Lady John Russell Part 40

W.E. GLADSTONE

_Lady Russell to Lady Agatha Russell_

DUNROZEL, HASLEMERE, _August_ 30, 1886

... Our Sunday, mine especially, was a peaceful, lovely Sabbath--mine especially because I didn't go to any church built with hands, but held my silent, solitary wors.h.i.+p in G.o.d's own glorious temple, with no walls to limit my view, no lower roof than the blue heavens over my head. The lawn, the green walk, the Sunday bench in the triangle, each and all seemed filled with holiness and prayer--sadness and sorrow. Visions of more than one beautiful past which those spots have known and which never can return, were there too; but the Eternal Love was around to hallow them....

_Lady Russell to Miss Buhler_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _November_ 24, 1886

MY DEAREST DORA,--I am afraid you will say that I have forgotten you and your most loving and welcome birthday letter, but as I know you will not _think_ it, I don't so very much mind. n.o.body at seventy-one and with many still to love and leave on earth, can hail a birthday with much gladness.... The _real_ sadness to me of birthdays, and of all marked days, is in the bitterly disappointing answer I am obliged to make to myself to the question: "Am I nearer to G.o.d than a year ago?" ... I never answered your long-ago letter about your doubts and difficulties and speculations on those subjects which are of deepest import to us all, yet upon which it sometimes seems that we are doomed to work our minds in vain--to seek, and _not_ to find--to exult one moment in the fullness of bright hope and the coming fulfilment of our highest aspirations, and the next to grope in darkness and say, "Was it not a beautiful dream, and only a dream? Is it not too good to be true that we are the children of a loving Father who stretches out His hands to guide us to Himself, who has spoken to us in a thousand ways from the beginning of the world by His wondrous works, by the unity of creation, by the voices of our fellow-creatures, by that voice, most inspired of all, that life and death most beautiful and glorious of all, which 'brought life and immortality to light,' and chiefly by that which we feel to be immortal within us--_love_--the beginning and end of G.o.d's own nature, the supreme capability which He has breathed into our souls?" No, it is _not_ too good to be true. Nothing perishes--not the smallest particle of the most worthless material thing. Is immortality denied to the one thing most worthy of it?

I sent you "The Utopian," because I thought some of the little essays would fall in with all that filled your mind, and perhaps help you to a spirit of hopefulness and confidence which _will_ come to you and abide with you, I am sure. You will soon receive another book written by several Unitarians, of which I have only read very little as yet, but which seems to me full of strength and comfort and holiness.... Good-bye, and G.o.d bless you.

Your ever affectionate,

F. RUSSELL

_Lady Charlotte Portal to Lady Russell_

_January_ 26, 1887

DEAREST f.a.n.n.y,--I wonder if you are quite easy in your conscience, or whatever mechanism takes the place with you of that rococo old article. Do you think you have behaved to me as an elder ought?--to me, a poor young thing, looking for and sadly requiring the guidance of my white-headed sister? Our last communications were at Christmas-time--a month ago. Are you all well? Are you all entirely at the feet of the dear baby boy? [106] Or have your republican principles begun to rebel against his autocratic sway? ... I have been amusing myself with an obscure author named William Shakespeare, and enjoying him _immensely_. Amusing myself is not the right expression, for I have been in the tragedies only. I had not read "Oth.e.l.lo" for ages. How wonderful, great, and beautiful and painful it is (oh dear, why is it so coa.r.s.e?). Then I also read "Lear" and "Henry VIII," and being delightfully ignorant I had the great interest of reading the same period (Henry VIII) in Holinshed, and in finding Katharine's and Wolsey's speeches there!

Then I have tried a little Ben Jonson and Lord Chesterfield's letters. What a worldling, and what a destroyer of a young mind that man was. Can you tell me how the son turned out? I cannot find any information about him. The language is delightful, and I wish I could remember any of his expressions.... Now give me a volume of Pembroke Lodge news in return for this. Public matters, the fear of war, the arming of all nations, make me sick at heart. How wonderful and admirable the conduct of that poor friendless little Bulgaria has been. Then Ireland, oh me! but on that topic I won't write to the Home Ruler!

Your affectionate sister,

C.M.P.

[106] Arthur, son of Mr. Rollo Russell.

_Lady Russell to Lady Charlotte Portal_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _January_ 27, 1887

DEAREST LOTTY,--It was but yesterday that there rose dimly to my memory the vision of a lady with the initials--C.M.P., and who knows how long I might have remained in the dark as to who and what she might be but for this letter, in which she claims me as a sister! and moreover an elder and a wiser sister! one therefore whose doings and not-doings, writing and not-writing, must not be questioned by the younger....

We have imagined ourselves living in a state of isolation from our fellow-creatures, but yours far exceeds ours and makes it almost into a life of gaiety. I'm most extremely sorry to hear of it, though most extremely glad to hear that your minds to you a kingdom are. What good and wholesome and delightful food _your_ mind has been living on. Isn't that Shakespeare too much of a marvel to have really been a man? "Oth.e.l.lo" is indeed all you say of it, and more than anybody can say of it, and so are _all_ the great plays. I am reading the historical ones with Bertie.... Alas, indeed, for the coa.r.s.eness! I never can understand the objections to Bowdlerism. It seems to me so right and natural to prune away what can do n.o.body good--what it pains eyes to look upon and ears to hear--and to leave all the glories and beauties untouched....

