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“Console if you will, I can bear it;

’Tis a well-meant alms of breath;

But not all the preaching since Adam

Has made Death other than Death.”—Lowell.

“Whoever he is that is overrun with solitariness, or crucified with worldly care, I can prescribe him no better remedy than that of study, to compose himself to learning.”—Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy.

“E certo ogni mio studio in quel temp’ era

Pur di sfogare il doloroso core

In qualche modo, non d’acquistar fama,

Pianger cercai, non già del pianto onore.”

—Petrarch, In Morte di Laura, xxv.

“Why should we faint, and fear to live alone,

Since all alone, so Heaven hath willed, we die,

Nor even the tenderest heart, and next our own,

Knows half the reasons why we smile or sigh?”

—Keble.

“Let us dismiss vain sorrows: it is for the living only that we are called to live. Forward! forward!”—Carlyle.

I SPENT the greater part of the fiercely cold winter of 1870–71 in complete seclusion at Holmhurst, entirely engrossed in the work of the “Memorials,” which had been the last keen interest of my Mother’s life. In calling up the vivid image of long-ago days spent with her, I seemed to live those days over again, and I found constant proof of her loving forethought for the first months of my solitude in the materials which, without my knowledge, and without then the slightest idea of publication, she must have frequently devoted herself to arranging during the last few years of her life. As each day passed, and the work unravelled itself, I was increasingly convinced of the wisdom of her death-bed decision that until the book was quite finished I should give it to none of the family to read. They must judge of it as a whole. Otherwise, in “attempting to please all, I should please none: shocking nobody’s prejudices I should enlist nobody’s sympathies.”

Unfortunately this decision greatly ruffled the sensibilities of my Stanley cousins, especially of Arthur Stanley and his sister Mary, who from the first threatened me with legal proceedings if I gave them the smallest loop-hole for them, by publishing a word of their own mother’s writing without their consent, which from the first, also, they declared they would withhold. They were also “quite certain” that no one would ever read the “Memorials” if they were published, in which I always thought they might be wrong, as people are so apt to be when they are “quite certain.”

My other cousins did not at first approve of the plan of the “Memorials,” but when once completely convinced that it had been their dear aunt’s wish, they withdrew all opposition.

Still the harshness with which I was now continually treated and spoken of by those with whom I had always hitherto lived on terms of the utmost intimacy was a bitter trial. In a time when a single great grief pervades every hour, unreasonable demands, cruel words, and taunting sneers are more difficult to bear than when life is rippling on in an even course. I was by no means blameless: I wrote sharp letters: I made harsh speeches; but that it was my duty to fight in behalf of the fulfilment of the solemn duty which had devolved upon me, I never doubted then, and I have never doubted since. In the fulfilment of that duty I was prepared to sacrifice every friend I had in the world, all the little fortune I had, my very life itself. I felt that I must learn henceforth to act with “Selbständigkeit,” which somehow seems to have a stronger meaning than independence; and I believe I had in mind the maxim of Sœur Rosalie—“Faites le bien, et laissez dire.”

A vivid impression that I had a very short time to live made me more eager about the rapid fulfilment of my task. I thought of the Spanish proverb, “By-and-by is always too late,” and I often worked at the book for twelve hours a day. My Mother had long thought, and latterly often said, that it was impossible I could long survive her: that when two lives were so closely entwined as ours, one could not go on alone. She had often even spoken of “when we die.” But God does not allow people to die of grief, though, when sorrow has once taken possession of one, only hard work, laboriously undertaken, can—not drive it out, but keep it under control. It is as Whittier says:—

“There is nothing better than work for mind or body. It makes the burden of sorrow, which all sooner or later must carry, lighter. I like the wise Chinese proverb: ‘You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from flying over your head, but you may prevent them from stopping to build their nests in your hair.’ ”[1]

I had felt the gradual separation of death. At first the sense of my Mother’s presence was still quite vivid: then it was less so: at last the day came when I felt “she is nowhere here now.”

