Story of My Life Part 2

"Ce sont l? les s?jours, les sites, les rivages, Dont mon ?me attendrie ?voque les images, Et dont, pendant les nuits, mes songes les plus beaux Pour enchanter mes yeux composent leurs tableaux."--LAMARTINE.

Maria Leycester had been married to my uncle Augustus Hare in June 1829.

In their every thought and feeling they were united, and all early a.s.sociations had combined to fit them more entirely for each other's companionship. A descendant of one of the oldest families in Cheshire, Miss Leycester's childhood and youth had been spent almost entirely in country rectories, but in such rectories as are rarely to be found, and which prove that the utmost intellectual refinement and an interest in all that is remarkable and beautiful in this world are not incompatible with the highest aspirations after a Christian and a heavenly life. Her father, Oswald Leycester, Rector of Stoke-upon-Terne in Shropshire, was a finished scholar, had travelled much, and was the most agreeable of companions. Her only sister, seven years older than herself, was married when very young to Edward Stanley, Rector of Alderley, and afterwards Bishop of Norwich, well known for the picturesqueness of his imaginative powers, for his researches in Natural History, and for that sympathy with all things bright and pleasant which preserved in him the spirit of youth quite to the close of life. Her most intimate friend, and the voluntary preceptor of her girlhood, had been the gifted Reginald Heber, who, before his acceptance of the Bishopric of Calcutta, had lived as Rector of Hodnet--the poet-rector--within two miles of her home.

One of the happy circle which constantly met at Hodnet Rectory, she had known Augustus Hare (first-cousin of Mrs. Heber, who was a daughter of Dean Shipley) since she was eighteen. Later interests and their common sorrow in Heber's death had thrown them closely together, and it would scarcely have been possible for two persons to have proved each other's characters more thoroughly than they had done, before the time of their marriage, which was not till Maria Leycester was in her thirty-first year.

Four years of perfect happiness were permitted them--years spent almost entirely in the quiet of their little rectory in the singularly small parish of Alton Barnes amid the Wiltshire downs, where the inhabitants, less than two hundred in number, living close at each other's doors, around two or three small pastures, grew to regard Augustus Hare and his wife with the affection of children for their parents. So close was the tie which united them, that, when the rich family living of Hurstmonceaux fell vacant on the death of our great-uncle Robert, Augustus Hare could not bear to leave his little Alton, and implored my father to persuade his brother Julius to give up his fellowship at Trinity and to take it instead.

"Having lived but little in the country, and his attention having been engrossed by other subjects, Augustus Hare was, from education and habits of life, unacquainted with the character and wants of the poor. The poverty of their minds, their inability to follow a train of reasoning, their prejudices and superst.i.tions, were quite unknown to him. All the usual hindrances to dealing with them, that are commonly ascribed to a college life, were his in full force.

But his want of experience and knowledge touching the minds and habits of the poor were overcome by the love he felt towards all his fellow-creatures, and his sympathy in all their concerns. In earlier days this Christ-like mind had manifested itself towards his friends, towards servants, towards all with whom he was brought in contact. It now taught him to talk to his poor parishioners and enter into their interests with the feeling of a father and a friend.... He had the power of throwing himself out of himself into the interests and feelings of others; nor did he less draw out their sympathies into his own, and make them sharers in his pleasures and his concerns. It was not only the condescension of a superior to those over whom he was placed, it was far more the mutual interchange of feeling of one who loved to forget the difference of station to which each was called, and to bring forward the brotherly union as members of one family in Christ, children of the same Heavenly Father, in which blessed equality all distinctions are done away. Often would he ask their counsel in matters of which he was ignorant, and call upon their sympathy in his thankful rejoicing. His garden, his hayfield, his house, were as it were thrown open to them, as he made them partakers of his enjoyment, or sought for their a.s.sistance in his need.... The one pattern ever before his eyes was his Lord and Master Jesus Christ; the first question he asked himself, 'What would Jesus Christ have me to do? What would He have done in my place?'

