An Epistle to Posterity/Chapter IX
CHAPTER IX
The first person to call on us on our arrival in London was General Adam Badeau, our Secretary of Legation, who was of great use to us. I had known him since he was a young newspaper-man, who used to pause admiringly before Mr. Bancroft at the opera to get a word or two from the great historian, and who also had a word or two of chat with me about society, for which he was ambitious. After going to the war he had painfully climbed up my steps with his crutches, having been wounded in the foot — poor fellow! — and he had done me the greatest of favors in making General Grant my friend. He had a decided talent for society and was a generous and discriminating entertainer, as well as a man of ability.
The next day we called on Mr. Motley, our minister, and he immediately returned our call; and from that moment, after presenting our letters, we were launched on a sea of dinners and fêtes, balls and social functions. I remember Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, Lord Houghton, Sir John Bowring, Tom Taylor, the dramatist; Sir Harry and Lady Verney, Mr. Beresford (at Hampton Court), and Mr. Holford as among our earliest friends. We had letters to Dean Stanley, to the Bishop of London, to the Bishop of Chester, and to the Bishop of Rochester, from our bishop Horatio Potter, of New York; and we had our own Mr. Motley and General Badeau, who never forgot us for a moment.
The presentations to the Queen were over for the season (it was late in June); but we did not miss them, as we had all we could do. I remember balancing my regret with the thought that I should have another day for sight-seeing. I think now, if I were to do it all over again, I should always devote the first season in London to sight-seeing, the second to society, the third to a judicious mixture of the two; for when doors are opened to one which never may be thrown open again it seems cruel and absurd to one's self to not seize the opportunity to know those who are eminent in that courtly world which so few have entered, but which is so well worth seeing.
Sir William Stirling-Maxwell was a man whose acquaintance was to be dearly prized. Charles Astor Bristed had introduced us to him, and he seemed to find no trouble too great, no kindness too elaborate, to take for us. Through him we saw all the great balls, the grand functions, excepting those of royalty. He gave us dinners himself, at which we met the choicest people in society. I remember his intellectual wife. Lady Anna Stirling-Maxwell (afterwards she met the dreadful fate of Mrs. Longfellow), and Sir Andrew and Lady Buchanan, and Lady Emily Hamilton, a beautiful woman, the sister of Lady Anna; and, better than all, the Hon. Mrs. Norton, whom I had been worshipping as an authoress since I was thirteen. She was still handsome, although she told us her age and that she had just had the scarlet-fever! The Khedive was in London — Ismail, the hero of the canal and sponsor for Ismailia. Sir William managed it that we should see some of the festivals in his honor. London depends on the opening of a single door, and more than one such admirable friend opened the door for us. Where everybody is kindly disposed, your heart must be a bitter one if you are not pleased.
General Badeau had been in London long enough to realize our unexpected good fortune and to congratulate us on it. Mr. Motley Was, I fear, secretly pleased that we did not demand anything of him, the more so as he had just had bad luck at Vienna and some troublesome experiences in London. He was one of the most beautiful of men, as well as one of the simplest, most agreeable, and most attractive. I had never seen him in America. I am glad to think that I saw him where he was so honored, and where he so honored America.
Dean Stanley took us through Westminster Abbey with one of his smaller parties, and threw the illumination of his knowledge into the dark corners.
The promptitude of English hospitality rather alarmed us. Sir John Bowring had told the Bishop of Rochester that we had letters to him from Bishop Potter, and he immediately asked us to his house for three days! Bishop Jacobson, of Chester, wrote three letters of introduction for us while we stood in the library of the Athenæum, which were of great service to us at Oxford and at York Minster and at Canterbury, and indeed everywhere else.
And so we were passed along. One of our most enjoyable visits was to Sir Harry and Lady Verney at their noble old house at Claydon. Lady Verney, a sister of Florence Nightingale, was an author, a botanist, a very charming woman, and a good artist. She had diligently compiled all the history of the Verney family, and we saw some rare family portraits — one of Sir Edward Verney, who fell at Edge Hill; and Sir Harry showed us the ring which Sir Edward's servant brought home from his dead hand.
Another visit was to Mr. and Mrs. Beresford at Hampton Court. Mr. Beresford was the warden of the tennis court, an honorary office that gave him a residence in the old palace where the Queen lodges her old servants. It was a picturesque home, and gave upon the garden of Anne Boleyn. Some strawberries from this sacred enclosure were added to our luncheon. Mr. Beresford had been a friend and admirer of George IV., and, I think, the Tory "whipper-in" during one session of Parliament. He had also been an under secretary of state, and was a line old prejudiced Englishman, of a type which Dickens would have worshipped — most gentlemanly, gouty, and hospitable. We saw Hampton Court under his auspices thoroughly, but he was very glad when he found that we did not wish him to take us to see the state apartments or the Sir Peter Lely beauties; that, indeed, we could do by ourselves. We returned to take tea with his wife, who was most agreeable.
