Story of My Life Part 10

"_June._--On Sunday in the middle of the Commandments it was so hot in chapel that Kindersley fell down in a fit. He was seized head and foot and carried out, struggling terribly, by Smith and Vernon and others: and the boys say that in his fit he seized hold of Mr.

Middlemist's (the Mathematical Master's) nose and gave it a very hard tweak; but how far this is true I cannot tell. However, the whole chapel rose up in great consternation, some thinking one thing and some another, and some not knowing what to think, while others perhaps thought as I did, that the roof was coming down. Dr.

Vaughan went on reading the prayers, and Kindersley shrieking, but at last all was quiet. Soon, however, there was another row, for Miles fainted, and he was carried out, and then several others followed his example. That night was so hot that many of the boys slept on the bare floor, and had no bedclothes on, but the next day it rained and got quite cold, and last night we were glad of counterpanes and blankets again."

"_The Bishop's Holiday._--The cricket-f.a.gging, the dreadful, horrible cricket-f.a.gging comes upon me to-day. I am Boy in the House on the extra whole holiday, and shall have cricket-f.a.gging in the evening at the end of a hard day's other f.a.gging."

"_Sat.u.r.day._--I must write about the awful storm of last night. I had been very ill all day, and was made to take a powder in marmalade--Ah-h--bah!--and went to sleep about twelve with the window wide open because of the heat. At half-past two I awoke sick, when to my astonishment, it being quite dark, flash after flash of lightning illuminated the room and showed how the rain was pouring in floods through the open window. The wind raged so that we thought it would blow the house down. We heard the boys downstairs screaming out and running about, and Simmy and Hewlett trying to keep order. I never saw such a storm. All of a sudden, a long loud clap of thunder shook the house, and hail like great stones mingled with the rain came crashing in at the skylights.

Another flash of lightning illuminated the room, and continued there (I suppose it must have struck something) in one broad flame of light, bursting out like flames behind the window: I called out 'Fire, fire, the window's on fire.' This woke Buller, who had been sleeping soundly all this time, and he rushed to the window and forced it down with the lightning full in his eyes. Again all was darkness, and then another flash showed what a state the room was in--the books literally washed off the table, and Forster and Dirom armed with foot-pans of water. Then I threw myself on my bed in agonies of sickness: not a drop of water was to be had to drink: at last Buller found a little dirty rain-water, and in an instant I was dreadfully sick.... You cannot think what the heat was, or what agonies of sickness I was in."[44]

"_June 13._--I have cricket-f.a.gged. Maude, my secret helper in everything, came and told me what to do. But one ball came and I missed it, then another, and I heard every one say, 'Now did you see that fool; he let a ball pa.s.s. Look. Won't he get wapped!' I had more than thirty b.a.l.l.s and missed all but one--yet the catapulta was not used. I had not to throw up to any monitors; Platt did not come down for some time, and I had the easiest place on the cricket-field, so it will be much worse next time. Oh, how glad I was when half-past eight came! and when I went to take my jacket up, though I found it wringing wet with dew.

"The next day was Speech-day, but, with my usual misfortune, I was Boy in the House. However I got off after one o'clock. All the boys were obliged to wear straw-coloured or lavender kid-gloves and to be dressed very smart.... When the people came out of Speeches, I looked in vain for Aunt Kitty, but Aunt Kitty never came; so, when we had cheered everybody of consequence, I went back with the others to eat up the remains of Simmy's fine luncheon, and you may guess how we revelled in jellies and fruit.

"The boys in our house now play at cricket in the corridor."

"_June._--I have been cricket-f.a.gging all evening, and it was dreadful; Platt was down, the catapulta was used, and there were very few f.a.gs, so I had very hard f.a.gging.... Platt bellowed at me for my stupidity, and Platt's word is an oracle, and Platt's nod strikes terror into all around."

"_June 16._--I have been for my Exeat to Brook Street.... At breakfast the Archbishop of Dublin came in. He is a very funny old man[45] and says such funny things. He gave us proverbs, and everybody a piece of good advice."