It was partly owing to the strong impression in her mind that I could not survive her that my Mother had failed to make the usual arrangements for my future provision. As she had never allowed any money to be placed in my name, I had—being no legal relation to her—to pay a stranger’s duty of £10 per cent on all she possessed, and this amounted to a large sum, when extended to a duty on every picture, even every garden implement, &c.[2] Not only this, but during her lifetime she had been induced by various members of the family to sign away a large portion of her fortune, and in the intricate difficulties which arose I was assured that I should have nothing whatever left to live upon beyond £60 a year, and the rent of Holmhurst (fortunately secured), if it could be let. I was urged by the Stanleys to submit at once to my fate, and to sell Holmhurst; yet I could not help hoping for better days, which came with the publication of “Walks in Rome.”

Meanwhile, half distracted by the unsought “advice” which was poured upon me from all sides, and worn-out with the genuine distress of my old servants, I went away in March, just as far as I could, first to visit the Pole Carews in Cornwall, and then to the Land’s End, to Stephen Lawley, who was then living in a cottage by the roadside near Penzance. I was so very miserable and so miserably preoccupied at this time, that I have no distinct recollection of these visits, beyond the image on my mind of the grand chrysoprase seas of Cornwall and the stupendous rocks against which they beat, especially at Tol Pedn Penwith. I felt more in my natural element when, after I had gone to Bournemouth to visit Archie Colquhoun,[3] who was mourning the recent loss of both his parents, I was detained there by his sudden and dangerous illness. While there, also, I was cheered by the first thoughts for a tour in Spain during the next winter.

To Mary Lea Gidman.

“Penzance, March 13, 1871.—I know how much and sadly you will have thought to-day of the last terrible 13th of March, when we were awakened in the night by the dear Mother’s paralytic seizure, and saw her so sadly changed. In all the anguish of looking back upon that time, and the feeling which I constantly have now of all that is bright and happy having perished out of my life with her sweet presence, I have much comfort in thinking that we were able to carry out her last great wish in bringing her home, and in the memory of the three happy months of comparative health which she afterwards enjoyed there. Many people since I left home have read some of the ‘Memorials’ I am writing, and express a sense of never having known before how perfectly beautiful her character was, and that in truth, like Abraham, they ‘entertained an angel unawares.’ Now that dear life, which always seemed to us so perfect, has indeed become perfected, and the heavenly glow which came to the revered features in death is but a very faint image of the heavenly glory which always rests upon them.”

To Miss Wright.

“Stewart’s Hotel, Bournemouth, March 30, 1871.—The discussion of a tour in Spain comes to me as the pleasant dream of a possible future. … It is of course easy for us to see Spain in a way in a few weeks, but if one does not go in a cockney spirit, but really wishing to learn, to open one’s eyes to the glorious past of Spain, the story of Isabella, the Moorish dominion, the boundless wealth of its legends, its proverbs, its poetry—all that makes it different from any other country—we must begin in a different way, and our chief interest will be found in the grand old cities which the English generally do not visit—Leon, Zaragoza, Salamanca; in the wonderful romance which clings around the rocks of Monserrat and the cloisters of Santiago; in the scenes of the Cid, Don Roderick, Cervantes, &c.

“You will be sorry to hear that I am again in my normal condition of day and night nurse, in all the varying anxieties of a sick-room. I came here ten days ago to stay with Archie Colquhoun, whom I had known very little before, but who, having lost both father and mother lately, turned in heart to me and begged me to come to him. On Tuesday he fell with a great crash on the floor in a fit, and was unconscious for many hours. … It was a narrow escape of his life, and he was in a most critical state till the next day, but now he is doing well, though it will long be an anxious case.[4] You will easily understand how much past anguish has come back to me in the night-watches here, and I feel it odd that these duties should, as it were, be perpetually found for me.”

In May I paid the first of many visits to my dear Lady Waterford at Highcliffe, her fairy palace by the sea, on the Hampshire coast, near Christ Church, and though I was still too sad to enter into the full charm of the place and the life, which I have enjoyed so much since, I was greatly refreshed by the mental tonic, and by the kindness and sympathy which I have never failed to receive from Lady Waterford and her friend Lady Jane Ellice. With them, too, I was able to discuss my work in all its aspects, and greatly was I encouraged by all they said.