"Perfect contentedness with what was appointed for him, and deep thankfulness for all the good things given him, marked his whole being. In deciding what should be done, or where he should go, or how he should act, the question of how far it might suit his own convenience, or be agreeable to his own feelings, was kept entirely in the background till all other claims were satisfied. It was not apparently at the dictate of duty and reason that these thoughts were suppressed and made secondary: it seemed to be the first, the natural feeling in him, to seek first the things of others and to do the will of G.o.d, and to look at his own interest in the matter as having comparatively nothing to do with it. And so great a dread had he of being led to any selfish or interested views, that he would find consolation in having no family to include in the consideration--'Had I had children I might have fancied it an excuse for worldly-mindedness and covetousness.' His children truly were his fellow-men, those who were partakers of the same flesh and blood, redeemed by the same Saviour, heirs of the same heavenly inheritance. For them he was willing to spend and be spent, for them he was _covetous_ of all the good that might be obtained....

He was never weary in well-doing, never thought he had done enough, never feared doing too much. Those small things, which by so many are esteemed as unnecessary, as _not worth while_, these were the very things he took care not to leave undone. It was not rendering a service when it came _in_ his way, when it occurred in the natural course of things that he should do it; it was going _out_ of the way to help others, taking every degree of trouble and incurring personal inconvenience for the sake of doing good, of giving pleasure even in slight things, that distinguished his benevolent activity from the common form of it. The love that dwelt in him was ready to be poured forth on whomsoever needed it, and being a free-will offering, it looked for no return, and felt no obligation conferred."

I have copied these fragments from the portrait which Augustus Hare's widow drew of his ministerial life,[10] because they afford the best clue to the way in which that life influenced hers, drawing her away from earth and setting her affections in heavenly places. And yet, though in one sense the life of Augustus Hare and his wife at Alton was one of complete seclusion, in another sense there were few who lived more for, or who had more real communion with, the scattered members of their family. Mrs. Stanley and her children, with her brother Mr.

Penrhyn[11] and his wife, were sharers by letter in every trifling incident which affected their sister's life; and with his favourite brother Julius, Augustus Hare never slackened his intellectual intercourse and companionship. But even more than these was Lucy Anne Stanley,[12] the life-long friend of Maria Hare, till, in the summer of 1833, the tie of sisterhood, which had always existed in feeling, became a reality, through her marriage with Marcus Hare, the youngest of the four brothers.

A chill which Augustus Hare caught when he was in Cheshire for his brother's marriage, was the first cause of his fatal illness. It was soon after considered necessary that he should spend the winter abroad with his wife, and it was decided that they should accompany Marcus and Lucy Hare to Rome. At Genoa the illness of Augustus became alarming, but he reached Rome, and there he expired on the 14th of February 1834, full of faith and hope, and comforting those who surrounded him to the last.

My father felt his brother's loss deeply. They had little in common on many points, yet the close tie of brotherhood, which had existed between them from early days at Bologna, was such as no difference of opinion could alter, no time or absence weaken. When Augustus was laid to rest at the foot of the pyramid of Caius Cestius, my father's most earnest wish was to comfort his widowed sister-in-law, and in the hope of arousing an interest which might still give some semblance of an earthly tie to one who seemed then upon the very borderland of heaven, he entreated, when I was born in the following month, that she would become my G.o.dmother, promising that she should be permitted to influence my future in any way she pleased, and wishing that I should be called Augustus after him she had lost.

I was baptized on the 1st of April in the Villa Strozzi, by Mr. Burgess.

The widow of Augustus held me in her arms, and I received the names of "Augustus John Cuthbert," the two last from my G.o.dfathers (the old Sir John Paul and Mr. Cuthbert Ellison), who never did anything for me, the first from my G.o.dmother, to whom I owe everything in the world.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Augustus J. C. Hare.

And his nurse Lucia Cecinelli.]

Soon afterwards, my G.o.dmother returned to England, with her faithful maid Mary Lea, accompanied by the Marcus Hares. She had already decided to fix her future home in the parish of Julius, who, more than any other, was a fellow-mourner with her. As regarded me, nothing more than the tie of a G.o.dmother had to that time been thought of; but in the quiet hours of her long return journey to England, while sadly looking forward to the solitary future before her, it occurred to Augustus Hare's widow as just possible that my parents might be induced to give me up to her altogether, to live with her as her own child. In July she wrote her pet.i.tion, and was almost surprised at the glad acceptance it met with. Mrs. Hare's answer was very brief--"My dear Maria, how very kind of you! Yes, certainly, the baby shall be sent as soon as it is weaned; and, if any one else would like one, would you kindly recollect that we have others."