So we got a glimpse of that life at Hampton Court which Dickens so funnily hits off in Our Mutual Friend as the home of Edgar's mother, and Mr. Beresford told us of the former days when the debtors could only come out on Sunday, and so on. Sir John Bowring took us to the clubs, to the British Museum, and to the National Gallery, where we found his wife and daughter copying pictures; and I learned then twice as much of these two great national institutions as I should have done with a less instructed cicerone.
Indeed, we saw much of that now far-off, lesser London, of which I was to see so much more later on, and we went to Marlborough House and Lambeth Palace, and other great houses, and to galleries galore, until we had not a foot to stand upon from fatigue. Then we journeyed up to York Minster, and to Edinburgh, and to Blair Athole, and to the "Queen's View," and down by the English lakes; then back to London for some late balls and dinners, and some invitations to country-houses within a few hours of London.
In this my first visit to London I was struck with the intellectual tone of certain houses. Men of distinction, artists, and authors were invited everywhere and made much of. Literary and intellectual questions came into the gayest salons. Those agreeable men, the English clergy, seemed omnipresent, and London was a metropolis of science, letters, and the fine arts. Having been introduced by Mr. Motley, it was possible that we saw more that was polished and intellectual than we should have done otherwise; but we were struck, among the older men, not only with that polish of an hereditary aristocracy, but with the respect with which they treated men of genius — those eminent old men — like the Duke of Abercorn, whom some one called "the last of the grand seigniors," being conspicuously elegant and courteous. They were pre-eminently well-mannered. Lord Houghton was so very individual a man that it was impossible to call him a typical Englishman. He liked to gather oddities and geniuses around his table, and he was always particularly friendly to Americans. We came in at the end of war. The North had been victorious; we Northerners were the fashion; but one lady confided to me that she thought it strange that our President, Mr, Reverdy Johnson, should come over as minister! She could not separate Reverdy from Andrew Johnson. They really knew very little about us.
Mr. Motley, aristocrat by birth, association, education, and manners, was still too much of a patriot to allow any disrespect to the republic which he represented; but his intelligence was too broad not to distinguish between what was pure and simple ignorance of our affairs and what was intended for impertinence. His fine lips would curl a little, perhaps, at any mistake too palpable; but he was, like our minister, Charles Francis Adams, able to keep his indignation in check.
London society was far more exclusive then than it is now; it was smaller, and the age had not "ripened like a plum." I was also struck by the reserve of certain coteries: they kept back the intellectual treasures of their minds; they even regarded a quick wit and a lively tongue as a little fatiguing. Wit was a gymnast whom they distrusted, reminding one of Marie Antoinette's remark about Moliere:
"Ce Moliere est de mauvais goût," said the queen.
"Vous vous trompez, madame," said the king; "on peut reprocher à Moliere d'être quelquefois de mauvais ton, mais il n'est jamais de mauvais goût."
Lord Houghton did not think it bad manners or bad taste to be witty but many of his countrymen differed with him and said as much. Again, I think the English are very fond of being entertained, and that they regard the French and the American people as destined by Heaven to amuse them. Between the two there are always those cosmopolitan English who understand both and interpret both. Such men as Mr. Motley, Mr. Lowell, Mr. Henry James, on our side; such men as Lord Houghton, Sir Stafford Northcote, Earl de Grey, Tom Hughes, and Kingsley, on their side, were capable of understanding both. I think Dean Stanley, kind and lovely though he was, never understood or thoroughly liked Americans; we were strange beasts to him. I had the pleasure of seeing him later on at Mr. Cyrus W. Field's, and I think the only hour he thoroughly enjoyed was when he was going to see the monument to Major André.
These differences of temperament are utterly beyond our control. Tennyson and Carlyle could never endure Americans, nor do I believe Disraeli was much more tolerant, although always most polished. But there were hearty friends of ours in London, enough to make a visit there most enjoyable; not only such splendid examples as Sir William Stirling-Maxwell, but innumerable others; and of women, I found in the beautiful Duchess of Westminster (sister to Lord Ronald Gower), in Miss Thackeray, and in Lady Verney, three types which will always stand for the most cordial and the most kindly of friends.
Of literary ladies I was not so fortunate as to see many. The Hon. Mrs. Norton and Miss Thackeray were the only ones whom I knew well. Lady Verney told me that the literary society of London was too busy to go out much, and I fancy this was the truth. George Eliot had published the Spanish Gypsy the year before, and I was determined to see her, but the opportunity never occurred. Mr. Bancroft had given me a letter to Carlyle, and we diligently drove to Cheyne Walk; but the sage was out walking. I think he always was, when Americans called.
