"My grandfather and Mr. Pitt," she said, "did something to keep the Brunswick family on the throne, and yet the granddaughter of the old king, without hearing the circ.u.mstances of my getting into debt, or whether the story is true, sends to deprive me of my pension in a strange land, where I may remain and starve.... I should like to ask for a public inquiry into my debts, and for what I have contracted them. Let them compare the good I have done in the cause of humanity and science with the Duke of Kent"s debts. I wonder if Lord Palmerston is the man I recollect--a young man from college, who was always hanging about waiting to be introduced to Mr. Pitt. Mr. Pitt used to say, "Ah, very well; we will ask him to dinner some day." Perhaps it is an old grudge that makes him vent his spite." Colonel Campbell"s letter had given the poor lady"s heart, or rather her pride, a fatal stab, and the indignity with which she had been treated preyed upon her health and spirits. She now determined to send an ultimatum to the Queen, which was to be published in the newspapers if ministers refused to lay it before her Majesty. This doc.u.ment, which was dated February 12, 1838, ran as follows:--
"Your Majesty will allow me to say that few things are more disgraceful and inimical to royalty than giving commands without examining all their different bearings, and casting, without reason, an aspersion upon the integrity of any branch of a family that had faithfully served their country and the House of Hanover. As no inquiries have been made of me of what circ.u.mstances induced me to incur the debts alluded to, I deem it unnecessary to enter into any details on the subject. I shall not allow the pension given by your royal grandfather to be stopped by force; but I shall resign it for the payment of my debts, and with it the name of British subject, and the slavery that is at present annexed to it; and as your Majesty has given publicity to the business by your orders to your consular agents, I surely cannot be blamed for following your royal example.
"HESTER LUCY STANHOPE."
This was accompanied by a long letter to the Duke of Wellington, in which Lady Hester detailed her services in the East, and expressed her indignation at the treatment she had received. She was now left with only a few pounds upon which to maintain her house-hold until March, when she could draw for 300, apparently the quarter"s income from a legacy left her by her brother, but of this sum 200 was due to a Greek merchant at Beyrout. The faithful doctor collected all the money he had in his house, about eleven pounds, and brought it to her for her current expenses, but with her usual impracticability she gave most of it away in charity. Still no letter came from Sir Francis Burdett, and the unfortunate lady, old, sick, and wasted to a skeleton, lay on her sofa and lamented over her troubles in a fierce, inhuman fashion, like a wounded animal at bay. In the course of time a reply came from Lord Palmerston, in which he stated that he had laid Lady Hester"s letter before the Queen, and explained to her Majesty the circ.u.mstances that might be supposed to have led to her writing it. The communications to which she referred were, he continued, suggested by nothing but a desire to save her from the embarra.s.sments that might arise if her creditors were to call upon the Consul-General to act according to the strict line of his duty. This letter did nothing towards a.s.suaging Lady Hester"s wrath. In her reply she sarcastically observed:--
"If your diplomatic despatches are all as obscure as the one that now lies before me, it is no wonder that England should cease to have that proud preponderance in her foreign relations which she once could boast of.... It is but fair to make your lordship aware that, if by the next packet there is nothing definitely settled respecting my affairs, and I am not cleared in the eyes of the world of aspersions, intentionally or unintentionally thrown upon me, I shall break up my household, and build up the entrance-gate to my premises; there remaining as if I was in a tomb till my character has been done justice to, and a public acknowledgment put in the papers, signed and sealed by those who have aspersed me. There is no trifling with those who have Pitt blood in their veins upon the subject of integrity, nor expecting that their spirit would ever yield to the impertinent interference of consular authority, etc., etc." It must be owned that there is a touch of unconscious humour in Lady Hester"s terrible threat of walling herself up, a proceeding which would only make herself uncomfortable and leave her enemies at peace. For the present matters went on much as usual at Dar Joon. No household expenses were curtailed, and thirty native servants continued to cheat their mistress and idle over their work. In March, that perambulating princeling, his Highness of Puckler-Muskau, arrived at Sayda, whence he wrote a letter to Lady Hester, begging to be allowed to pay his homage to the Queen of Palmyra and the niece of the great Pitt. "I have the presumption to believe, madam," he continued, "that there must be some affinity of character between us. For, like you, my lady, I look for our future salvation from the East, where nations still nearer to G.o.d and to nature can alone, some day, purify the rotten civilisation of decrepid Europe, in which everything is artificial, and where we are menaced with a new kind of barbarism--not that with which states begin, but with which they end. Like you, madam, I believe that astrology is not an empty science, but a lost one. Like you, I am an aristocrat by birth and by principle; because I find a marked aristocracy in nature. In a word, madam, like you, I love to sleep by day and be stirring by night. There I stop; for in mind, energy of character, and in the mode of life, so singular and so dignified, which you lead, not every one who would can resemble Lady Hester Stanhope."
