect.
Certain it is, that Lady Hester Stanhope had, for a long time, a persuasion that the Duke of Reichstadt would some day visit her, and she imagined he was the boy pointed out in the prophecy. After his death, she fixed on another, who is alluded to in one of her letters to me.
Metta died, leaving three sons; and, on his death-bed, in the presence of his wife and children, said to them, “You will tell the Syt, my lady, that I bequeath you, my children, to her. I have no friend in the world but her: you are poor, and she will provide for you.” The reader will, no doubt, call to mind the dying legacy of the poor Grecian philosopher, who bequeathed his penniless daughter to his friend, and desired he would marry her. This appeal is understood in the East. Metta had made his calculations with subtilty, for Lady Hester Stanhope never deserted the orphans; and, although one proved a sot, she bore with his idleness and dissipation, and brought them all three forward in the world.
When Lady Hester Stanhope recounted this story to me, I had not the least doubt left in my mind of her conviction that all these things would be fulfilled. “You,” she said, “are of such a cold disposition, that nothing one can say makes any impression on you. I had thought, from your letters, that you liked this country, and that, seeing the dreadful events which will shortly take place in Europe, you wished to secure a safe retreat with me, and felt the impulse of the doctrines I had so often talked to you about. I let people here believe (as they had got such an idea into their heads) that you had been sent by my family to arrange my affairs. In doing this, I had no view to my own interest. When the time comes, thousands like you will be ready to serve me; and, indeed, I should have no leisure then to talk to you, occupied, as I shall be, in fulfilling my master’s orders. All I thought was, that, if I could be of any use to you in procuring you a safe asylum, I should have done my duty by you.”
Quitting this subject, Lady Hester Stanhope related some anecdotes of the royal dukes, of Lady Augusta Murray, Mrs. Jordan, Mrs. Nugent, &c. This led her to speak of the influence women exercise over the actions of men, and of the power they secretly exert in affairs where the ostensible actors are grave statesmen. She told me that the Turkish women, veiled and shut up in harýms, were not less the springs of action in Mahometan countries, than European women are, flouncing about in saloons. Nor were they a bit less self-willed, even down to purchased slaves, who are generally supposed to be mere mechanical beings, all submission to their master’s will. She related a story, in proof of her assertion, the substance of which was this:—
There was a Circassian, who had been in the Sultan’s seraglio, but, for some cause, was sold, and fell into the hands of the Dey of Algiers. When he went to see her, in his own harým, and approached her to use such familiarities as he thought himself entitled to, she slapped his face, nor would she ever moderate her open aversion to him. At last, he was obliged to resell her. The would-be purchaser was a gentleman (the narrator of these facts to Lady Hester Stanhope), who, on going towards her, as she sat on a sofa, was so electrified at the sight of her beauty as to lose the power of utterance for some moments. His emotion pleased her; she liked him. He bought her; and they lived long and happily together. Afterwards, chance took her back again to Constantinople, and she entered the seraglio a second time, being sold by the man she had liked, who married another woman, and, for prudential reasons, was obliged to part with her. She rose to great wealth and power, but she never forgot him; and her interest was always at his service for himself and those he recommended.