"_July._--I have found a beautiful old house called Essingham standing in a moat full of clear water. It is said to have been inhabited once by Cardinal Wolsey.

"Last night I cricket-f.a.gged, very hard work, and I made Platt very angry; but when I told him my name, he quite changed, and said I must practise and learn to throw up better, and when the other monitors said I ought to be wapped, Platt (!!) said, 'I will take compa.s.sion upon him, because when I first came to Harrow I could do no better.'"

If it had not been for constant sickness, the summer holidays of 1847 would have been very happy ones. I found my dear old Grandmother Mrs.

Oswald Leycester at Lime, which prevented our going to the Rectory, and it was the greatest happiness to read to her, to lead her about, and in every way to show my grat.i.tude for past kindnesses at Stoke. When she left us, we went for the rest of the holidays to the Palace at Norwich, which was always enchanting to me--from the grand old library with its secret room behind the bookcase, to the little room down a staircase of its own, where the old nurse Mrs. Burgess lived--one of the thinnest and dearest old women ever seen--surrounded by relics of her former charges.

Aunt Kitty was pleased with my improvement in drawing, and she and Kate Stanley encouraged me very much in the endless sketches I made of the old buildings in Norwich. "Honour the beginner, even if the follower does better," is a good old Arabic proverb which they thoroughly understood and practised. We spent the day with the Gurneys at Earlham, where I saw the heavenly-minded Mrs. Catherine Gurney ("Aunt Catherine") and also Mrs. Fry, in her long dark dress and close white cap, and we went to visit the Palgraves at Yarmouth in a wonderful old house which once belonged to Ireton the regicide. But a greater delight was a visit of several days which we paid to the Barings at Cromer Hall, driving the whole way with the Stanleys through Blickling and Aylsham, a journey which Arthur Stanley made most charming by the books which he read to us about the places we pa.s.sed through. We lingered on the way with Miss Anna Gurney, a little old lady, who was paralysed at a very early age, yet had devoted her whole life to the good of those around her, and who, while never free from suffering herself, seemed utterly unconscious of her own trials in thinking of those of others. She lived in a beautiful little cottage at Northrepps, full of fossils and other treasures, close to the sea-coast.

Lord and Lady Shrewsbury[46] (the father and mother of the Princesses Doria and Borghese) came to meet my mother at Cromer Hall, perfectly full of the miraculous powers of "L'Estatica" and "L'Addolorata," which they had witnessed in Italy, and of which they gave most extraordinary accounts.

The kindness of "Uncle Norwich" caused me to love him as much as I dreaded Uncle Julius. In his dealings with his diocese I have heard that he was apt as a bishop to be tremendously impetuous; but my aunt knew how to calm him, and managed him admirably. He wonderfully wakened up clerical life in Norfolk. Well remembered is the sharpness with which he said to Dean Pellew, who objected to a cross being erected on the outside of the cathedral, "Never be ashamed of the cross, Mr. Dean, never be ashamed of the cross." It was his custom to pay surprise visits to all Norwich churches on Sunday afternoons. On one of these occasions, an old clergyman--fellow of his college for forty years--who had lately taken a small living in the town, was the preacher. High and dry was the discourse. Going into the vestry afterwards, "A very old-fashioned sermon, Mr. H.," said the Bishop. "A very good-fashioned sermon _I_ think, my lord," answered the vicar.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Edward Stanley

Bishop of Norwich.]

In those days a very primitive state of things prevailed in the Norwich churches. A clergyman, newly ordained, provided for by a t.i.tle at St.

George's, Colegate, was exercised by finding the large well-thumbed folio Prayer-book in the church marked with certain hieroglyphics.

Amongst these O and OP frequently recurred. On the curate making inquiry of the clerk if there were any instructions he ought to follow during the service, he was informed that his active predecessor had established a choir and had reopened an organ closed from time immemorial. He had done this without any reference to the inc.u.mbent, who was so deaf that he could hear neither organ nor choir. Thus it happened that when they came to the "Venite," the inc.u.mbent read, as usual, the first verse.