Lady Hester was flattered by this letter, and told the doctor that he must ride into Sayda to see the prince, and tell him that she was too ill to receive him at present, but would endeavour to do so a few weeks later. The prince was established with his numerous suite in the house of a merchant of Sayda. Mehemet Ali had given him a special firman, requiring all official persons to treat him in a manner suitable to his rank, his whole expenditure being defrayed by cheques on the Viceroy"s treasury. The prince, unlike most other distinguished travellers who were treated with the same honour, took the firman strictly according to the letter, and could boast of having traversed the whole of Egypt and Syria with all the pomp of royalty, and without having expended a single farthing. Dr. Meryon describes his Highness as a tall man of about fifty years of age, distinguished by an unmistakable air of birth and breeding. He wore a curious mixture of Eastern and Western costume, and had a tame chameleon crawling about his pipe, with which he was almost as much occupied as M. Lamartine with his lapdog. The prince stated that he had almost made up his mind to settle in the East, since Europe was no longer the land of liberty.
"I will build myself a house," he said, "get what I want from Europe, make arrangements for newspapers, books, etc., and choose some delightful situation; but I think it will be on Mount Lebanon."
In his volume of travels in the East called _Die Ruckkehr_, Prince Puckler-Muksau has given an amusing account of the negotiations that pa.s.sed between himself and Lady Hester on the subject of his visit. For once the niece of Pitt had found her match in vanity and arrogance; and if the prince"s book had appeared in her lifetime, it is certain that she would not long have survived it. His Highness describes how he bided his time, as though he were laying siege to a courted beauty, and almost daily bombarded the Lady of Joon with letters calculated to pique her curiosity by their frank and original style. At last, "in order to be rid of him," as she jokingly said, Lady Hester consented to receive him on a certain day, which, from his star, she deemed propitious to their meeting. Thereupon the prince, who intended that his visit should be desired, not suffered, wrote to say that he was setting out for an expedition into the desert, but that on his return he would come to Joon, not for one day, but for a week. This impertinence was rewarded by permission to come at his own time.
Great preparations were made for the entertainment of this distinguished visitor. The scanty contents of the store and china cupboards were spread out before the lady of the house, who infused activity into the most sluggish by smart strokes from her stick. The epithets of beast, rascal, and the like, were dealt out with such freedom and readiness, as to make the European part of her audience sensible of the richness and variety of the Arabian language. On Easter Monday, April 15, the prince, followed by a part of his suite, and five mule-loads of baggage, rode into the courtyard. He wore an immense Leghorn hat lined with green taffetas, a Turkish scarf over his shoulders, and blue pantaloons of ample dimensions. From the excellent fit of his Parisian boots, it was evident that he felt his pretensions to a thoroughbred foot were now to be magisterially decided. The prince has given his own impression of his hostess, whom he describes as a thorough woman of the world, with manners of Oriental dignity and calm. With her pale, regular features, dark, fiery eyes, great height, and sonorous voice, she had the appearance of an ancient Sibyl; yet no one, he declares, could have been more natural and unaffected in manner. She told him that since she had lost her money, she had lived like a dervish, and a.s.similated herself to the ways of nature. "My roses are my jewels," she said, "the sun and moon my clocks, fruit and water my food and drink. I see in your face that you are a thorough epicure; how will you endure to spend a week with me?" The prince, who had already dined, replied that he found she did not keep her guests on fruit and water, and a.s.sured her that English poverty was equivalent to German riches. He spent six or seven hours _tete-a-tete_ with his hostess each evening of his stay, and declares that he was astonished at the originality and variety of her conversation. He had the audacity to ask her if the Arab chief who accompanied her to Palmyra had been her lover, but she, not ill-pleased, a.s.sured him that there was no truth in the report, which at one time had been generally believed. She said that the Arabs regarded her neither as man or woman, but as a being apart.