Yet my adopting mother had stipulated that I was to be altogether hers; that my own relations were henceforward to have no claim over me whatever; that her parents were to be regarded as my grandparents, her brother and sister as my uncle and aunt.

Meantime my father took his family for the hot summer months to one of the lovely villas on the high spurs of volcanic hill, which surround picturesque romantic Siena. They had none of the English society to which they had been accustomed at Lucca Baths and at Castellamare, but the Siennese are celebrated for their hospitality, and my father's talents, famous then throughout Italy, ensured him a cordial welcome amongst the really cultivated circle which met every evening in the old medi?val palaces of the native n.o.bility. Of English, they had the society of Mr. and Mrs. Bulwer, who were introduced by Landor, while constant intercourse with Landor himself was one of the chief pleasures which the family enjoyed during this and many succeeding years. With Francis Hare he laid the plan of many of his writings, and in his judgment and criticism he had the greatest confidence. To this he alludes in his little poem of "Sermonis Propriora:"--

"Little do they who glibly talk of vrese Know what they talk about, and what is worse, Think they are judges if they dare to pa.s.s Sentence on higher heads.

The mule and a.s.s Know who have made them what they are, and heed Far from the neighing of the generous steed.

Gell, Drummond, Hare, and wise and witty Ward Knew at first sight and sound the genuine bard, But the street hackneys, fed on nosebag bran, a.s.sail the poet, and defame the man."

After another winter at Rome, the family went to Lausanne, and thence my father, with my beautiful Albanese nurse, Lucia Cecinelli, took me to meet Mrs. Gayford, the English nurse sent out to fetch me by my adopted mother from Mannheim on the Rhine. There the formal exchange took place which gave me a happy and loving home. I saw my father afterwards, but he seldom noticed me. Many years afterwards I knew Mrs. Hare well and had much to do with her; but I have never at any time spoken to her or of her as a "mother," and I have never in any way regarded her as such.

She gave me up wholly and entirely. She renounced every claim upon me, either of affection or interest. I was sent over to England with a little green carpet-bag containing two little white night-shirts and a red coral necklace--my whole trousseau and patrimony. At the same time it was indicated that if the Marcus Hares should also wish to adopt a child, my parents had another to dispose of: my second brother William had never at any time any share in their affections.

On reaching England I was sent first to my cousin the Dowager Countess of Strathmore, and from her house was taken (in the coach) by Mrs.

Gayford to my mother--my real only mother from henceforth--at Hurstmonceaux Rectory, which at that time was as much a palace of art, from its fine collection of pictures and books, as a country rectory could be.

My adopted mother always used to say that the story of Hannah reminded her of the way in which I was given to her. She believed it was in answer to a prayer of my uncle Augustus in the cathedral at Chalons, when he dropped some money into a box "pour les femmes enceintes,"

because he knew how much she wished to have a child. His eldest brother's wife was then _enceinte_, and I was born soon afterwards.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HURSTMONCEAUX RECTORY.]

_From_ MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.

"On Tuesday, August 26, 1835, my little Augustus came to me. It was about four o'clock when I heard a cry from upstairs and ran up.