From long usage and habit he knew, to a second, the moment when the clerk would cease reading verse two, and then commenced reading the third verse, the clerk below him making frantic signs with his hand, which were quite incomprehensible: and it was not until the reading of the fifth verse that he understood he had better be silent altogether, and leave the field to the organ and choir, of whose performances he had not heard one single sound. He was determined not to be taken aback again, so, consulting with the clerk, he elicited when the performances of the organ would take place, and marked these for his guidance with a large O or OP--_organ plays_.

When the curate of whom I have spoken was first ordained, the inc.u.mbent gave him instructions as to what he was to do. Afterwards he found him visiting and over-zealous for the age, and said, "Now don't do too much in the parish, and _never_ give anything away." The curate expressed surprise, when he added, "If you _want_ to give, always come to me"--a suggestion the curate never failed to carry out. The rector had a very poor opinion of clergymen who wrote fresh sermons every week. "I've only got two sermons for every Sunday in the year, and I preach them all every year. I don't see why I should trouble myself to write any more, for when I preach them, I find I don't recollect them myself, so it's quite impossible the congregation should." As reminiscences of a type of clergyman very common at this time, but nearly extinct now, these notes seem worth recording.

Most of the Norfolk clergy were then old-fashioned conservatives of the first water. One day at a clerical dinner-party at the Palace, the Bishop, probably with the view of improving the taste of his guests, said, "When I first came into this diocese, I found the clergy would drink nothing but port. I used every means I could think of to alter a taste I could not myself enter into. All failed. At last I hit upon something which I thought was sure to be successful. I told my wine-merchant to send me the best of all other wines and the nastiest of port. But the clergy still insisted upon drinking the nasty port. So, when I felt my plan had failed, I wrote to my wine-merchant again, and told him to let them have it good."

The Bishop used to be greatly amused by an epitaph in Bergh Apton Church, which said that the man commemorated was "very free of his port," meaning that he was very hospitable (from _portcullis_), but the common people always thought it meant that he drank a great deal of port.

My dear old uncle was a capital bishop, and his clergy gradually learnt to think him so. But it was a sailor he had wished to be. He had been better fitted for that profession originally. Indeed, when he was a very little child he had such a pa.s.sion for the sea, that once when he was missed from his cot, he was found asleep on the high shelf of a wardrobe, having climbed up there because he thought it was like a berth. Through life he was one of those men who never want presence of mind, and this often stood him in good stead. One Advent Sunday it was the Bishop's turn to preach in the cathedral, where the soldiers in the barracks usually attend the service: but it was terrible weather, and, with due regard to their pipe-clay, they were all absent that morning.

The Bishop had prepared his sermon especially for the soldiers he expected to hear it, and he had no other. But he was quite equal to the occasion, for, after he had given out the text, he began--"Now _this_ is the sermon I should have preached if the soldiers had been here," and went on, without concerning himself further about their absence.

On another occasion he fell fast asleep in the cathedral during the sermon. At the end, when the choir broke out into the "Amen," he suddenly awoke. In that moment he could not collect himself to remember the words of the blessing, but, "Peace be with you" he exclaimed very solemnly, and it did quite well.

"Uncle Norwich," with his snow-white hair and black eyebrows, and his eager impetuous manner, was a somewhat startling figure to come upon suddenly. There was a private door in the wall in a remote corner of the palace-garden. A rather nervous clergyman who lived close by had pa.s.sed it for years, and had never seen it open. His curiosity was greatly excited about it. One day when he was pa.s.sing, he could not resist the impulse, and looking up and down the road, and seeing neither the Bishop nor any of the Stanley family about, though very shy, he stooped down to peep in at the keyhole. At that moment the Bishop's key entered the lock on the other side, the door flew open, and he found himself confronted by the Bishop in person!

It was soon after we left Norwich that Jenny Lind, then at the height of her fame, went to stay at the Palace, and great was the family enthusiasm about her. My aunt conceived an affection for her which was almost maternal. Arthur Stanley admired her exceedingly, in spite of his hatred of music, but amused her when he said, "I think you would be _most_ delightful if you had no voice."

