Lady John Russell Part 43

I feel intensely all you say about laying aside, if it were possible, one's own personality and seeing the silent growth of all truth and goodness, without the disturbance of names and parties; but the world being as it is for the present, we can only keep our minds fixed on the good and the true, with whomsoever and with whatsoever party we may find it, and follow it with honest conviction. If I could, I would put an end to Party Government to-morrow, and my great wish for M.P.'s is that each one should, upon each subject, vote exactly according to his opinion, and no Ministry be turned out except upon a vote of want of confidence. I honour and love Mr. Gladstone, and while ardently sympathetic with him on Home Rule and all other Liberal measures, I am no less antipathetic on Church matters. Happily, however, they have become with him matters chiefly of personal attachment to Anglicanism, and no longer (I believe) likely to affect his legislation.

"Gladstonian" is a word he does not admit, nor do those of whom it is used.

_July_ 9, 1893.--Well, to go on with our politics: "a new policy" Home Rule undoubtedly is, a new departure from the "tradition" of any English party; but _not_ a departure from Liberal principles, only a new application of old ones, and I think it is a pity to speak of it as being against Liberal principles, for is there anybody of average intelligence who would not have predicted that if it should ever be adopted by any party it would be by the Liberals? Exactly the same thing was said about Turkey: the Whig tradition was to support her, Liberals were forsaking their principles by taking part with Bulgaria against her. It is the proud distinction of Liberals to _grow_ perpetually, and to march on with eyes open, and to discover, as they are pretty sure to do, that they have not always in the past been true to their principles. There is no case exactly parallel with that of Ireland; but there are some in great measure a.n.a.logous, and it is the Liberals who have listened to the voice of other countries, some of them our own dependencies, in their national aspirations or their desire for Parliaments of their own, expressed by Const.i.tutional majorities. I admire the Unionists for standing by their own convictions with regard to Home Rule, and always have done so; but I cannot call it "devotion to the Union _and to_ Liberal principles," and I am not aware of there being a single Home Ruler not a Liberal. The Unionists, especially those in Parliament, have been, and are, in a very dangerous position, and have yielded too readily to the temptation of a sudden transference of party loyalty upon almost every question from Liberal to Tory leaders. But for those, whether in or out of Parliament, who have remained Liberals--and I know several such--I don't see why, after Home Rule is carried, they should not be once more merged in the great body of Liberals, and have their chances, like others, of being chosen to serve their country in Parliament and in office....

I am reading a book by Grant Allen, "Science in Arcady." ... He brings wit and originality into these essays on plants, lakes, spiders, etc.

_Lady Russell to Lady Agatha Russell_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _September_ 22, 1893

... With regard to the modern attraction of ugly subjects (_not_ when the wish to remedy gross evils makes it a duty to study and live among them; but as common talk between young men and young women), I feel very strongly that the contemplation of G.o.d, and all that is G.o.d-like in the souls that He has created, is our best safeguard against evil, and that the contemplation of the spirit of evil, and all the hideous variety of its works, gradually taints us and weakens our powers of resistance.

_Lady Russell to Lady Agatha Russell_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _October_ 21, 1893

... I entirely agree with you, that poetry and music "teach us of the things that are unseen" as nothing else can do. Music especially, which is an unseen thing, not the product of man at all, but found from man as a gift from G.o.d's own hand. I don't know what at some periods of my life I should have done without these blessed sympathizers and outlets and uplifting friends.

_Lady Russell to Mrs. Drummond_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _December_ 16, 1893

Your long interesting letter is most welcome. You are very good and brave to do so much for the good of others, while suffering yourself. How much harder it is to _bear_ patiently, and keep up sympathy and fellow-feeling within us in spite of illness, than to do any amount of active work while in health. I always find my highest examples in those who know how to "suffer and be strong,"

because it is my own greatest difficulty.

