Volume I Part 27 (1/2)
LETTER XIV.
ROSE COTTAGE, WALWORTH, LONDON, May 2.
MY DEAR:--
This morning Mrs. Follen called, and we had quite a long chat together.
We are separated by the whole city. She lives at West End, while I am down here in Walworth, which is one of the postscripts of London; for London has as many postscripts as a lady's letter--little suburban villages which have been overtaken by the growth, of the city, and embraced in its arms. I like them a great deal better than the city, for my part.
Here now, for instance, at Walworth, I can look out at a window and see a nice green meadow with sheep and lambs feeding in it, which is some relief in this s.m.u.tty old place. London is as s.m.u.tty as Pittsburg or Wheeling. It takes a good hour's steady riding to get from here to West End; so that my American friends, of the newspapers, who are afraid I shall be corrupted by aristocratic a.s.sociations, will see that I am at safe distance.
This evening we are appointed to dine with the Earl of Carlisle. There is to be no company but his own family circle, for he, with great consideration, said in his note that he thought a little quiet would be the best thing he could offer. Lord Carlisle is a great friend to America; and so is his sister, the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland. He is the only English traveller who ever wrote notes on our country in a real spirit of appreciation. While the Halls, and Trollopes, and all the rest could see nothing but our breaking eggs on the wrong end, or such matters, he discerned and interpreted those points wherein lies the real strength of our growing country. His notes on America were not very extended, being only sketches delivered as a lyceum lecture some years after his return.
It was the spirit and quality, rather than quant.i.ty, of the thing that was noticeable.
I observe that American newspapers are sneering about his preface to Uncle Tom's Cabin; but they ought at least to remember that his sentiments with regard to slavery are no sudden freak. In the first place, he comes of a family that has always been on the side of liberal and progressive principles. He himself has been a leader of reforms on the popular side. It was a temporary defeat, when run as an anti-corn-law candidate, which gave him leisure to travel in America.
Afterwards he had the satisfaction to be triumphantly returned for that district, and to see the measure he had advocated fully successful.
While Lord Carlisle was in America he never disguised those antislavery sentiments which formed a part of his political and religious creed as an Englishman, and as the heir of a house always true to progress. Many cultivated English people have shrunk from acknowledging abolitionists in Boston, where the ostracism of fas.h.i.+on and wealth has been enforced against them. Lord Carlisle, though moving in the highest circle, honestly and openly expressed his respect for them on all occasions. He attended the Boston antislavery fair, which at that time was quite a decided step. Nor did he even in any part of our country disguise his convictions. There is, therefore, propriety and consistency in the course he has taken now. It would seem that a warm interest in questions of a public nature has always distinguished the ladies of this family. The d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland's mother is daughter of the celebrated d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re, who, in her day, employed on the liberal side in politics all the power of genius, wit, beauty, and rank. It was to the electioneering talents of herself and her sister, the Lady Duncannon, that Fox, at one crisis, owed his election. We Americans should remember that it was this party who advocated our cause during our revolutionary struggle. Fox and his a.s.sociates pleaded for us with much the same arguments, and with the same earnestness and warmth, that American abolitionists now plead for the slaves. They stood against all the power of the king and cabinet, as the abolitionists in America in 1850 stood against president and cabinet.
The d.u.c.h.ess of Devons.h.i.+re was a woman of real n.o.ble impulses and generous emotions, and had a true sympathy for what is free and heroic.
Coleridge has some fine lines addressed to her,--called forth by a sonnet which she composed, while in Switzerland, on William Tell's Chapel,--which begin,--
”O lady, nursed in pomp and pleasure, Where learn'dst thou that heroic measure?”
The d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland, in our times, has been known to be no less warmly interested on the liberal side. So great was her influence held to be, that upon a certain occasion when a tory cabinet was to be formed, a distinguished minister is reported to have said to the queen that he could not hope to succeed in his administration while such a decided influence as that of the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland stood at the head of her majesty's household. The queen's spirited refusal to surrender her favorite attendant attracted, at the time, universal admiration.
Like her brother Lord Carlisle, the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland has always professed those sentiments with regard to slavery which are the glory of the English nation, and which are held with more particular zeal by those families who are favorable to the progress of liberal ideas.
At about seven o'clock we took our carriage to go to the Earl of Carlisle's, the dinner hour being here somewhere between eight and nine.
As we rode on through the usual steady drizzling rain, from street to street and square to square, crossing Waterloo Bridge, with its avenue of lamps faintly visible in the seethy mist, plunging through the heart of the city, we began to realize something of the immense extent of London.
Altogether the most striking objects that you pa.s.s, as you ride in the evening thus, are the gin shops, flaming and flaring from the most conspicuous positions, with plate-gla.s.s windows and dazzling lights, thronged with men, and women, and children, drinking destruction.
Mothers go there with babies in their arms, and take what turns the mother's milk to poison. Husbands go there, and spend the money that their children want for bread, and mult.i.tudes of boys and girls of the age of my own. In Paris and other European cities, at least the great fisher of souls baits with something attractive, but in these gin shops men bite at the bare, barbed hook. There are no garlands, no dancing, no music, no theatricals, no pretence of social exhilaration, nothing but hogsheads of spirits, and people going in to drink. The number of them that I pa.s.sed seemed to me absolutely appalling.
After long driving we found ourselves coming into the precincts of the West End, and began to feel an indefinite sense that we were approaching something very grand, though I cannot say that we saw much but heavy, smoky-walled buildings, washed by the rain. At length we stopped in Grosvenor Place, and alighted.
We were shown into an anteroom adjoining the entrance hall, and from that into an adjacent apartment, where we met Lord Carlisle. The room had a pleasant, social air, warmed and enlivened by the blaze of a coal fire and wax candles.
We had never, any of us, met Lord Carlisle before; but the considerateness and cordiality of our reception obviated whatever embarra.s.sment there might have been in this circ.u.mstance. In a few moments after we were all seated the servant announced the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland, and Lord Carlisle presented me. She is tall and stately, with a decided fulness of outline, and a most n.o.ble bearing. Her fair complexion, blond hair, and full lips speak of Saxon blood. In her early youth she might have been a Rowena. I thought of the lines of Wordsworth:--
”A perfect woman, n.o.bly planned, To warn, to comfort, to command.”
Her manners have a peculiar warmth and cordiality. One sees people now and then who seem to _radiate_ kindness and vitality, and to have a faculty of inspiring perfect confidence in a moment. There are no airs of grandeur, no patronizing ways; but a genuine sincerity and kindliness that seem to come from a deep fountain within.
The engraving by Winterhalter, which has been somewhat familiar in America, is as just a representation of her air and bearing as could be given.
After this we were presented to the various members of the Howard family, which is a very numerous one. Among them were Lady Dover, Lady Lascelles, and Lady Labouchere, sisters of the d.u.c.h.ess. The Earl of Burlington, who is the heir of the Duke of Devons.h.i.+re, was also present.