Lady John Russell Part 32

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

SAN REMO, _December_ 1, 1869

Your letter of November 24th found the Amberleys here.... They were preceded by the Crown Princess of Prussia and Princess Louis of Hesse, announced by telegram in the morning, and a young Prince Albert of Prussia, son of the Prince Albert of our Berlin days, and a suite of two gentlemen and a lady, who came from Cannes, where they are living, on Friday, to pay us a visit, dined with us, slept at the nearest hotel, and were off again Sat.u.r.day morning, we going With them as far as Bordighera; and on Monday arrived the Odos [75]

for one night only, sleeping at an hotel. You see that our usual quiet life was for a while exchanged for one of--... Well, I beg pardon for this interruption and go back to our ill.u.s.trious and non-ill.u.s.trious visitors. The ill.u.s.trious were as merry as if they had no royalty about them, and as simple, too, dining in their travelling garments, brushing and washing in my room and John's, enjoying their dinner, of which happily there was enough (although the suite was unexpected owing to my not having received a letter giving details), chatting and laughing afterwards till half-past eight, when they walked in darkness, and strange to say, mud! but with glorious stars overhead, the five minute' distance to their hotel, accompanied by Agatha and me. The drive to Bordighera next morning was the pleasantest part of the visit to us all--John, Princess Louis, and Prince Albert in their carriage, Crown Princess, Agatha, and I in ours. It is wonderful to hear Princesses express such widely liberal opinions and feelings on education, religion, nationality, and if we had talked politics I dare-say I should add that too. Their strong love for their Vaterland in spite of their early transplantation is also very agreeable.

The Amberleys had been ten days with Mill at Avignon--a good fortification, I should imagine, against the wiles and blandishments of priests of all degree to which they will be exposed at Rome.... Little Rachel [76]is as sweet a little bright-eyed la.s.sie as I ever saw, hardly saying anything yet, but expressing a vast deal.

[75] Mr. Odo Russell (afterwards Lord Ampthill) and his wife.

[76] Daughter of Lord and Lady Amberley, born in February, 1868.

_Lord Russell to Colonel Romilly_

SAN REMO, _December_ 4, 1869

MY DEAR FREDERICK,--I had understood from you that you wished to propose some alterations in my Introduction to the Speeches, and I was much obliged to you for so kind a thought. But it appears by a letter from Lizzy that she and you think that all discussions of the future (which are announced in my preface) ought to be omitted.

In logical and literary aspects you are quite right; but I must tell you that since 1832 Ireland has been a main object of all my political career.... I am not without hope that the House of Commons will pa.s.s a reasonable Land Bill, and adhere to the plan of national education, which has been in force now for nearly forty years. At all events, the present government of Ireland gives no proofs of the infallibility of our rulers. Tell Lizzy that it is not a plate of salted cherries, but cherries ripe, without any salt, which I propose to lay before the Irish.

Yours affectionately,

RUSSELL

In the closing pa.s.sage of the "Introduction" referred to in the above letter Lord Russell gives a modest estimate of his own career: "My capacity I always felt was very inferior to that of the men who have attained in past times the foremost place in our Parliament, and in the Councils of our Sovereign. I have committed many errors, some of them very gross blunders.

But the generous people of England are always forbearing and forgiving to those statesmen who have the good of their country at heart; like my betters, I have been misrepresented and slandered by those who knew nothing of me, but I have been more than compensated by the confidence and the friendship of the best men of my own political connection, and by the regard and favourable interpretation of my motives which I have heard expressed by my generous opponents, from the days of Lord Castlereagh to those of Mr. Disraeli."

_Lady Russell to Mr. Rollo Russell_

SAN REMO, _February_ 17, 1870

How awful Paris will be after the easy, natural, unconventional life of San Remo, one delight of which is the absence of all thought about dress! Whatever may be and are the delights of Paris--and I fully intend that we should all three enjoy them--_that_ burden is heavier there than in all the world beside--and why? oh, why? What is there to prevent human nature from finding out and rejoicing in the blessings of civilization and society without enc.u.mbering them with petty etiquettes and fashions and forms which deprive them of half their value? Human nature is a very provoking compound. It strives and struggles and gives life itself for political freedom, while it forges social chains and fetters for itself and wears them with a foolish smile. And with this fruitless lamentation I must end.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

SAN REMO, _February_ 23, 1870

I don't know a bit whether we shall be much in London during the session--it will be session, not season, that takes us there....

The longer I live the more I condemn and deplore a rackety life for _any_ girl, and therefore if I do what I myself think right by her and not what others may think right, she shall never be a London b.u.t.terfly. Would that we could give our girls the ideal society which I suppose we all dream for them--that of the wise and the good of all ages, of the young and merry of their own. No barbarous crowds, no despotic fashions, no senseless omnipotence of custom (see "Childe Harold," somewhere).[77] I wonder in this age of revolution, which has dethroned so many monarchs and upset so many time-honoured systems of Government and broken so many chains, that Queen Fashion is left unmolested on her throne, ruling the civilized world with her rod of iron, and binding us hand and foot in her fetters.

[77] A favourite stanza of Lady Russell's in "Childe Harold":--

What from this barren being do we reap?

