Part 32 (1/2)
_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, brus.h.i.+ng and was.h.i.+ng 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 fas.h.i.+ons 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 fas.h.i.+ons, 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 Fas.h.i.+on 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.