There was the dear child seated on Mary's (Mary Lea's) knee, without a frock. He smiled most sweetly and with a peculiar archness of expression as I went up to him, and there was no shyness. When dressed, I brought him down into the drawing-room: he looked with great delight at the pictures, the busts, and especially the bronze wolf--pointed at them, then looked round at Jule and me. When set down, he strutted along the pa.s.sage, went into every room, surveyed all things in it with an air of admiration and importance, and nothing seemed to escape observation. The novelty of all around and the amus.e.m.e.nt he found at first seemed to make him forget our being strangers. The next day he was a little less at home. His features are much formed and an uncommon intelligence of countenance gives him an older look than his age: his dark eyes and eyelashes, well-formed nose and expressive mouth make his face a very pretty one; but he has at present but little hair and that very straight and light. His limbs are small and he is very thin and light, but holds himself very erect. He can run about very readily, and within a week after coming could get upstairs by himself. In talking, he seems to be backward, and except a few words and noises of animals, nothing is intelligible. Number seems to be a great charm to him--a great many apples, and acorns to be put in and out of a basket. He has great delight in flowers, but is good in only smelling at those in the garden, gathers all he can pick up in the fields, and generally has his hands full of sticks or weeds when he is out. He wants to be taught obedience, and if his way is thwarted or he cannot immediately have what he wants, he goes into a violent fit of pa.s.sion. Sometimes it is soon over and he laughs again directly, but if it goes on he will roll and scream on the floor for half-an-hour together. In these cases we leave him without speaking, as everything adds to the irritation, and he must find out it is useless. But if by _prevention_ such a fit may be avoided it is better, and Mary Lea is very ingenious in her preventing."

"_Oct. 3._--Augustus improves in obedience already. His great delight is in throwing his playthings into a jug or tub of water.

Having been told not to do so in my room, he will walk round the tub when full, look at Mary, then at me, and then at the tub with a most comical expression, but if called away before too long will resist the temptation. He is very impatient, but sooner quiet than at first: and a tear in one eye and a smile in the other is usually to be seen. His great delight lately has been picking up mushrooms in the fields and filling his basket."

It was in October that my mother moved from the Rectory to Lime--our own dear home for the next five-and-twenty years. Those who visit Hurstmonceaux now can hardly imagine Lime as it then was, all is so changed. The old white gabled house, with cl.u.s.tered chimneys and roofs rich in colour, rose in a brilliant flower-garden sheltered on every side by trees, and separated in each direction by several fields from the highroad or the lanes. On the side towards the Rectory, a drive between close walls of laurel led to the old-fashioned porch which opened into a small low double hall. The double drawing-room and the dining-room, admirably proportioned, though small, looked across the lawn, and one of the great glistening pools which belonged to an old monastery (once on the site of the house), and which lay at the foot of a very steep bank carpeted with primroses in spring. Beyond the pool was our high field, over which the stumpy spire of the church could be seen, at about a mile and a half distant, cutting the silver line of the sea.

The castle was in a hollow farther still and not visible. On the right of the lawn a gra.s.s walk behind a shrubbery looked out upon the wide expanse of Pevensey Level with its ever-varying lights and shadows, and was sheltered by the immensely tall abele trees, known as "the Five Sisters of Lime," which tossed their weird arms, gleaming silver-white, far into the sky, and were a feature in all distant views of Hurstmonceaux. On the left were the offices, and a sort of enclosed court, where the dogs and cats used to play and some silver pheasants were kept, and where my dear nurse Mary Lea used to receive the endless poor applicants for charity and help, bringing in their many complaints to my mother with inimitable patience, though they were too exclusively self-contained to be ever the least grateful to her, always regarding and speaking of her and John Gidman, the butler, as "furriners, folk from the shires."

[Ill.u.s.tration: LIME.]

No description can give an idea of the complete seclusion of the life at Lime, of the silence which was only broken by the cackling of the poultry or the distant threshing in the barn, for the flail, as well as the sickle and scythe, were then in constant use at Hurstmonceaux, where oxen--for all agricultural purposes--occupied the position which horses hold now. No sound from the "world," in its usually accepted sense, would ever have penetrated, if it had not been for the variety of literary guests who frequented the Rectory, and one or other of whom constantly accompanied my uncle Julius when he came down, as he did every day of his life, to his sister-in-law's quiet six-o'clock dinner, returning at about eight. Of guests in our house itself there were very few, and always the same--the Norwich Stanleys; Miss Clinton, a dear friend of my mother; after a time the Maurices, and Mr. and Mrs.

