Yet he loved the country with a rare and thorough love, as his descriptions throughout his letters prove; and he delighted in straying away, in the leafy month of June, to the charming place of his friend Knight, upon the Teme in Herefordshire. His "Salmonia" is, in its way, a pastoral; not, certainly, to be compared with the original of Walton, lacking its simple homeliness, for which its superior scientific accuracy can make but poor amends. I cannot altogether forget, in reading it, that its author is a fine gentleman from London. Neither fish, nor alders, nor eddies, nor purling shallows, can drive out of memory the fact that Sir Humphry must be back at "The Hall" by half-past six, in season to dress for dinner. Walton, in slouch-hat, bound about with "leaders," sat upon the green turf to listen to a milkmaid's song. Sir Humphry (I think he must have carried a camp-stool) recited some verses written by "a noble lady long distinguished at court."[29]
In fact, there was always a great deal of the fine gentleman about the great chemist,—almost too fine for the quiet tenor of a working-life. Those first brilliant successes of his professional career at the Royal Institution of London, before he was turned of thirty, and in which his youth, his splendid elocution, his happy discoveries, his attractive manner, all made him the mark for distinguished attentions, went very far, I fancy, to carry him to that stage of social intoxication under which he was deluded into marrying a wealthy lady of fashion, and a confirmed blue-stocking,—the brilliant Mrs. Apreece.
Little domestic comfort ever came of the marriage. Yet he was a chivalrous man, and took the issue calmly. It is always in his letters,—"My dear Jane," and "God bless you! Yours affectionately." But these expressions bound the tender passages. It was altogether a gentlemanly and a lady-like affair. Only once, as I can find, he forgets himself in an honest repining; it is in a letter to his brother, under date of October 30, 1823:[30]—"To add to my annoyances, I find my house, as usual, after the arrangements made by the mistress of it, without female servants; but in this world we have to suffer and bear, and from Socrates down to humble mortals, domestic discomfort seems a sort of philosophical fate."
If only Lady Davy could have seen this Xantippe touch, I think Sir Humphry would have taken to angling in some quiet country-place for a month thereafter!
And even when affairs grow serious with the Baronet, and when, stricken by the palsy, he is loitering among the mountains of Styria, he writes,—"I am glad to hear of your perfect restoration, and with health and the society of London, which you are so fitted to ornament and enjoy, your 'viva la felicità' is much more secure than any hope belonging to me."
And again, "You once talked of passing this winter in Italy; but I hope your plans will be entirely guided by the state of your health and feelings. Your society would undoubtedly be a very great resource to me, but I am so well aware of my own present unfitness for society that I would not have you risk the chance of an uncomfortable moment on my account."
The dear Lady Jane must have had a penchant for society to leave the poor palsied man to tumble into his tomb alone!
Yet once again, in the last letter he ever writes, dated Rome, March, 1829, he gallantly asks her to join him; it begins,—"I am still alive, though expecting every hour to be released."
And the Lady Jane, who is washing off her fashionable humors in the fashionable waters of Bath, writes,—"I have received, my beloved Sir Humphry, the letter signed by your hand, with its precious wish of tenderness. I start to-morrow, having been detained here by Doctors Babington and Clarke till to-day.... I cannot add more" (it is a letter of half a page) "than that your fame is a deposit, and your memory a glory, your life still a hope."
Sweet Lady Jane! Yet they say she mourned him duly, and set a proper headstone at his grave. But, for my own part, I have no faith in that affection which will splinter a loving heart every day of its life, and yet, when it has ceased to beat, will make atonement with an idle swash of tears.