HIGHCLIFFE, THE KING’S ORIEL. [5]

For many years after this, Highcliffe was more familiar to me than any other place except my own home, and I am attached to every stone of it. The house was the old Mayor’s house of Les Andelys, removed from Normandy by Lord Stuart de Rothesay, but a drawing shows the building as it was in France, producing a far finer effect than as it was put up in England by Pugin, the really fine parts, especially the great window, being lower down in the building, and more made of. In the room to which that window belonged, Antoyne de Bourbon, King of Navarre, died. The portraits in the present room of the Duchess of Suffolk and her second husband, who was a Bertie, have the old ballad of “The Duchess of Suffolk” inscribed beneath. They fled abroad, and their son Peregrine, born in a church porch, was the progenitor of the present Berties. I have myself always inhabited the same room at Highcliffe—one up a separate stair of its own, adorned with great views of the old Highcliffe and Mount Stuart, and with old French furniture, including a chair worked in blue and red by Queen Marie Amélie and Madame Adelaïde. The original house of Highcliffe was built on land sold to Lord Stuart by a Mr. Penlees, who had had a legacy of bank-notes left him in the case of a cocked-hat—it was quite full of them. Mr. Penlees had built a very ugly house, the present “old rooms,” which Lord Stuart cased over. Then he said that, while Lady Stuart was away, he would add a few rooms. When she came back, to her intense consternation, she found the new palace of Highcliffe: all the ornaments, windows, &c., from Les Andelys having been landed close by upon the coast. I always liked going with Lady Waterford into the old rooms, which were those principally used by Lady Stuart, and contained a wonderful copy of Sir Joshua which Lady Waterford made when she was ten years old. There was also a beautiful copy of the famous picture of Lord Royston, done by Lady Waterford herself long ago; a fine drawing of the leave-taking of Charles I. and his children—Charles with a head like the representations of the Saviour; and a portrait of the old Lady Stuart, “Grannie Stuart,” with all the wrinkles smoothed out. “Oh, if I am like that, I am only fit to die,” she said, when she saw it.[6]

I have put down a few notes from the conversation at Highcliffe this year.

“Mr. M. was remonstrated with because he would not admire Louis Philippe’s régime. He said, ‘No, I cannot; I have known him before so well. I am like the peasant who, when he was remonstrated with because he would not take off his hat to a new wooden cross that was put up, said he couldn’t parceque je l’ai connu poirier.’ ”

“Some one spoke to old Lady Salisbury[7] of Adam’s words—‘The woman tempted me, and I did eat.’ ‘Shabby fellow,’ she said.”

“Lady Anne Barnard[8] was at a party in France, and her carriage never came to take her away. A certain Duke who was there begged to have the honour of taking her home, and she accepted, but on the way felt rather awkward and thought he was too affectionate and gallant. Suddenly she was horrified to see the Duke on his knees at the bottom of the carriage, and was putting out her hands and warding him off, when he exclaimed, ‘Taisez-vous, Madame, voilà le bon Dieu qui passe.’ It was a great blow to her vanity.”

“Old Lord Malmesbury[9] used to invent the most extraordinary stories and tell them so well; indeed, he told them till he quite believed them. One was called ‘The Bloody Butler,’ and was about a butler who drank the wine and then filled the bottles with the blood of his victims. Another was called ‘The Moth-eaten Clergyman;’ it was about a very poor clergyman, a Roman he was, who had some small parish in Southern Germany, and was a very good man, quite excellent, absolutely devoted to the good of his people. There was, however, one thing which militated against his having all the influence amongst his flock which he ought to have had, and this was that he was constantly observed to steal out of his house in the late evening with two bags in his hand, and to bury the contents in the garden; and yet when people came afterwards by stealth and dug for the treasure, they found nothing at all, and this was thought, well … not quite canny.

“Now the diocesan of that poor clergyman, who happened to be the Archbishop of Mayence, was much distressed at this, that the influence of so good a man should thus be marred. Soon afterwards he went on his visitation tour, and he stopped at the clergyman’s house for the night. He arrived with outriders, and two postillions, and four fat horses, and four fat pug-dogs, which was not very convenient. However, the poor clergyman received them all very hospitably, and did the best he could for them. But the Archbishop thought it was a great opportunity for putting an end to all the rumours that were about, and with a view to this he gave orders that the doors should be fastened and locked, so that no one should go out.