Pile--an Alton farmer of the better cla.s.s, and his excellent wife: but there was never any variety. Yet in my boyhood I never thought it dull, and loved Lime with pa.s.sionate devotion. Even in earliest childhood my dearest mother treated me completely as her companion, creating interests and amus.e.m.e.nts for me in all the natural things around, and making me so far a sharer in her own spiritual thoughts, that I have always felt a peculiar truthfulness in Wordsworth's line--

"Heaven lies about us in our infancy."

If my mother was occupied, there was always my dear "Lea" at hand, with plenty of farmhouse interests to supply, and endless homely stories of country life.

_From_ MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.

"_Lime, Oct. 23, 1835._--My little Augustus was much astonished by the change of house, and clung to me at first as if afraid of moving away. The first evening he kissed me over and over again, as if to comfort and a.s.sure me of his affection."

"_Nov. 21._--Augustus has grown much more obedient, and is ready to give his food or playthings to others. Some time ago he was much delighted with the sight of the moon, and called out 'moon, moon,'

quite as if he could not help it. Next day he ran to the window to look for it, and has ever since talked of it repeatedly. At Brighton he called the lamps in the streets 'moon,' and the reflection of the candles or fire on the window he does the same.

He is always merriest and most amiable when without playthings: his mind is then free to act for itself and finds its own amus.e.m.e.nt; and in proportion as his playthings are artificial and leave him nothing to do, he quarrels or gets tired of them. He takes great notice of anything of art--the flowers on the china and plates, and all kinds of pictures."

"_Stoke Rectory, Jan. 7, 1836._--During our stay with the Penrhyns at Sheen, Baby was so much amused by the variety of persons and things to attract attention, that he grew very impatient and fretful if contradicted. Since we have been at Stoke he has been much more gentle and obedient, scarcely ever cries and amuses himself on the floor. He is greatly amused by his Grandpapa's playful motions and comical faces, and tries to imitate them. When the school children are singing below, he puts up his forefinger when listening and begins singing with his little voice, which is very sweet. He will sit on the bed and talk in his own way for a long time, telling about what he has seen if he has been out: his little mind seems to be working without any visible thing before it, on what is absent."

"_Alderley, March 13._--My dear boy's birthday, two years old. He has soon become acquainted with his Alderley relations,[13] and learnt to call them by name. He has grown very fond of 'Aunt t.i.tty,' and the instant she goes to her room follows her and asks for the brush to brush the rocking-horse and corn to feed it. His fits of pa.s.sion are as violent, but not so long in duration, as ever. When he was roaring and kicking with all his might and I could scarcely hold him, I said--'It makes Mama very sorry to see Baby so naughty.' He instantly stopped, threw his arms round my neck, and sobbed out--'Baby lub Mama--good.' When I have once had a struggle with him to do a thing, he always recollects, and does it next time."

"_Lime, June 13._--On the journey from Stoke to London, Baby was very much delighted with the primroses in the hedgerows, and his delight in the fields when we got home was excessive. He knows the name of every flower both in garden and field, and never forgets any he has once seen.... When he sees me hold my hand to my head, he says, 'Mama tired--head bad--Baby play self.'"

"_July 9._--Baby can now find his way all over the house, goes up and down stairs alone and about the lawn and garden quite independently, and enjoys the liberty of going in and out of the windows: runs after b.u.t.terflies or to catch his own shadow: picks up flowers or leaves, and is the picture of enjoyment and happiness. Tumbling out of the window yesterday, when the fright was over, he looked up--'Down comes Baby and cradle and all.' He tells the kitten 'not touch this or that,' and me 'not make noise, p.u.s.s.y's head bad.'"

"_Sept. 28._--The sea-bathing at Eastbourne always frightened Baby before he went in. He would cling to Mary and be very nervous till the women had dipped him, and then, in the midst of his sobs from the shock, would sing 'Little Bo Peep,' to their great amus.e.m.e.nt.

He was very happy throwing stones in the water and picking up sh.e.l.ls; but above all he enjoyed himself on Beachy Head, the fresh air and turf seemed to exhilarate him as much as any one, and the picking purple thistles and other down flowers was a great delight.... His pleasure in returning home and seeing the flowers he had left was very great. He talks of them as if they were his playmates, realising Keble's--'In childhood's sports, _companions_ gay.'"