Before leaving, the prince introduced his "harem," consisting of two Abyssinian slaves, to Lady Hester, and was presented, in his turn, to the sacred mares, which had lost their beauty, and grown gross and unwieldy under their _regime_ of gentle exercise and unlimited food. Leila licked the prince"s hand when he caressed her, and Leila"s mistress was thereby convinced that her guest was a "chosen vessel."
She confided to him all her woes, the neglect of her relations and the ill-treatment of the Government, and gave him copies of the correspondence about her pension, which he promised to publish in a German newspaper. To Dr. Meryon she waxed quite enthusiastic over his Highness"s personal attractions, the excellent cut of his coat, and the handiness with which he performed small services. "I could observe," writes the doctor, towards the end of the visit, "that she had already begun to obtain an ascendency over the prince, such as she never failed to do over those who came within the sphere of her attraction; for he was less lofty in his manner than he had been at first, and she seemed to have gained in height, and to be more disposed to play the queen than ever."
This, alas, was the last time that Lady Hester had the opportunity of playing the queen, or entertaining a distinguished guest at Dar Joon.
In June, when the packet brought no news of her imaginary property, and no apology from Queen or Premier, she began at last to despair.
"The die is cast," she told Dr. Meryon, "and the sooner you take yourself off the better. I have no money; you can be of no use to me--I shall write no more letters, and shall break up my establishment, wall up my gate, and, with a boy and girl to wait upon me, resign myself to my fate. Tell your family they may make their preparations, and be gone in a month"s time." Early in July Sir Francis Burdett"s long-expected letter arrived, but brought with it no consolation. He could tell nothing of the legacy, but wrote in the soothing, evasive terms that might be supposed suitable to an elderly lady who was not quite accountable for her ideas or actions. As there was now no hope of any improvement in her affairs, Lady Hester decided to execute her threat of walling up her gateway, a proceeding which, she was unable to perceive, injured n.o.body but herself. She directed the doctor to pay and dismiss her servants, with the exception of two maids and two men, and then sent him to Beyrout to inform the French consul of her intention. On his return to Joon he found that Lady Hester had already hired a vessel to take himself and his family from Sayda to Cyprus. He was reluctant to leave her in solitude and wretchedness, but knowing that when once her mind was made up, nothing could shake her resolution, he employed the time that remained to him in writing her letters, setting her house in order, and taking her instructions for commissions in Europe. He also begged to be allowed to lend her as much money as he could spare, and she consented to borrow a sum of 2000 piastres (about 80), which she afterwards repaid.
On July 30, 1838, the masons arrived, and the entrance-gate was walled up with a kind of stone screen, leaving, however, a side-opening just large enough for an a.s.s or cow to enter, so that this much-talked-of act of self-immurement was more an appearance than a reality. On August 6, the faithful doctor took an affectionate leave of the employer, who, as Prince Puckler-Muskau bears witness, was accustomed to treat him with icy coldness, and sailed for western climes. To the last, he tells us, Lady Hester dwelt with apparent confidence on the approaching advent of the Mahedi, and still regarded her mare Leila as destined to bear him into Jerusalem, with herself upon Lulu at his side. It is to be hoped that the poor lady was able to buoy herself up with this belief during the last and most solitary year of her disappointed life. About once a month, up to the date of her death, she corresponded with Dr. Meryon, who was again settled at Nice. Her letters were chiefly taken up with commissions, and with shrewd comments upon the new books that were sent out to her.
"I should like to have Miss Pardoe"s book on Constantinople," she writes in October, 1838, "if it is come out for strangers (_i.e._ in a French translation); for I fear I should never get through with it myself. This just puts me in mind that one of the books I should like to have would be Graham"s _Domestic Medicine_; a good Red Book (_Peerage_, I mean); and the book about the Prince of Wales.
