Lady Hester was decidedly better in health, in many respects; but, notwithstanding, she grew thinner, if that were possible, and wasted away: she had become too a little humpbacked. Nevertheless, she now rose every day, sat up for six or eight hours, walked a little in her garden, and was almost as active in correspondence and in the business of the house as when she was in perfect health. But the spasmodic jerks in her lower extremities occasionally returned: her eyes were more sunk in her head, and her nails continued to crack; still, as far as I could prognosticate, she was saved for this year; what another might do was in the hands of God. The powerful reaction, which her naturally strong constitution supplied against pulmonary disease, lay in the unceasing exercise she gave to her lungs in talking. The ancient physicians held that speaking and reading aloud were succedanea for the cessation of bodily exercise in old age. Experience proves that orators in the senate, barristers (who have briefs, that is), infirm old women given to garrulity, scolds, showmen, and all those whose tongues are constantly going, reach to an advanced period of life, without motion or fresh air enough, as one would suppose, to keep the functions of life in activity.
I have known her lie for two hours at a time, with a pipe in her mouth, when she was in a lecturing humour, and go on in one unbroken discourse, like a parson in his pulpit, happy in some flights of eloquence, which every now and then she was so remarkable for. Reflection succeeded reflection, anecdote followed anecdote, so fast, that one drove the other out of my head, and left me in despair at the impossibility of committing them to paper.
One of her favourite topics was the golden days of her time, when people of inferior station knew how to behave themselves; when young men were so well bred that they never stuck their legs in your face, never leaned their elbows on the table, never scratched their noses nor twisted their mustachios, never rubbed their eyes, never flapped their boots with their whips and canes, never did this and never did that, until at last one grew afraid to stir a limb before her, for fear of committing one of these numberless offences. And, as her temper was generally soured and her constitution much weakened, a person felt unwilling to move her susceptibility, however irksome this enforced stillness might be to him.
The best proof of good sense with her was to listen attentively to what she said, and the long experience of years had convinced me that she was justified, like Pythagoras, from the superiority of her reasoning powers, in demanding such acquiescence.
Tuesday, April 24.—It wanted about half an hour of sunset when I left her: it was Tuesday evening. Just before going, she said, with a serious air, “Doctor, take a bit of paper, and write—To-morrow, the 4th Adàr, the 13th Suffar, and the 25th of April[16]—nothing whatever is to be done for me either by you or by anybody in the house, and the servants are to do no work. And, doctor, I would advise you to have nothing done by your family on that day: it is a nasty month, Suffar: I hate it.” I made no remark on this strange superstition, which Lady Hester Stanhope had in common with Julius Cæsar and others who have passed for great men.
Whilst walking with my family on the Sayda road, I saw a man coming towards us, mounted on a beautiful gray mare, with her tail reaching to the ground (the lower part of it dyed red with henna), and preceded by a walking groom. “Here comes Sulyman Hamâady,” said I. “And who is Sulyman Hamâady,” one of the party replied; “what’s he to us?” As soon as he had passed, I told them who he was. Sulyman Hamâady is, at this day, to the Emir Beshýr, what Tristram the Hermit was to Louis XI. of France. It is Hamâady who is the hangman of Mount Lebanon, and the executioner of the many cruelties that the Emir exercises against his devoted victims, and, like Tristram, he is the personal friend of that prince: he is well received by the great, feared by all classes, and a man of much importance. Honour, not disgrace, is attached to his office in this country. A proof of it was that, as we returned home through the village, we saw Hamâady sitting at the window of the best house in the place, where he was lodged for the night.
Never was there a man more dreaded than Hamâady. He was rather thin, but apparently all nerve, grave in his deportment, with a large, full, but rolling black eye, and, on common occasions, without any sinister or harsh expression. Wherever he went, honours were paid him: he was often received by Lady Hester Stanhope, and I have drunk a glass of champagne with him in her company, which he professed not to like, preferring brandy to it. He was known to enjoy much of the familiarity, and some portion of the confidence, of the Emir himself.
It is strange that a drummer of a regiment, or a boatswain of a ship-of-war, may flog a man according to the caprice of a colonel or a commander of twenty-five; or the boatswain may hang him at the yard-arm, according to the sentence of a court-martial, or he shall die of the stripes he receives, yet the drummer shall, in process of time, become drum-major and be a fine gentleman, and the boatswain shall be a respectable petty officer among his acquaintance; whilst the Jack Ketch, who hangs a man, tried and condemned by a grave judge and a conscientious jury, is hooted at if he shows his face. Whence springs this abhorrence in the one case, this courtesy in the other? Is it that law, with its formalities, inspires more disgust than the passionate freaks of individual severity? or have judge and jury, the real hangmen, had the art to throw the odium of spilling blood on a poor wretch, who is no more accessory to the act than the hempen cord which he ties?
I recollect once, in November last, riding over to the village of Jôon, to endeavour to persuade the goatherds, who supplied my family with milk, to send it with more regularity, having ineffectually requested them to do so several times by the servant. It was, I believe, on that day, when, in returning, I met Messrs. Poujolat and Boutés, the two French travellers, whose unsuccessful visit to Lady Hester Stanhope has been already narrated. I do not know whether other persons have made the observation, but it has occurred to me that, in countries called despotic, the lower orders give themselves more licence than in those where it is supposed, from the nature of the government, they possess greater impunity. The reason of this perhaps may be that, as their obedience to their superiors is regulated by the degree of fear in which they hold them, so they are always ready to disobey the injunctions of one superior at the command of another who happens to be more powerful. The consequence is, that no dependance can be placed on the word of the Syrian peasantry for any regular service required of them. A goatherd promised to supply me punctually with milk all the year through: and he would probably have done so, if it had not been that a greater man than myself sometimes came to the village, who was fond of a bowl of milk for his breakfast. This man was Hamâady, who was not to be affronted with impunity: we were neglected therefore, so long as he staid, and I found all arguments vain against the terror of his formidable name.
Wednesday, April 25.—Lady Hester said to me to-night, “I always considered you as a respectable literary character—a little pedantic, and fond of showing people what you know—and, therefore, cannot but regret that you should have lost your energy, and your understanding, and your memory, by the perfect apathy to everything in which you are sunk. B. was clever as a literary character, too; but then he always affronted everybody by his immoderate pretensions: they might be just, but then he had no indulgence for any one. I always told him that people would never fail to be silent before him, and he would get nothing out of them; because I had observed at my father’s, how extremely modest people of knowledge generally were: they sat like scholars—I don’t mean like great scholars, but like scholars of a schoolmaster. You would spare a dunce, B. would not; and even sometimes he was quite rude. One day he and Lord S. were talking together, and Lord S. happened to say to some passage B. was quoting—‘I believe it is so; when I was at college I could have told you, but now I can’t exactly say:’ when B. continued, ‘Why, you know Theocritus has a line,’ &c.—‘Who is Theocritus?’ I asked. ‘Madam,’ replied B., ‘I may say of you what was once said of the great Lord Chatham, as you call him, and whom you have been talking about for these last two hours—I hardly know which most to be astonished at, your extraordinary genius, or your extraordinary ignorance.’