At the end of August I returned to Harrow.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Harrow, Sept. 10._--Alas! our form is under Mr. Oxenham. He has the power of flogging, and does flog very often for the least fault, for he really enjoys it. He is such an old man, very old, very sharp, very indolent, very preachy. Sometimes he falls asleep when we are in form, and the boys stick curl-papers through his hair, and he never finds it out. He always calls his boys 'stupid little fools,' without meaning anything particular by it. This morning he said to me, 'Stuff and nonsense, stupid little fool; don't make yourself a stupider little fool than you are.' He is always called 'Billy.'"

"_Sept._--I have been racket-f.a.gging all afternoon. It is such dismal work. You have to stand in one corner of the square court and throw all the b.a.l.l.s that come that way to the 'feeders,' who throw them to the players when they are wanted. The great amus.e.m.e.nt of P., one of those I f.a.g for, is to hit the racket-b.a.l.l.s with all his might at the f.a.gs, and he tried to cut me off a great many times, but missed. At last P. said, 'I'll go and get another f.a.g instead of that young beast Hare,' and he went, but he never came back, or the f.a.g either.

"One day our room bought a pipkin, saucepan, and frying-pan to cook things in, but Mrs. Collins (the matron) took away the frying-pan, and the others were bagged. But we got another pipkin, and one night as we were cooking some potatoes, in little slices as we have them at home, they made such a smell that Mrs. Collins came up, and told Simmy, and he was very angry, and would not let us have fires for a week, and _said_ we should all have extra pupil-room; but fortunately he forgot about that."

A. P. STANLEY _to_ A. J. C. H.

"_University College, Oxford, Oct. 16._--The Goblin presents his compliments to the Ghost, and will give him a leaf of a bay-tree from Delphi, a piece of marble from Athens, and a bit of tin from the Ca.s.siterides, on condition that the Ghost can tell him where those places are, and where the Goblin shall send these treasures."

A. J. C. H. _to_ A. P. STANLEY.

"Delphi is the capital of Phocis and the seat of the oracle in Greece. Athens is capital of Attica in Greece, and the Ca.s.siterides are islands in the Western Ocean. The Ghost presents his compliments to the Goblin, thanks him very much, tells him where the places are, and begs him to send the things from those places to the usual haunt of the Ghost. The Ghost has communicated the Goblin's stories of the beautiful Hesketh and Mrs. Fox to the boys at night. The Ghost flitted up Harrow church-steeple yesterday, and was locked up inside. Farewell, Goblin, from your most grateful cousin--the Ghost."

This letter reminds me how I used to tell stories to the boys in our room after we had gone to bed: it was by them that I was first asked to "tell stories."

The winter of 1847-48 was one of those which were rendered quite miserable to me by the way in which I was driven to the Rectory, where Aunt Esther made me more wretched than ever, and by being scarcely ever permitted to remain in my own dear home. I fear that in later days I should have acted a part, and pretended to _like_ going to the Rectory, when it would instantly have been considered unnecessary, the one thought in the mind of all the family being that it was a duty to force me to do what I disliked; but at that time I was too ingenuous to indulge in even the most innocent kinds of deception. My own brothers, Francis and William, who were now at Eton, came to the Rectory for part of their holidays, but their upbringing and their characters had so little in common with my own, that we were never very intimate, though I rather liked them than otherwise. They hated the Rectory, and got away from it whenever they could.

Of all the miserable days in the year, Christmas was the worst. I regarded it with loathing unutterable. The presents of the quintessence of rubbish which I had to receive from my aunts with outward grace and grat.i.tude. The finding all my usual avocations and interests cleared away. The having to sit for hours and hours pretending to be deeply interested in the six huge volumes of Foxe's "Book of Martyrs," one of which was always doled out for my mental sustenance. The being compelled--usually with agonising chilblains--to walk twice to church, eight miles through the snow or piercing marsh winds, and sit for hours in mute anguish of congelation, with one of Uncle Julius's interminable sermons in the afternoon, about which at that time I heartily agreed with a poor woman, Philadelphia Isted, who declared that they were "the biggest of nonsense." Then, far the worst of all, the Rectory and its sneerings and snubbings in the evening.