Oh, my dear child, what opinions _can_ poor I give on the almost insoluble problems you put before me? I wish I knew of any book or any man or woman who could tell me whether a Poor Law, even the very best, is on the whole a blessing or a curse, and how the "unemployed" can be chosen out for work of any useful or productive kind without injury to others equally deserving, and what are the just limits of State interference with personal liberty. The House of Lords puzzles me less. I would simply declare it, by Act of the House of Commons, injurious to the best interests of the nation and for ever dissolved. Then it may either show its attachment to the Const.i.tution by giving its a.s.sent to its own annihilation, or oblige us to break through the worn-out Const.i.tution and declare their a.s.sent unnecessary. It is beyond all bearing that one great measure after another should be delayed, or mutilated, year after year, by such a body, and I chafe and fret inwardly to a painful degree. Oh for a long talk with you! I will not despair of going to you, "gin I be spared" till the days are reasonably long.

_Lady Russell to Lady Agatha Russell_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _October_ 10, 1894

... Alas! for our dear Oliver Wendell Holmes! He has left the world much the poorer by his death, but much the richer by his life and works.... Lord Grey gone too, and with him what recollections of my young days, before and after marriage, when he and Lady Grey and we were very much together. We loved them both. He was a very trying political colleague to your father and others, but a very faithful friend. The longer I live the more firmly I am convinced that in most cases to know people well is to like them--to forget their faults in their merits. But no doubt it is delightful to have no faults to forget.

PEMBROKE LODGE, _March_ 3, 1894

Touching accounts of meeting of the Cabinet--the last with dear n.o.ble old Gladstone as Minister. Tears in the eyes of his colleagues. He made his last speech as Minister in the House of Commons, a grand and stirring one.

PEMBROKE LODGE, _January_ 23, 1895

Finished "Erasmus" a few days ago--a great intellect, much wit, clear insight into the religion "falsely so-called" of monks and clergy, but a soul not great enough to utter his convictions aloud in the face of danger, or to perceive that conciliation beginning by hypocrisy must end in worse strife and bitterness. He saw the evil of the new dogmas and creeds introduced by Luther, of _any_ new creed the rejection of which was penal, but he did not or would not see the similar evil of the legally enforced old creeds and dogmas.

PEMBROKE LODGE, _May_ 15, 1895

Armenian refugees here to tea--a husband and wife whose baby _she_ had _seen_ murdered by Turkish soldiers, and a friend who is uncertain whether his wife is alive or murdered--these three in native dress; hers very picturesque, and she herself beautiful. The three refugees, all of whom had been eye-witnesses of ma.s.sacres of relations, looked intensely sad. She gave an account of some of the hardships they had suffered, but neither they nor we could have borne details of the atrocities.

What they chiefly wished to express, and did express, was deep grat.i.tude for the sympathy of our country, veneration for the memory of John as a friend of the Christian subjects of the Sultan, and thanks to ourselves.... They kissed our hands repeatedly, and the expression of their countenances as they looked at us, though without words, was very touching.

PEMBROKE LODGE, _February_ 24, 1896

Visit from Mr. Voysey, earnest, interesting, and pathetic in accounts of Whitechapel experiences. His Theism fills him with the joy of unbounded faith in a perfect G.o.d; but his keen sense of the evil done by the worship of Jesus as another and equal G.o.d leads him to a painful blindness to that divine character and teaching.

PEMBROKE LODGE, _August_ 5, 1897

Sinclair [115] has been reading a great deal to me since my illness began. Miss Austen's "Emma," which kept its high ground with me although I had read it too often to find much novelty in the marvellous humour and reality of the characters. Then "Scenes of Clerical Life" ... the contrast between the minds and the brain-work of Jane Austen and George Eliot very striking. Jane Austen all ease and spontaneousness and simplicity, George Eliot wonderful in strength and pa.s.sion, and fond of probing the depths of human anguish, but often ponderous in long-drawn philosophy and metaphysics, and with a tediously cynical and flippant tone underlying her portraits of human beings--and a wearisome lingering over uninteresting details. Her defects are, I think, far more prominent in this than in her best later books.