I have found out a person who can occasionally read French to me; so if there was any very pleasing French book, you might send it--but no Bonapartes or "present times"--and a little _brochure_ or two upon baking, pastry, gardening, etc....
"_Feb._ 9, 1839.--The book you sent me (_Diary of the Times of George IV_., by Lady Charlotte Bury) is interesting only to those who were acquainted with the persons named: all mock taste, mock feeling, etc., but that is the fashion. "I am this, I am that"; who ever talked such empty stuff formerly? I was never named by a well-bred person.... Miss Pardoe is very excellent upon many subjects; only there is too much of what the English like--stars, winds, black shades, soft sounds, etc....
"_May_ 6.--Some one--I suppose you--sent me the _Life of Lord Edward Fitzgerald_. It is _I_ who could give a true and most extraordinary history of all those transactions. The book is all stuff. The d.u.c.h.ess (Lord Edward"s mother) was my particular friend, as was also his aunt; I was intimate with all the family, and knew that noted Pamela. All the books I see make me sick--only catchpenny nonsense. A thousand thanks for the promise of my grandfather"s letters; but the book will be all spoilt by being edited by young men.
First, they are totally ignorant of the politics of my grandfather"s age; secondly, of the style of the language used at that period; and absolutely ignorant of his secret reasons and intentions, and the _real_ or apparent footing he was upon with many people, friends or foes. I know all that from my grandmother, who was his secretary, and, Coutts used to say, the cleverest _man_ of her time in politics and business."
This was the last letter that Dr. Meryon received from his old friend and patroness. She slowly wasted away, and died in June 1839, no one being aware of her approaching end except the servants about her. The news of her death reached Beyrout in a few hours, and the English consul, Mr. Moore, and an American missionary (Mr. Thomson, author of _The Land and the Book_) rode over to Joon to bury her. By her own desire she was interred in a grave in her garden, where a son of the Prophet Loustaunau had been buried some years before. Mr. Thomson has described how he performed the last rites at midnight by the light of lanterns and torches, and notes the curious resemblance between Lady Hester"s funeral service and that of the man she loved, Sir John Moore. Together with the consul, he examined the contents of thirty-five rooms, but found nothing but old saddles, pipes, and empty oil-jars, everything of value having been long since plundered by the servants. The sacred mares, now grown old and almost useless, were sold for a small sum by public auction, and only survived for a short time their return to an active life.
In 1845 Dr. Meryon published his so-called _Memoirs of Lady Hester Stanhope_, which are merely an account of her later years, and a report of her table-talk at Dar Joon. In 1846 he brought out her _Travels_, which were advertised as the supplement and completion of the _Memoirs_. From these works, and from pa.s.sing notices of our heroine, we gain a general impression of wasted talents and a disappointed life. That she was more unhappy in her solitude than, in her unbending nature, she would avow, observes her faithful friend and chronicler, the record of the last years of her existence too plainly demonstrates. Although she derived consolation in retirement from the retrospect of the part she had played in her prosperity, still there were moments of poignant grief when her very soul groaned within her.
She was ambitious, and her ambition had been foiled; she loved irresponsible command, but the time had come when those over whom she ruled defied her; she was dictatorial and exacting, but she had lost the influence which alone makes people tolerate control. She incurred debts, and was doomed to feel the degradation consequent upon them.
She thought to defy her own nation, and they hurled the defiance back upon her. She entertained visionary projects of aggrandis.e.m.e.nt, and was met by the derision of the world. In a word, Lady Hester died as she had lived, alone and miserable in a strange land, bankrupt in affection and credit, because, in spite of her great gifts and innate benevolence, her overbearing temper had alienated friends and kinsfolk alike, and her pride could endure neither the society of equals, nor the restraints and conventions of civilised life.
PRINCE PuCKLER-MUSKAU IN ENGLAND
PART I
[Ill.u.s.tration: PRINCE PuCKLER-MUSKAU]
During the early and middle decades of the nineteenth century there was no more original and picturesque figure among the minor celebrities of Germany--one might almost say of Europe--than that of his Highness, Hermann Ludwig Heinrich, Prince Puckler-Muskau.