The little Autocrat is beginning to master some of the maxims of Const.i.tutional Monarchy--for instance, to find out that we do not always leave the room the moment he waves his hand by way of dismissal and utters the command of "Tata." I waste too much time upon him, in spite of daily resolutions to neglect him.... I don't at all know whether Lord Chesterfield succeeded in making his son like his own clever, worldly, contemptible self, but will try to find out. _Have_ you read "Dean Maitland"? [107] Now, f.a.n.n.y, do stop, you know you have many other letters to write....

Ever thine,

F.R.

[107] "The Silence of Dean Maitland," by Maxwell Grey.

_Lady Russell to Lady Georgiana Peel_

DUNROZEL, HASLEMERE, SURREY, _September_ 9 [1887]

... Your account of the Queen and her visit interested us much....

I often wish she could ever know all my grat.i.tude to her and the nation for the unspeakable blessing and happiness Pembroke Lodge has been, and is; joys and sorrows, hopes fulfilled, and hopes faded and crushed, chances and changes, and memories unnumbered, are sacredly bound up with that dear home. Will it ever be loved by others as we have loved it? It seems impossible....

_Lady Russell to Lady Charlotte Portal_

DUNROZEL, HASLEMERE, _September_ 12, 1887

DEAREST LOTTY,--I don't think I am writing because your clock is on the stroke of Sixty-three, for these clocks of ours become obtrusive, and the less they are listened to the better for our spirits. I wonder whether it's wrong and unnatural not to rejoice in their rapid movements as regards myself. I often think so. There is so much, or rather there are so many, oh, so many! to go to when it has struck for the last time, and the longing and the yearning to be with them is so unspeakable--and yet, dear Lotty, I cling to those here, not less and less, but more and more, as the time for leaving them draws nearer. G.o.d grant you many and many another birthday of happiness, as I trust this one is to you and your home.... Your letter was an echo of much that we had been saying to one another, as we read our novel--not only does n.o.body, man or even woman, see every change and know its meaning in the human countenance, and interpret rightly the slight flush, the hidden tremor, the shade of pallor, the faint tinge, etc.; but we don't think there _are_ perceptible changes to such an extent except in novels.... I think a great evil of novels for girls, mingled with great good, is the false expectation they raise that _somebody_ will know and understand their every thought, look, emotion.... How glad I am that you have a rival baby to wors.h.i.+p--ours is beyond all praise--oh, so comical and so lovely in all his little ways and words....

Your most affectionate sister,

F.R.

_Lady Russell to Lady Georgiana Peel_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _November_ 28, 1887

... We have been having such a delightful visit from Lotty ... we _did_ talk; and yet it seems as if all the talk had only made me wish for a great deal more. Books and babies and dress and almsgiving and amus.e.m.e.nts and the nineteenth century, its merits and its faults, high things and low things, and big things and trifles, and sense and nonsense, and everything except Home Rule, on which we don't agree and couldn't spare time to fight. We did thoroughly agree, however, as I think people of all parties must have done, in admiration of a lecture, or rather speech, made at our school by a very good and clever Mr. Wicksteed, a Nonconformist (I believe Unitarian) minister on Politics and Morals. The principle on which he founded it was that politics are a branch of morals; accordingly he placed them on as high a level as any other duty of life, and spoke with withering indignation of the too common practice, and even theory, that a little insincerity, a little trickery, is allowable in politics, whereas it would not be in other matters. [108] We were all delighted.

[108] Lady Russell often quoted a saying attributed to Fox, "Nothing which is morally wrong can ever be politically right."

_Lady Russell to Lady Charlotte Portal_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _March_ 7, 1888

"Adam Bede" was as interesting a sofa companion as you could have found; a very lovely book--wit and pathos almost equally good, pathos quite the best though, to my mind. We are reading aloud another charming book of Lowell's, "Democracy," and other essays in the same volume; and I flutter about from book to book by myself, and have still two books of "Paradise Lost" to read, and am wondering what is going to happen to Adam and Eve. I was very miserable when I found she ate the forbidden fruit. She had made such fair promises to be good. Alas, alas! why did she break them?

That story of the Fall, though I suppose n.o.body thinks it verbally true, is always to me most full of deep meaning, and seems to be the story of every mortal man and woman born into this wondrous world.

_Lady Russell to Lady Charlotte Portal_

DUNROZEL, HASLEMERE, _October_ 3, 1888

Agatha gone yesterday to Pembroke Lodge--Rollo gone to-day to join her, so my wee bairnie and I are "left by our lone," as you used to say. "Einsam nein, da.s.s bin ich nicht, denn die Geister meiner Lieben, Sie umschweben mich." [109] I think it's good now and then to let the blessed and beautiful memories of the past have their way and float in waking dreams before our eyes, and not be forced down beneath daily duties and occupations and enjoyments, till the pain of keeping them there becomes hard to bear. Yet, "act, act in the living present" is very, very much the rightest thing; though I don't think I quite like the past to be called the _dead_ past, when it is so fearfully full of keenest life.

[109] "Lonely--no, that am I not, for the spirits of my loved ones, they hover around me."

_Lady Russell to Lady Georgiana Peel_