“When morning came, the windows of the priest’s house were not opened, and no one emerged, and at last the parishioners became alarmed, for there was no sound at all. But when they broke open the doors, volleys upon volleys of moths of every kind and hue poured out; but of the poor clergyman, or of the Archbishop of Mayence, or of the outriders and postillions, or of the four fat horses, or of the four pug-dogs, came out nothing at all, for they were all eaten up. For the fact was that the poor clergyman really had the most dreadful disease which bred myriads of moths; if he could bury their eggs at night, he kept them under, but when he was locked up, and he could do nothing, they were too much for him. Now there is a moral in this story, because if the people and the Archbishop had looked to the fruits of that excellent man’s life, and not attended to foolish reports with which they had no concern whatever, these things would never have happened.

“These were the sort of things Lord Malmesbury used to invent. Canning used to tell them to us.”

“I call the three kinds of Churchism—Attitudinarian, Latitudinarian, and Platitudinarian.”

To Miss Wright.

“Holmhurst, June 12, 1871.—In a few days’ solitude what a quantity of work I have gone through; and work which carries one back over a wide extent of the far long-ago always stretches out the hours, but how interesting it makes them! I quite feel that I should not have lived through the first year of my desolation without the companionship of this work of the ‘Memorials,’ which my darling so wisely foresaw and prepared for me. Daily I miss her more. Now that the flowers are blooming around, and the sun shining on the lawn, and the leaves out on the ash-tree in the shade of which she used to sit, it seems impossible not to think that the suffering present must be a dream and that she is only ‘not yet come out;’ and what the empty room, the unused pillow are, whence the sunshine of my life came, I cannot say. On Thursday I am going for one day to Hurstmonceaux, to our sacred spot. The cross is to be put up then. It is very beautiful, and is only inscribed:—

MARIA HARE,

Nov. 22, 1798. Nov. 13, 1870.

Until the Daybreak.

No other words are needed there; all the rest is written in the hearts of the people who loved her.

THE CHURCHYARD AT HURSTMONCEAUX.

“I have been thinking lately how all my life hitherto has been down a highway. There was no doubt as to where the duties were; there could be no doubt whence the pleasures, certainly whence the sorrows would come. Now there seem endless byways to diverge upon. But all the interest of life must be on its highway: the byways may be beautiful and attractive, but never interesting.”

“Sept. 26.—I much enjoyed my Peakirk visit to charming people (Mr. and Mrs. James) and a curious place—an oasis in the Fens, the home of St. Pega (sister of St. Guthlac), whose hermitage with its battered but beautiful cross still remains. I saw Burleigh, like a Genoese palace inside; and yesterday made a fatiguing but worth while pilgrimage, for love of Mary Queen of Scots, to Fotheringhay. One stone, but only one, remains of the castle which was the scene of her sufferings; so people wondered at my going so far. ‘Why cannot you let bygones be bygones?’ said young W. to me. However, the church is very curious, and contains inscriptions to a whole party of Plantagenets—Richard, Earl of Cornwall; Cicely, Duchess of York; Edward, father of Edward IV.—for Fotheringhay, now a hamlet in the fen, was once an important place: the death of Mary wrought the curse which became its ruin.”

I have said little for many years of the George Sheffield who was the dearest friend of my boyhood. He had been attaché at Munich, Washington, Constantinople, and was now at Paris as secretary to Lord Lyons. In this my first desolate year he also had a sorrow, which wonderfully reunited us, and we became perhaps greater friends than we had been before. Another of whom I saw much at this time was Charlie Dalison. A younger son of a Kentish squire of good family, he went—like the young men of olden time—to London to seek his fortunes, and simply by his good looks, winning manners, and incomparable self-reliance became the most popular young man in party-giving London society; but he had many higher qualities.

I needed all the support my friends could give me, for the family feud about the “Memorials” was not the only trouble that pressed upon me at this time.

It will be recollected that, in my sister’s death-bed will, she had bequeathed to me her claims to a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds. It was the very fact of this bequest which in 1871 made my poor Aunt Eleanor (Miss Paul) set up a counter-claim to the picture, which was valued at £2000.