Our senses narrow, and our reason frail, Life short, and truth a gem which loves the deep, And all things weighed in custom's falsest scale; Opinion an omnipotence, whose veil Mantles the earth with darkness, until right And wrong are accidents, and men grow pale Lest their own judgments should become too bright, And their free thoughts be crimes, and earth have too much light.

BYRON.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

SAN REMO, _March_ 2, 1870

I am writing in my pretty bedroom, at an east window which is wide open, letting in the balmiest of airs, and the spring twittering of chaffinches and larks and other little birds, and the gentle music of the waves. Below the window I look at a very untidy bit of nondescript ground, with a few white-armed fig-trees and a number of flaunting Italian daisies--a little farther an enclosure of glossy green orange-trees laden with fruit; then an olive plantation, soft and feathery; then a bare, brownish, pleasant hill, crowned by the "Madonna della Guardia," and stretching to the sea, which I should like to call blue, but which is a dull grey. Oh dear, how sorry we shall be to leave it all! You, I know, understand the sort of shrinking there is after so quiet, so spoiling, so natural and unconventional a life (not to mention climate and beauty) from the thought of the overpowering quant.i.ty of people and business of all sorts and the artificial habits of our own country, in spite of the immense pleasure of looking forward to brothers and sisters and children and friends.

_Lady Russell to Mr. Rollo Russell_

SAN REMO, _March_ 17, 1870

... No doubt we must always in the last resort trust to our own reason upon all subjects on which our reason is capable of helping us. On a question of _language_, Hebrew for instance, if we don't know it and somebody else does, we cannot of course dispute his translation, but where n.o.body questions the words, everybody has a right--it is indeed everybody's duty--to reflect upon their meaning and bearing and come to their own conclusions; listening to others wiser or not wiser than themselves, eagerly seeking help, but never, oh never fettering their minds by an unconditional and premeditated submission to _anybody_ else's, or rather _pretending_ so to fetter it, for a mind will make itself heard, and there's much false modesty in the disclaimer of all power or right to judge--that very disclaimer being in fact, as you say, an exercise of private judgment and a rebellion or protest against thousands of wise and good and learned men.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

SAN REMO, _March_ 23, 1870

You must take John's second letter to Forster, [78] which will appear in the _Times_ and _Daily News_, as my letter to you for to-day, as I had already not left myself much time for you, so that copying them, although they are not long, has left me hardly any. I think you will agree with him that now, when the moment seems come for a really national system of education, it would be a great pity not to put an end to the teaching of catechisms in rate-supported schools. People may of course always have their little pet, privately supported sectarian schools, but surely, surely, it's enough that the weary catechism should be repeated and yawned over every Sunday of the year, where there are Sunday schools. I wonder whether you are in favour of compulsory attendance. I don't like it, but I do like compulsory rating, and I wish the Bill made it general and not local, and I also want the education to be gratis.

[78] In February Mr. Forster introduced the Elementary Education Act. It pa.s.sed the second reading without a division. In Committee the Cowper-Temple Clause was admitted by the Government.

_Lady Russell to Lady Dunfermline_

SAN REMO, _April_ 6, 1870

We go on discussing the Education Bill and all that is written about it with immense interest, but oh, the clergy! they seem resolved to fulfil the prophecy that Christ came not to bring peace on earth, but a sword.... How true what you say of want of earnestness in London society and Parliament!

On April 7th they left San Remo, "servants [79] all in tears," she writes, "and all, high and low, showering blessings on us, and praying for our welfare in their lovely language." At Paris they stayed with Lord Lyons at the British Emba.s.sy. The Emperor Napoleon and Empress Eugenie showed them much kindness during their visit to Paris. One evening Lord and Lady Russell and their daughter dined at the Tuileries, Lady Russell sitting next the Emperor and Lord Russell next the Empress. It has been told since that at this dinner the Emperor mentioned a riddle which he had put to the Empress, and her reply.

_Emperor._ Quelle est la difference entre toi et un miroir?

_Empress._ Je ne sais pas.

_Emperor._ Le miroir reflechit; tu ne reflechis pas.

_Empress._ Et quelle est la difference entre toi et un miroir?

_Emperor._ Je ne sais pas.

_Empress._ Le miroir est poli, et tu ne l'es pas.

[79] Their Italian servants.

On April 27th, after six months' absence, Lord and Lady Russell were once more at Pembroke Lodge.

_Lady Russell to Mr. Rollo Russell_

37 CHESHAM PLACE, _May_ 26, 1870

... We came up, your father and I, on Tuesday to dine with Clarendons, and stayed all yesterday to dine with Salisburys. Many things strike me on returning to England and English society: the superiority of its best to those of any other nation; the larger proportion of vulgarity in all cla.s.ses; ostentatious vulgarity, aristocratic vulgarity, coa.r.s.e vulgarity; the stir and activity of mind on religion, politics, morals, all that is most worthy of thought. What is to come of it all? Will goodness and truth prevail? Is a great regeneration coming? I believe it in spite of many discouraging symptoms. I believe that a coming generation will try to be and not only call itself Christian. G.o.d grant that each of my children may add some little ray of light by thought, word, and deed to help in dispelling the darkness of error, sin, and crime in this and all other lands.