That year my mother got very ill, and we all assembled in town to be with her. She had been paralyzed for nine years, and, nevertheless, had been strong, active, and cheerful, and enabled in some fashion to enjoy life. Her strong brain kept her alive.
At this time the public, answering an appeal of mine in the Tablet, describing the poverty and destitution of the Syrian Inland Churches, sent me wherewith to furnish six of them, which has never been forgotten out there.
In 1872, poor General Beatson died at New Swindon. Richard sent thirty-two species of plants from the summit of the Libanus to the British Museum; and this year he got the news from Syria that he had gained his cause about the stoning at Nazareth. The Greek Bishop had brought an action against him before the Tribunal, and Richard won it with honour.
He wrote and lectured on the "Stones and Bones of the Haurán," March, 1872, and "Human Remains in Iceland" in late 1872.
I attended the Tichborne trial, and saw Sir John Coleridge examine my cousin, Katty Radcliffe. Richard whispered to me, "The next thing plaintiff will do, will be to call himself Lord Aberdeen." I came home from there, and found the other brother, Father Coleridge, S.J., giving my mother Communion. At this time, too, we attended all the learned societies, where Richard generally made speeches. We also went down to the Duke and Duchess of Somerset's, where we met Lady Ulrica Thynne, the Brinsley Sheridans, and afterwards, at their house, brilliant and fascinating Mrs. Norton.
Charles Reade, the well-known author, who was a great friend of ours, gave us a delightful dinner and pleasant evening, asking a great many actors and actresses to meet us. Sir Frederick Leighton began to paint Richard on the 26th of April, and it was very amusing. Richard was so anxious that he should paint his necktie and his pin, and kept saying to him every now and then, "Don't make me ugly, don't, there's a good fellow;" and Sir Frederick kept chaffing him about his vanity, and appealing to me to know if he was not making him pretty enough. That is the picture that Sir Frederick has now, and is going to leave to the nation; and both Richard and I always retained the pleasantest memory of the many happy hours we passed in his studio. Richard was examined on the Consular Committee, and made them all laugh. He complained that the salary of Santos had been very inadequate to his position; he had been obliged to use his own little capital to supplement. He was asked how his predecessor (a baronet) had managed, and he answered, "By living in one room over a shop, and washing his own stockings." Richard attended the Levée on May 13th.
We went to a Foreign Office party, where Musurus Pasha explained to Richard why he was obliged to go against him, by the order of the Turkish Government about Syria, and Richard said to him, "Well, Pasha, I did not know that you had; but I can tell you that, though I never practically wish evil to my enemies, they all come to grief, and you are bound to have a bit of bad luck on my account." The next day Musurus Pasha fell down and broke his arm. It is an absolute fact that everybody who did my husband an injury had some bad luck.
Richard tried to get Teheran, which was one of the places that he longed for and was vacant, and we knew that three names were sent up to her Majesty for approval; but we also knew, sub rosa, that Mr. (afterwards Sir Ronald) Thompson, a personal friend in their youth of Mr. and Mrs. (afterwards Lord and Lady) Hammond, of the Foreign Office, was to get it.
I brought out "Unexplored Syria" (2 vols.), in which Richard and I and Charley Drake collaborated, on the 21st of June, 1872, while Richard was in Iceland.