We went to a village ball at Opçina, which was very amusing. Baron Morpurgo this month gave a grand ball in honour of H.I.H. the Archduke Carl Stefan, to which we were invited.
About this time we had the pleasure of a visit from one of the best women we had ever known, Mrs. Louisa Birt of Liverpool, who is a female Don Bosco, and spends the whole of her time in rescuing poor children from the streets. I believe in one year five thousand had passed through her establishment. At parting she gave me her little bag, with her initials on it, which I have still.
We also had seen a good deal of Lieutenant Karl Weyprecht, of the Austrian Navy, who, with Lieutenant Payer, discovered Franz Josef's Land during the Austrian Arctic Expedition, 1872-74; but this year he died, at the age of forty-three.
We had a short excursion to Laibach, to see the Littai Mines, in Krain, in which Richard was employed as reporter. They are lead and cinnabar, which concession embraces 1 3/5. Now there were great preparations for the return of Prince Rudolf. Of course the Austrian Squadron was in, and he was received with great honour. The City was illuminated, the streets were full; and in the evening there was a grand opera, and three thousand in the theatre. When the Prince entered there was great applause and "Vivas!" ladies clapping hands and waving handkerchiefs; the National Hymn was played, and all stood up for over ten minutes. The people showed immense loyalty, and the Prince left next day.
On the 19th of April Lord Beaconsfield died, and our journals were full of him for several pages. Richard wrote a "Sketch," which made twelve pages of print, which will appear in "Labours and Wisdom." My journal is four pages of lament. As a girl of fifteen, his "Tancred" formed all my ardent desires of an Eastern career, and was my first gate to Eastern knowledge and occult science. As a Statesman I put him on a pedestal as my political Chief and model. He had that peculiar prescience and foresight belonging to his Semitic blood. I think a certain period of things passed away with him. He was one of the last relics of England's greatness. Just as the Duke of Wellington died before the Crimean War, so Lord Beaconsfield foreshadowed England's temporary decline, or fusion into another state of things, and this feeling helped his decay. Anyway, one great man is gone.
We were very fond of going to the fairs, especially where the Hungarian Gypsies congregated. They used to sing, dance, tell fortunes, and Richard talked Romany with them.
We determined this year to take our gout baths from Duino, and not from Monfalcone; it is a forty minutes' drive from Duino to Monfalcone, and the baths are exactly halfway between.
Duino is a village picturesquely situated on an eminence overhanging the sea, two hours' drive from Trieste, and right in the Karso, the wild stony district before described. This village and castle remind one of old times. The village is completely towered over and dominated by the feudal castle and fortress of the Hohenlöhes, which stand on the rocky cliff, once surrounded by a keep, a moat, and a drawbridge in which now grow flowers. The village and everything around them is theirs, and their flag flies from the tower. The Prince, who was a very handsome man, died in 1868, and is buried in the family vault in the chapel. The Princess (the châtelaine), who is a sad invalid, was in her youth a beautiful, gentle, aristocratic blonde, full of talent and esprit. She was a Countess Della Torre (de la Tour d'Auvergne), Thurn being the Austrian branch. Her early history was very romantic. She resides there, and has two sons and three daughters, of which one is married to Prince Thurn and Taxis, and one son to a young and pretty Countess Kaünitz. The rural inn of the village was within a stone's-throw of the castle, and we remained there for six weeks taking the baths, and living every day in their pleasant society. The castle is filled with antiquities, family relics, old china, and is one of the show places of the country. It has its ghost (a white lady), and amongst other curiosities is a small portrait of a family saint, the famous Cardinal Hohenlöhe. The old Salle d'Armes (all the ancient armoury was stolen by the French) is made to represent a cave under the sea, full of shells and stalactites against a white sand wall, which, lit up at night, look like diamonds.
The grounds and shrubberies descend to the sea, where there is a bath-house, and where we used to have great fun swimming. On the opposite side is an old ruined castle in which Dante took refuge, and it is said the scene suggested his "Inferno," but it is more likely that the Caves of Adelsberg did that. The park is not quite our idea of a park; it is a space enclosed in four walls, with four large gateways, bearing armorial carvings. The ground is stony, covered with holm oak, in which the deer and birds flourish. It is closed against smugglers; the only lock has a secret, and the key is kept by one old retainer. In the old days the smugglers put out the eyes of a celebrated stag reindeer which always followed them. The tiny village inn is not uncomfortable, if you do not mind roughing it; there is a post, a telegraph office, and a Catholic chapel, belonging to the castle, and the only drawbacks are bad food and forty minutes' drive to reach a train, the Princesses having very sensibly, for their own peace, refused to have a station. The Trieste Sunday-trippers and ill-treaters of animals cannot get so far, so it is beautifully still and rural. There is a pretty bay, and an old monastery some way off, which is a pleasant walk.