But these our failures were far more infrequent than our successes. We saw all the fashionable people that we wished to see, and received that social welcome which warms the heart. And one knows a country better in thus entering its homes, its strongholds, than by merely bowing to a celebrity.
Our little experience of a two months' visit has filled my whole life with a joyous remembrance of England; it made me many friends, and led to a correspondence with Lord Houghton which has been of priceless advantage. The experience has been oft repeated, and I have spent many seasons in London since, knowing well her artists and litterateurs, her hospitable nobility, and have even a slight acquaintance with her admirable Royal family.
In later days General Badeau presented me with his Life of Grant; I have it, with his autograph. It is a noble book, and does both honor. Later on, with all his friends, I felt very much astonished at, and terribly disappointed by, the attack which he made on his dying chief. No one could mistake Badeau's style, nor that of General Grant; therefore his assumption, if he ever made it, that he was the author of that last wonderful book, which the dying hero wrote with death clutching him by the throat, made me feel, as it did many, that Badeau was profoundly ungrateful. He is gone now, and I desire to lay this flower on his grave: he was a man of talent, filled with good impulses, when I knew him; what he became afterwards I do not know. I did not see him for ten years before his death, but read his occasional papers with great pleasure.
Nobody in England had a better chance to see and observe the different phases of such characters as Lord Houghton than had Badeau, and he knew well the noble ladies about whom he wrote so admirably The lady of Strawberry Hill had never so good a portrait painted of her. Countess Waldegrave, who had risen from the lowly position of the daughter of Braham, the singer, to being one of the first women in English society — a woman as famous in her day as Lady Cassell Holland was in hers — rendered herself completely up to Badeau's pencil; and the sketches of the Queen, the visit of General Grant to the Prince of Wales, all of which he witnessed, have become historical through his facile pen.
Lady Verney confided to General Badeau, as she did to me at her own house, her displeasure at the revelations of Mrs. Stowe in regard to Lord and Lady Byron. She was the most intimate friend of Lady Byron, and told me that she had from Lady Byron's own lips the following account of the cause of the separation:
Lady Byron found in one of his old desks a certificate of the marriage with the Spanish beauty of whom Moore speaks. Horrified beyond endurance at this terrible disclosure, by which she felt herself not a lawful wife, she went to Sir Samuel Romilly and to Dr. Lushington and asked their advice. They both said to her, "Stay in Byron's house until your child is born, and then leave him and await developments." She followed their advice implicitly. So much was she in love with Byron that she took up his little dog and kissed it as she left the ill-fated house where she had been so badly treated.
The grave question of the legitimacy of Ada prevented her from speaking of this discovery, but she never lived with Byron after it. The Spanish beauty never troubled her, so perhaps it was only a mock-marriage. As for the terrible aspersions on Byron's sister (Lady or Mrs. Augusta Leigh), Lady Verney declared them to have been scandalous lies. She thought Lady Byron could never have uttered them, as the sister of Byron was her friend through life. The only explanation which friends of Lady Byron could give me as to this discrepancy was that Lady Byron was not at all times perfectly sane; but Lady Verney believed differently, and was not at all sparing in her criticisms of Mrs. Stowe.
We came home in November, to begin again that home life which was not to be disturbed for many years; but the education and delight of this first visit were not to be measured by words.
There are three things which astonish an American beyond the power of expression on a first visit to Europe. One is a mountain, the second is a cathedral, the third is an old Italian villa, or a French chateau, or an English great house peopled by three hundred years of cultivated and continuous ownership.
"What a superb thing it is, that great house, with its terraces and fountains, its statues and groups of marble and bronze, its noble façade, its stately flights of steps, its gardens, à la Dufresnoy, at once grand and poetically wild; Nature claiming all in her charming caprices and fairy fantasies, Art standing back to look on and to admire! Shall we ever achieve that? No, not until we have had a past in which monarchs can squander millions. To cause a turf to become velvet we must first have a race of nobles and a dynasty of artists. Millionaires may paint their beautiful ceilings and hang the tapestries of Flemish looms on their walls, yet the most delicate intelligence, the most perfect taste, cannot give that last touch which Time so unconsciously adds; and without that touch how can we expect to build a cathedral like Milan, Cologne, Canterbury, York, Ely, Lincoln, or Seville, Toledo, Strasburg, Notre Dame, Chartres, Rouen?
And again, although since then our Western railroads have thrown open to us the fine snow-peaks of the Rockies, we can never have the surprise of the Swiss snow-mountains (which are next door to the palace and the cathedral); our scenery, majestic as it is, wants tradition and the marks of man's handiwork to give it perspective.
When we reached Paris, on our way home, it was November, and I had a cold, so that my first raptures were somewhat chilled.