Throughout his long career we find this princeling playing many parts--at once an imitation Werter, a sentimental Don Juan, a dandy who out-dressed D"Orsay, a sportsman and traveller of Munchhausen type, a fashionable author who wrote German with a French accent and a warrior who seems to have wandered out of the pages of mediaeval romance. Yet with all his mock-heroic notoriety, the _toller Puckler_ was by no means dest.i.tute of those practical qualities which tempered the Teutonic Romanticism, even in its earliest and most extravagant developments. He was skilled in all manly exercises, a brave soldier, an intelligent observer, and--his most substantial claim to remembrance--the father of landscape-gardening in Germany, a veritable magician who transformed level wastes into wooded landscapes and made the sandy wildernesses blossom like the rose.
To English readers the prince"s name was once familiar as the author of _Briefe eines Vers...o...b..nen_ (Letters of a Dead Man), which contain a lively account of his Highness" sojourn in England and Ireland between the years 1826 and 1828. These letters, which were translated into English under the t.i.tle of _The Tour of a German Prince_, made a sensation, favourable and otherwise, in the early "thirties," owing to the candid fashion in which they dealt with our customs and our countrymen. The book received the high honour of a complimentary review from the pen of the aged Goethe. "The writer appears to be a perfect and experienced man of the world," observes this distinguished critic; "endowed with talents and a quick apprehension; formed by a varied social existence, by travel and extensive connections. His journey was undertaken very recently, and brings us the latest intelligence from the countries which he has viewed with an acute, clear, and comprehensive eye. We see before us a finely-const.i.tuted being, born to great external advantages and felicities, but in whom a lively spirit of enterprise is not united to constancy and perseverance; whence he experiences frequent failure and disappointment.... The peculiarities of English manners and habits are drawn vividly and distinctly, and without exaggeration. We acquire a lively idea of that wonderful combination, that luxuriant growth--of that insular life which is based in boundless wealth and civil freedom, in universal monotony and manifold diversity; formal and capricious, active and torpid, energetic and dull, comfortable and tedious, the envy and derision of the world. Like other unprejudiced travellers of modern times, our author is not very much enchanted with the English form of existence: his cordial and sincere admiration is often accompanied by unsparing censure. He is by no means inclined to favour the faults and weaknesses of the English; and in this he has the greatest and best among themselves upon his side."
As these Letters were not written until the prince had pa.s.sed his fortieth year, it will be necessary, before considering them in detail, to give a brief sketch of his previous career. Hermann Ludwig was the only son of Graf von Puckler of Schloss Branitz, and of his wife, Clementine, born a Grafin von Gallenberg, and heiress to the vast estate of Muskau in Silesia. Both families were of immense antiquity, the Pucklers claiming to trace their descent from Rudiger von Bechlarn, who figures in the _Nibelungenlied_. Our hero was born at Muskau in October 1785, and spent, according to his own account, a wretched and neglected childhood. His father was harsh, miserly, and suspicious; his mother, who was only fifteen when her son was born, is described as a frivolous little flirt. The couple, after perpetually quarrelling for ten or twelve years, were divorced, by mutual consent, in 1797, and the Grafin shortly afterwards married one of her numerous admirers, Graf von Seydewitz, with whom she lived as unhappily as with her first husband. Her little son was educated at a Moravian school, and in the holidays was left entirely to the care of the servants. After a couple of years at the university of Leipzig, he entered the Saxon army, and soon became notorious for his good looks, his fine horsemanship, his extravagance, and his mischievous pranks.
Military discipline in time of peace proved too burdensome for the young lieutenant, who, after quarrelling with his father, getting deeply into debt, and embroiling himself with the authorities, threw up his commission in 1804. Muskau having become much too hot to hold him, he spent the next years in travelling about the Continent, always in pecuniary difficulties, and seldom free from some sentimental entanglement.