Five-and-twenty years before, the picture had been entrusted for a time to Sir John Paul, who unfortunately, from some small vanity, allowed it to be exhibited in his own name instead of that of the owner. But I never remember the time when it was not at Hurstmonceaux after 1845, when it was sent there. Sir Joshua Reynolds, who was an intimate family friend, painted it in the house of Bishop Shipley, when my father was two and a half years old. It was painted for my great-aunt Lady Jones, widow of the famous Orientalist. Lady Jones adopted her nephew Augustus Hare, and brought him up as her own son, but, as she died intestate, her personalty passed, not to him, but to her only surviving sister, Louisa Shipley. Miss Shipley lived many years, and bequeathed the portrait to her youngest nephew, Marcus Hare. But Marcus gave up his legacy to my Uncle Julius, who always possessed the picture in my boyhood, when it hung over the dining-room chimney-piece at Hurstmonceaux Rectory. Uncle Julius bequeathed the portrait, with all else he possessed, to his widow, who transferred the picture at once to my adopted mother, as being the widow of the adopted son of Lady Jones.

The claim of the opposite party to the picture was that Mrs. Hare (“Italima”) had said that Lady Jones in her lifetime had promised to give her the picture, a promise which was never fulfilled; and that my sister, after her mother’s death, had said at Holmhurst, “If every one had their rights, that picture would belong to me, as my mother’s representative, for Lady Jones promised it to my mother,” also that she proved her belief in having a claim to it by bequeathing that claim to me. But the strongest point against us was that somehow or other, how no one could explain, the picture had been allowed to remain for more than a year in the hands of Sir John Paul, and he had exhibited it. Though the impending trial about the picture question was very different from that at Guildford, the violent animosity displayed by my poor aunt made it most painful, in addition to the knowledge that she (who had inherited everything belonging to my father, mother, and sister, and had dispersed their property to the four winds of heaven, whilst I possessed nothing which had belonged to them) was now trying to seize property to which she could have no possible moral right, though English law is so uncertain that one never felt sure to the last whether the fact of the picture having been exhibited in Sir John Paul’s name might not weigh fatally with both judge and jury.

For the whole month of November I was in London, expecting the trial every day, but it was not till the evening of the 6th of December that I heard that it was to be the next morning in the law-court off Westminster Hall. The court was crowded. My counsel, Mr. Pollock, began his speech with a tremendous exordium. “Gentlemen of the jury, in a neighbouring court the world is sitting silent before the stupendous excitement of the Tichborne trial: gentlemen of the jury, that case pales into insignificance—pales into the most utter insignificance before the thrilling interest of the present occasion. On the narrow stage of this domestic drama, all the historic characters of the last century and all the literary personages of the present seem to be marching in a solemn procession.” And he proceeded to tell the really romantic history of the picture—how Benjamin Franklin saw it painted, &c. I was called into the witness-box and examined and cross-examined for an hour by Mr. H. James. As long as I was in the region of my great-uncles and aunts, I was perfectly at home, and nothing in the cross-examination could the least confuse me. Then the counsel for the opposition said, “Mr. Hare, on the 20th of April 1866 you wrote a letter, &c.: what was in that letter?” Of course I said I could not tell. “What do you think was in that letter?” So I said something, and of course it was exactly opposite to the fact.

Francis George Hare (Photogravure)

As witnesses to the fact of the picture having been at the Rectory at the time of the marriage of my Uncle Julius, I had subpœnaed the whole surviving family of Mrs. Julius Hare, who could witness to it better than any one else, as they had half-lived at Hurstmonceaux Rectory after their sister’s marriage. Her two sisters, Mrs. Powell and Mrs. Plumptre, took to their beds, and remained there for a week to avoid the trial, but Dr. Plumptre[10] and Mr. (F. D.) Maurice had to appear, and gave evidence as to the picture having been at Hurstmonceaux Rectory at the time of their sister’s marriage in 1845,[11] and having remained there afterwards during the whole of Julius Hare’s life. Mr. George Paul was then called, and took an oath that, till he went to America in 1852, the picture had remained at Sir John Paul’s; but such is the inattention and ignorance of their business which I have always observed in lawyers, that this discrepancy passed absolutely unnoticed.