My mother took little or no notice of all this--her thoughts, her heart, were far away. To her Christmas was simply "the festival of the birth of Christ." Her whole spiritual being was absorbed in it: earth did not signify: she did not and could not understand why it was not always the same with her little boy.

I was not allowed to have any holidays this year, and was obliged to do lessons all morning with Mr. Venables, the curate.[47] At this I wonder now, as every day my health was growing worse. I was constantly sick, and grew so thin that I was almost a skeleton, which I really believe now to have been entirely caused by the way in which the miseries of my home life preyed upon my excessively sensitive nervous disposition.

And, instead of my mind being braced, I was continually talked to about death and h.e.l.l, and urged to meditate upon them. Towards the close of the holidays I was so ill that at last my mother was alarmed, and took me to a Mr. Bigg, who declared that I had distinct curvature of the spine, and put my poor little back into a terrible iron frame, into which my shoulders were fastened as into a vice. Of course, _with_ this, I ought never to have been sent back to Harrow, but this was not understood. Then, as hundreds of times afterwards, when I saw that my mother was really unhappy about me, I bore any amount of suffering without a word rather than add to her distress, and I see now that my letters are full of allusions to the ease with which I was bearing "my armour" at school, while my own recollection is one of intolerable anguish, stooping being almost impossible.

That I got on tolerably well at Harrow, even with my "armour" on, is a proof that I never was ill-treated there. I have often, however, with Lord Eustace Cecil (who was at Harrow with me), recalled since how terrible the bullying was in our time--of the constant cruelty at "Harris's," where the little boys were always made to come down and box in the evening for the delectation of the fifth form:--of how little boys were constantly sent in the evening to Famish's--half-way to the cricket-ground, to bring back porter under their greatcoats, certain to be flogged by the head-master if they were caught, and to be "wapped" by the sixth form boys if they did not go, and infinitely preferring the former:--of how, if the boys did not "keep up" at football, they were made to cut large thorn sticks out of the hedges, and flogged with them till the blood poured down outside their jerseys. Indeed, what with f.a.gging and bullying, servility was as much inculcated at Harrow in those days as if it was likely to be a desirable acquirement in after life.

I may truly say that I never learnt anything useful at Harrow, and had little chance of learning anything. Hours and hours were wasted daily on useless Latin verses with sickening monotony. A boy's school education at this time, except in the highest forms, was hopelessly inane.

In some ways, however, this "quarter" at Harrow was much pleasanter than the preceding ones. I had a more established place in the school, and was on more friendly terms with all the boys in my own house; also, with my "armour," the hated racket-f.a.gging was an impossibility. I had many scrambles about the country with Buller[48] in search of eggs and flowers, which we painted afterwards most carefully and perseveringly; and, a.s.sisted by Buller, I got up a sort of private theatricals on a very primitive scale, turning Grimm's fairy stories into little plays, which were exceedingly popular with the house, but strictly forbidden by the tutor, Mr. Simpkinson or "Simmy." Thus I was constantly in hot water about them. One day when we had got up a magnificent scene, in which I, as "Snowdrop," lay locked in a magic sleep in an imaginary cave, watched by dwarfs and fairies, Simmy came in and stood quietly amongst the spectators, and I was suddenly awakened from my trance by the _sauve qui peut_ which followed the discovery. Great punishments were the result.

Yet, not long after, we could not resist a play on a grander scale--something about the "Fairy Tilburina" out of the "Man in the Moon," for which we learnt our parts and had regular dresses made. It was to take place in the fifth form room on the ground-floor between the two divisions of the house, and just as Tilburina (Buller) was descending one staircase in full bridal attire, followed by her bridesmaids, of whom I was one, Simmy himself suddenly appeared on the opposite staircase and caught us.