In 1810 Graf Puckler died, and his son stepped into a splendid inheritance. Like Prince Hal, the young Graf seems to have taken his new responsibilities seriously, and to have devoted himself, with only too much enthusiasm, to the development and improvement of his estates. In the intervals of business he amused himself with an endless series of love-affairs, his achievements in this respect, if his biographer may be believed, more than equalling those of Jupiter and Don Giovanni put together. Old and young, pretty and plain, n.o.ble and humble, native and foreign, all were fish that came to the net of this lady-killer, who not only vowed allegiance to nearly every petticoat that crossed his path, but--a much more remarkable feat--kept up an impa.s.sioned correspondence with a large selection of his charmers. After his death, a whole library of love-letters was discovered among his papers, all breathing forth adoration, ecstasy or despair, and addressed to the Julies, Jeannettes, or Amalies who succeeded one another so rapidly in his facile affections. These doc.u.ments, for the most part carefully-corrected drafts of the originals, were indorsed, "Old love-letters, to be used again if required!"
In 1813 the trumpet of war sounded the call to arms, and the young Graf entered the military service of Prussia, and was appointed aide-de-camp to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar. He distinguished himself in the Netherlands, was present at the taking of Ca.s.sel, and in the course of the campaign played a part in a new species of duel. A French colonel of Hussars, so the story goes, rode out of the enemy"s lines, and challenged any officer in the opposing army to single combat. Puckler accepted the challenge, and the duel was fought on horseback--presumably with sabres--between the ranks of the two armies, the soldiers on either side applauding their chosen champion.
At length, after a fierce struggle, Germany triumphed, and the brave Frenchman bit the dust. Whether the tale be true or apocryphal, it is certain that numerous decorations were conferred upon the young officer for his brilliant services, that he was promoted to the rank of colonel, and appointed civil and military governor of Bruges.
Puckler took part in the triumphal entry of the Allies into Paris, and afterwards accompanied the Duke of Saxe-Weimar to London, where he shared in all the festivities of the wonderful season of 1815, studied the English methods of landscape-gardening, and made an unsuccessful attempt to marry a lady of rank and fortune.
After his return to Muskau the Graf continued his work on his estate, which, in spite of a sandy soil and other disadvantages, soon became one of the show-places of Germany. Having discovered a spring of mineral water, he built a pump-room, a theatre, and a gaming-saloon, and named the establishment Hermannsbad. The invalids who frequented the Baths must have enjoyed a lively "cure," for besides theatrical performances, illuminations, fireworks and steeplechases, the Graf was always ready to oblige with some sensational achievement. On one occasion he leapt his horse over the parapet of a bridge into the river, and swam triumphantly ash.o.r.e; while on another he galloped up the steps of the Casino, played and won a _coup_ at the tables without dismounting, and then galloped down again, arriving at the bottom with a whole neck, but considerable damage to his horse"s legs.
In 1816 Puckler became acquainted with Lucie, Grafin von Pappenheim, a daughter of Prince Hardenberg, Chancellor of Prussia. The Grafin, a well-preserved woman of forty, having parted from her husband, was living at Berlin with her daughter, Adelheid, afterwards Princess Carolath, and her adopted daughter, Herminie Lanzendorf. The Graf divided his attentions equally between the three ladies for some time, but on inquiring of a friend which would make the greatest sensation in Berlin, his marriage to the mother or to one of the daughters, and being told his marriage to the mother, at once proposed to the middle-aged Grafin, and was joyfully accepted. The reason for this inappropriate match probably lay deeper than the desire to astonish the people of Berlin, for Puckler, with all his surface romanticism, had a keen eye to the main chance. His Lucie had only a moderate dower, but the advantage of being son-in-law to the Chancellor of Prussia could hardly be overestimated. Again, the Graf seems to have imagined that in a marriage of convenience with a woman nine years older than himself, he would be able to preserve the liberty of his bachelor days, while presenting the appearance of domestic respectability.