The trial continued for several hours, yet when the court adjourned for luncheon I believed all was going well. It was a terrible moment when afterwards Judge Mellor summed up dead against us. Being ignorant, during my mother’s lifetime, of the clause in Miss Shipley’s will leaving the picture to Marcus Hare, and being anxious to ward off from her the agitation of a lawsuit in her feeble health, I had made admissions which I had really previously forgotten, but which were most dangerous, as to the difficulty which I then felt in establishing our claim to the picture. These weighed with Judge Mellor, and, if the jury had followed his lead, our cause would have been ruined. The jury demanded to retire, and were absent for some time. Miss Paul, who was in the area of the court, received the congratulations of all her friends, and I was so certain that my case was lost, that I went to the solicitor of Miss Paul and said that I had had the picture brought to Sir John Lefevre’s house in Spring Gardens, and that I wished to give it up as soon as ever the verdict was declared, as if any injury happened to it afterwards, a claim might be made against me for £2000.

Then the jury came back and gave a verdict for … the defendant!

It took everybody by surprise, and it was the most triumphant moment I ever remember. All the Pauls sank down as if they were shot. My friends flocked round me with congratulations.

The trial took the whole day, the court sitting longer than usual on account of it. The enemy immediately applied for a new trial, which caused us much anxiety, but this time I was not required to appear in person. The second trial took place on the 16th of January 1872, before the Lord Chief Justice, Judge Blackburn, Judge Mellor, and Judge Hannen, and, after a long discussion, was given triumphantly in my favour, Judge Mellor withdrawing his speech made at the former trial, and stating that, after reconsideration of all the facts, he rejoiced at the decision of the jury.

As both trials were gained by me, the enemy had nominally to pay all the costs, but still the expenses were most heavy. It was just at the time when I was poorest, when my adopted mother’s will was still in abeyance. There were also other aspirants for the picture, in the shape of the creditors of my brother Francis, who claimed as representing my father (not my mother). It was therefore thought wiser by all that I should assent to the portrait being sold, and be content to retain only in its place a beautiful copy which had been made for me by the kindness of my cousin Madeleine Shaw-Lefevre. The portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds was sold at Christie’s in the summer of 1872 for £2200, and is now in the National Gallery of America at New York.

A week after the trial, on the 13th of December, I left England for Spain. It had at first been intended that a party of five should pass the winter there together, but one after another fell off, till none remained except Miss Wright—“Aunt Sophy”—who joined me in Paris. The story of our Spanish tour is fully told in my book “Wanderings in Spain,” which appeared first as articles in Good Words. These were easily written and pleasant and amusing to write, but have none of the real value of the articles which I afterwards contributed on “Days near Rome.” I will only give here, to carry on the story, some extracts from my letters.

To Miss Leycester.

“Paris, Dec. 14, 1871.—How different France and England! At Holmhurst I left a green garden bright with chrysanthemums and everlastings: here, a pathless waste of snow up to the tops of the hedges became so deep near Creil that, as day broke, we remained fixed for an hour and a half in the midst of a forest, neither able to move backwards or forwards. And by the side of the rail were remains of a frightful accident of yesterday—engine smashed to bits, carriages cut in half, the linings hanging in rags, cushions lying about, &c. The guard was not encouraging—‘Oui, il y avait des victimes, pas beaucoup, mais il y a toujours des victimes.’ … The state of Paris is unspeakably wretched, hillocks of snow, uncarted away and as high as your shoulder, filling the sides of the streets, with a pond in the intervening space. The Tuileries (after the Commune) looks far worse than I expected—restorable, but for the present it has lost all its form and character. We went inside this morning, but were soon warned out on account of the falling walls weakened by the frost.”

“Pau, Dec. 20.—I was glad to seize the opportunity of Aunt Sophy’s wishing for a few days’ rest before encountering Spain to pay a visit to the Taylors.[12] … This morning I have walked on the terrace of the park, and lived over again many of those suffering scenes when we were here before. Truly here I have no feeling but one of thankfulness for the Mother’s release from the suffering body which was so great a burden to her. I went to the Hotel Victoria, and looked up at the windows of the rooms where, for the first time, we passed together through the valley of the Shadow of Death.”

To Mary Lea Gidman,

“Jan. 2.—You will imagine how the long-ago came back to me at Pau—the terrible time when we were hourly expecting the blow which has now fallen, and which we both, I know, feel daily and hourly. But I think it was in mercy that God spared us then: we were better prepared for our great desolation when it really came, and in the years for which our beloved one was given back to us, she was not only our most precious comfort and blessing, for her also they were filled with comfort, in spite of sickness, by the love with which she was ever surrounded. When I think of what the great blank is, life seems quite too desolate; but when I think of her now, and how her earthly life must have been one of increasing infirmity, instead of the perfected state from which I believe she can still look down upon us, I am satisfied.