[115] "While in Norfolk Street (in 1882) engaged Sinclair, my good and faithful Sinclair, as maid and housekeeper" (_Recollections_). She remained with Lady Russell till her death, and served her with devotion to the end.

In the summer of 1897 she had a severe illness, from which, as the following letter shows, she partially recovered.

_Mrs. Warburton to Lady Agatha Russell_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _October_ 11, 1897

You can't imagine, or rather you can, what a happiness it is to be able to record a perfect drive round the Park again with Mama this most beautiful day, she enjoying it as of yore, and as full of pleasure and observation as I ever remember. In short, it is quite difficult to me to realize how ill she has been since I saw her in June. She seems and looks so well. She is a marvellous person, so young and fresh in all her interests, sight and hearing betraying so little sign of change. She says she is out of practice, and her _playing_ is not as easy or as vigorous as it was, I thought; but how few people of her age would return to it at all after such a long illness. (There are the sounds of music overhead as I sit here in the drawing-room--how she enjoys it!) ... About the reading--Dr. Gardiner [116] was against her being prevented from a little--she enjoys it so much. Sinclair reading to her is a great comfort.

[116] Medical attendant and valued friend for over twelve years, partner to Dr. Anderson, of Richmond, with whom he attended Lady Russell till her death.

PEMBROKE LODGE, _November_ 15, 1897

Eighty-two this day. G.o.d be praised for all he has given to brighten my old age. G.o.d be praised that I am still able to love, to think, to rejoice, and to mourn with those dear to me. But the burden of wasted years of a long life, in which I see failure on every side, is weighty and painful, and can never be lightened. I can only pray that the few steps left to me to take may be on a holier path--the narrow path that leads to G.o.d. My own blessings only brought more vividly to my mind the ma.s.ses of toiling, struggling, poverty-stricken fellow-creatures, from whom the pressure of want shuts out the light of life.

My Agatha well, weather beautiful, and seventy very happy boys and girls from the school to see a ventriloquist and his acting dolls (drawing-room cleared for the occasion). The children's bursts and shouts of laughter delightful to hear.

Lady Russell was wonderfully well that day--her last birthday on earth--and joined in the fun and laughter as heartily as any of the children. Old age had not lessened her keen enjoyment of humour, nor dimmed the brightness of her brave spirit.

PEMBROKE LODGE, _December_ 11, 1897

A beautiful day for old scholars' meeting. Ninety-four came, a larger number than ever before; table spread in drawing-room and bow-room. Not able to go down to see them, but all went well and merrily. I was able to get to my sitting-room in the afternoon, and all came up to me by turns for a hand-shake. It was pleasant to see so many kindly, happy faces.

PEMBROKE LODGE, _January_ 1, 1898

What will 1898 bring of joy or sorrow, good or evil, life or death, to our home, our country, the world? May we be ready for all, whatever it may be.

Six days later she was attacked by influenza, which turned to bronchitis, and very soon she became seriously ill. There was for one day a slight hope that she might recover, but the rally was only temporary, and soon it was certain that death was near.

The last book that her daughter had been reading to her was the "Life of Tennyson," by his son, which she very much enjoyed. She begged her daughter to go on reading it to her in the last days of her life, and her keen interest in it was wonderful, even when she was too ill to listen to more than a few sentences at a time.

For some years Lady Russell had found great amus.e.m.e.nt and delight in the visits of a little wild squirrel--squirrels abounded among the old trees at Pembroke Lodge--which gradually became more and more tame and friendly. It used to climb up to her windows by a lilac-bush or a climbing rose-tree and look brightly in at her while enjoying the nuts she gave it on the window-sill. Before long it became very venturesome, and would enter the room daily and frisk about, or sit on her writing-table or on the tea-table in perfect content, taking food from her hand. On the last day of her life the doctor [117] was sitting by her bedside when suddenly he noticed the beautiful little squirrel bounding in at her window. It was only a few hours before she died, but her face lighted up at once, and she welcomed her faithful little friend, for the last time, with her brightest smile.