As soon as the trifling formality of a divorce from Count Pappenheim had been gone through, the marriage took place at Muskau, to the accompaniment of the most splendid festivities. As may be supposed, the early married life of the ill-a.s.sorted couple was a period of anything but unbroken calm. Scarcely had the Graf surrendered his liberty than he fell pa.s.sionately in love with his wife"s adopted daughter, Helmine, a beautiful girl of eighteen, the child, it was believed, of humble parents. Frederick William III. of Prussia was one of her admirers, and had offered to marry her morganatically, and create her Herzogin von Breslau. But Helmine gave her royal suitor no encouragement, and he soon consoled himself with the Princess Liegnitz. Lucie spared no pains to marry off the inconvenient beauty, but Puckler frustrated all her efforts, implored her not to separate him from Helmine, and suggested an arrangement based upon the domestic policy of Goethe"s _Wahlverwandschaften_. But Lucie was unreasonable enough to object to a _menage a trois_, and at length succeeded in marrying Helmine to a Lieutenant von Blucher.
In 1822 the Graf accompanied his father-in-law to the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, and shortly afterwards was raised to princely rank, in compensation for the losses he had sustained through the annexation of Silesia by Prussia. By this time the prince"s financial affairs were in so desperate a condition, thanks to the follies of his youth and the building mania of his manhood, that a desperate remedy was required to put them straight again. Only one expedient presented itself, and this Lucie, with a woman"s self-sacrifice, was the first to propose. During a short absence from Muskau she wrote to her husband to offer him his freedom, in order that he might be enabled to marry a rich heiress, whose fortune could be used to clear off the liabilities that pressed so heavily on the estate. The prince at first refused to take advantage of this generous offer. He had become accustomed to his elderly wife, who acted as his colleague and helper in all that concerned his idolised Muskau, and upon whose sympathy and advice he had learned to depend. But as time went on he grew accustomed to the idea of an amicable divorce, and at length persuaded himself that such a proceeding need make no real difference to Lucie"s position; in fact, that it would be an advantage to her as well as to himself. For years past he had regarded her rather in the light of a maternal friend than of a wife, and the close _camaraderie_ that existed between them would remain unbroken by the advent of a young bride whom Lucie would love as her own child. A divorce, it must be remembered, was a common incident of everyday life in the Germany of that epoch. As we have seen, Puckler"s father and mother had dissolved their marriage, and Lucie had been divorced from her first husband, while her father had been married three times, and had separated from each of his wives.
The matter remained in abeyance for a year or two, and it was not until 1826, when the prince probably felt that he had no time to lose, that the long-talked-of divorce actually took place. This curious couple, who appeared to be more tenderly attached to each other now than they had ever been before, took a touching farewell in Berlin.
The princess then returned to Muskau, where she remained during her ex-husband"s absence as his agent and representative, while the prince set out for England, which country was supposed to offer the best hunting-ground for heiresses. Week by week during his tour, Puckler addressed to his faithful Lucie long, confidential letters, filled with observations of the manners and customs of the British barbarians, together with minute descriptions of his adventures in love and landscape-gardening.
The prince, though at this time in his forty-first year, was still, to all appearance, in the prime of life, still an adept in feats of skill and strength, and not less romantic and susceptible than in the days of his youth. With his high rank, his vast though enc.u.mbered estates, his picturesque appearance, and his wide experience in affairs of the heart, he antic.i.p.ated little difficulty in carrying off one of the most eligible of British heiresses; but he quite forgot to include the hard-hearted, level-headed British parent in his reckoning. The prince"s first letter to Lucie, who figures in the published version as Julie, is dated Dresden, September 7, 1826, and begins in right Werterian strain:--
"My dear friend--The love you showed me at our parting made me so happy and so miserable that I cannot yet recover from it. Your sad image is ever before me; I still read deep sorrow in your looks and in your tears, and my own heart tells me too well what yours suffered.
May G.o.d grant us a meeting as joyful as our parting was sorrowful! I can only repeat what I have so often told you, that if I felt myself without you, my dearest friend, in the world, I could enjoy none of its pleasures without an alloy of sadness; that if you love me, you will above all things watch over your health, and amuse yourself as much as you can by varied occupation." There are protestations of this kind in nearly every letter, for the prince"s pen was always tipped with fine sentiment and vows of eternal devotion came more easily to him than the ordinary civilities of everyday life to the average man.
A visit to Goethe at Weimar, on the traveller"s leisurely journey towards England, furnished his notebook with some interesting specimens of the old poet"s conversation. "He received me," writes the prince, "in a dimly-lighted room, whose _clair obscure_ was arranged with some _coquetterie_; and truly the aspect of the beautiful old man, with his Jovelike countenance, was most stately....