“Do you still keep flowers or something green in her room? I hope so.”

To Miss Leycester.

“Convent of Montserrat, in Catalonia, Jan. 4, 1872.—At the best of times you would never have been able to travel in Spain, for great as is the delight of this unspeakably glorious place, I must confess we paid dear for it in the sufferings of the way. The first day introduced us to plenty of small hardships, as, a train being taken off al improviso, we had to wade through muddy lanes—and the Navarre mud is such mud—in pitch darkness, to a wretched hovel, where we passed the night with a number of others, in fierce cold, no fires or comforts of any kind. From thence (Alasua) we got on to Pamplona, our first picturesque Spanish town, where we spent part of Christmas Day, and then went on to Tudela, where we had another wretched posada; no fires; milk, coffee, and butter quite unknown, and the meat stewed in oil and garlic; and this has been the case everywhere except here, with other and worse in-conveniences.

“At Zaragoza we were first a little repaid by the wonderful beauty of the Moorish architecture—like lace in brick and stone, and the people as well as the place made a new world for us; but oh! the cold!—blocks of ice in the streets and the fiercest of winds raging. … No words certainly can describe the awful, the hideous ugliness of the railway the whole way here: not a tree, not a blade of grass to be seen, but ceaseless wind-stricken swamps of brown mud—featureless, hopeless, utterly uncultivated. However, Manresa is glorious, a sort of mixture of Tivoli (without the waterfall) and Subiaco, and thence we first gazed upon the magnificent Monserrat.

“We have been four days in the convent. I never saw anything anywhere so beautiful or so astonishing as this place, where we are miles and miles above every living thing except the monks, amid the most stupendous precipices of 3000 feet perpendicular, and yet in such a wealth of loveliness in arbutus, box, lentisc, smilax, and jessamine, as you can scarcely imagine. Though it is so high, and we have no fires or even brasieros, we scarcely feel the cold, the air is so still and the situation so sheltered, and on the sunlit terraces, which overlook the whole of Catalonia like a map, it is really too hot. The monks give us lodging and we have excellent food at a fonda within the convent walls, and are quite comfortable, though it must be confessed that my room is so narrow a cell, that when I go in it is impossible to turn round, and I have to hoist myself on the little bed sideways.

“It has been a strange beginning of the New Year. We breakfast at eight, and all day draw or follow the inexhaustibly lovely paths along the edges of the precipices. Yesterday we ascended the highest peak of the range, and were away nine hours—Aunt Sophy, the maid, and I; and nothing can describe the sublimity of the views across so glorious a foreground, to the whole snowy Pyrenean ranges and the expanse of blue sea.

“I act regular courier, and do all the work at inns, stations, &c., and Miss Wright is very easy to do for, and though very piano in misfortunes, is most kind and unselfish. The small stock of Spanish which I acquired in lonely evenings at Holmhurst enables me to get on quite easily—in fact, we never have a difficulty; and the kindness, civility, and helpfulness of the Spanish people compensates for all other annoyances. No one cheats, nor does it seem to occur to them. All prices are fixed, and so reasonable that my week’s expenses have been less than I paid for two dismal rooms and breakfast only in Half-Moon Street.”

“Barcelona, Jan. 9.—We arrived here on the evening of the Befana—a picturesque sight. It was coming into perfect summer, people out walking in the beautiful Rambla till past 12 P.m., ladies without bonnets and shawls. It is a very interesting place, full of lovely architecture, with palms, huge orange-trees, and terraces, and such a deep blue sea.”

To Mary Lea Gidman.

“Barcelona, Jan. 17.—We have good rooms now, but everywhere the food is shocking. At the table-d’hôte one of the favourite dishes is snail-soup, and as the snails are cooked in their shells, it does not look very tempting. If the food were improved, this coast would be better for invalids in winter than the Riviera, as it is such a splendid climate—almost too dry, as it scarcely ever rains for more than fifty days out of the 365. The late Queen ordered every tree in the whole of Spain which did not bear fruit to be cut down, so the whole country is quite bare, and so parched and rocky that often for fifty miles you do not see a shrub, but in some places there are palms, olives, oranges, and caroubas.