I finished the address to the Duke. “How many et ceteras have you put?” asked Lady Hester:—“what! only two? I suppose you think he’s a nobody!” The remaining letters were directed without farther trouble, but, by some unaccountable blunder, Sir Edward Sugden was made a Sir Charles of. A long deliberation ensued, whether the letter to Her Majesty should be enclosed in a cover to Lord Palmerston, or whether it should be left to be seen by the English consul at Beyrout, to frighten him.
It was now three o’clock in the morning. I quitted Lady Hester, and had Ali Hayshem, the confidential messenger, called out of his bed. I repeated to him Lady Hester’s instructions as follows:—“You are to take this packet, and start at sunrise precisely—not before, and not after—and to take care you deliver the letters into M. Guys’s hands before sunset: for it is Friday, and Friday is an auspicious day. There are ten piasters for your two days’ keep, and let no one know where you are going, nor for what.”
Ali was accustomed to this business—laid his hand on his head to signify that should answer for his fidelity—made a low salàam—went to the cook for his five bread-cakes—turned in again upon his libàd—pulled his counterpane over his body, face and all, and, I dare say, was punctual to his hour and his instructions. Men of this sort, who are generally chosen from the peasantry, are invaluable as foot-messengers. With a naboot or small bludgeon, well knobbed at one end, and with a few bread-cakes in their girdle, they will set off at any hour, in any weather, for any place, and go as quick as a horseman. They sleep anywhere and anyhow, and deliver their messages and letters with exceeding punctuality. Ali was a handsome fellow, the picture of health, fearless of danger, and a great favourite with Lady Hester, to whose service he was devoted; therefore, at every Byràm, Ali was sure to be seen in a new suit of clothes, the envy of the men, and the admiration of all the girls of Jôon: but he knew how to make a proper use of his money. Already he had begun to trade with some success in silk, advancing small sums in the winter to the poor women who breed silkworms, for which he received silk in payment: this he resold in the city; and those who may chance to meet with Ali ten years hence might find in him a warm tradesman, smoking his pipe in the midst of his obsequious dependants, and dignified with the title of Shaykh or Maalem.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] Lady Hester one day said, “I have a little angel under my command, the angel of my star—such a sweet little creature!—not like those ridiculous ones who are fiddling in Italian pictures. What fools painters are, to think angels are made so!”
[25] Mr. Joseph Green, lecturer on anatomy at the Royal Academy.
[26] There is a passage in an interesting domestic tale recently published (The History of Margaret Catchpole, by the Rev. Mr. Cobbold), which has a strange coincidence with the superstitious belief of the Syrians, considering how widely the English are separated from them. It is as follows: “He told me he was the most venemous snake in the country. His bite is attended with swelling and blackness of the body, and, when the sun goes down, death ensues.”—Vol. ii., p. 188.
[27] I once showed Lady Hester Stanhope Raphael’s Madonna della Seggiola, to hear what she would say about it. “The face,” she observed, “is congruous in all the lineaments; they all belong to the same star; but I don’t like that style of face—that is not the star that pleases me;” and she returned me the engraving, with some signs of impatience. I imagined, as there was a maid in the room, that she did so, lest the girl should report that she adored the Virgin Mary. I then showed her a painting of the Nozze Aldobrandini. “Ah!” said she, after examining it, “that figure,” pointing to the one farthest on the spectator’s right hand, “is the star I like, only the eyes do not belong to that countenance: if the eyes were as they ought to be, that figure would be charming.” There was much truth in the observations she made on the blunders of artists and sculptors in giving incongruous features to their works. An ordinary observer has only to look at the statues of the ancients, and he will find that the forehead, nose, mouth, ears, and limbs of a Minerva, are such as he will see in grave and dignified women, totally different from the same features in a Diana or a Venus. Each temperament, each class of beings in nature, has its external marks, which never vary in character, but only in degree. But painters are accustomed to make a selection of what they suppose the most perfect Grecian lines, and to clap them on to a body, whether it be for a muse, an amazon, a nymph, or a courtezan: this is obviously false. “There are some women who are born courtezans,” Lady Hester would say, “and whatever their station in life is, they must be so. Thus, Lady —— was so by nature; from the time she first came out, she had the air of a woman of the town: Mademoiselle de ——, who married one of the ——, nothing could have ever altered her. There was a woman for great passions! it was almost indecent to be where she was.”
[28] This alludes to the childhood of Lady Hester Stanhope, when she had played at horses with Mr. Abercrombie.
[29] Lady Hester one day showed me fourteen of these articles of ladies’ apparel, six or seven of which were in slits and holes, so that a maid-servant in England would not have accepted them as a gift: she said her maids had torn them by their rough handling in dressing her. I had them sent to my house, and they were all mended. She expressed herself as grateful for this little service to my daughter and the governess, as if she had been a pauper clothed at their door!