In the course of conversation we came to Walter Scott. Goethe was not very enthusiastic about the Great Unknown. He said he doubted not that he wrote his novels in the same sort of partnership as existed between the old painters and their pupils; that he furnished the plot, the leading thoughts, the skeleton of the scenes, that he then let his pupils fill them up, and retouched them at the last. It seemed almost to be his opinion that it was not worth the while of a man of Scott"s eminence to give himself up to such a number of minute and tedious details. "Had I," he said, "been able to lend myself to the idea of mere gain, I could formerly have sent such things anonymously into the world, with the aid of Lenz and others--nay, I could still, as would astonish people not a little, and make them puzzle their brains to find out the author; but after all, they would be but manufactured wares...."
"He afterwards spoke of Lord Byron with great affection, almost as a father would of a son, which was extremely grateful to my enthusiastic feelings for this great poet. He contradicted the silly a.s.sertion that _Manfred_ was only an echo of his _Faust_. He extremely regretted that he had never become personally acquainted with Lord Byron, and severely and justly reproached the English nation for having judged their ill.u.s.trious countryman so pettily, and understood him so ill." The conversation next turned on politics, and Goethe reverted to his favourite theory that if every man laboured faithfully, honestly, and lovingly in this sphere, were it great or small, universal well-being and happiness would not long be wanting, whatever the form of government. The prince urged in reply that a const.i.tutional government was first necessary to call such a principle into life, and adduced the example of England in support of his argument. "Goethe immediately replied that the choice of the example was not happy, for that in no country was selfishness more omnipotent; that no people were perhaps essentially less humane in their political or their private relations; that salvation came, not from without, by means of forms of government, but from within, by the wise moderation and humble activity of each man in his own circle; and that this must ever be the chief source of human felicity, while it was the easiest and the simplest to attain."
The prince seems always to have played the part of Jonah on board ship, and on the occasion of his journey to England, he had a terrible pa.s.sage of forty hours, from Rotterdam to the London Docks. As soon as he could get his carriage, horses, and luggage clear of the customs, he hastened to the Clarendon Hotel, where he had stayed during his first visit to London. Unlike the American, N. P. Willis, he had come armed with many prejudices against England and the English, few of which he succeeded in losing during the two years of his sojourn among us. In his first letter from London, dated October 5, 1826, he writes: "London is now so utterly dead to elegance and fashion that one hardly meets a single equipage, and nothing remains of the _beau monde_ but a few amba.s.sadors. The huge city is at the same time full of fog and dirt, and the macadamised streets are like well-worn roads. The old pavement has been torn up, and replaced by small pieces of granite, the interstices between which are filled up with gravel; this renders the riding more easy, and diminishes the noise, but on the other hand changes the town into a sort of quagmire." The prince comments favourably on the improvements that had recently been carried out by Nash the architect, more especially as regards Regent Street and Portland Place, and declares that the laying out of the Regent"s Park is "faultless," particularly in the disposition of the water.
The comfort and luxury of English hotels, as well as of private houses, is a subject on which the traveller frequently enlarges, and in this first letter he a.s.sures his Lucie that she would be delighted with the extreme cleanliness of the interiors, the great convenience of the furniture, and the good manners of the serving-people, though he admits that, for all that pertains to luxury, the tourist pays about six times as much as in Germany. "The comfort of the inns," he continues, "is unknown on the Continent; on your washing-table you find, not one miserable water-bottle with a single earthenware jug and basin, and a long strip of towel, but positive tubs of porcelain in which you may plunge half your body; taps which instantly supply you with streams of water at pleasure; half-a-dozen wide towels, a large standing mirror, foot-baths and other conveniences of the toilet, all of equal elegance."
The prince took advantage of the dead season to explore the city and other unfashionable quarters of the town. He was delighted with the excellent side-pavements, the splendid shops, the brilliant gas-lamps, and above all (like Miss Edgeworth"s Rosamund) with "the great gla.s.s globes in the chemists" windows, filled with liquid of a deep red, blue or green, the light of which is visible for miles(!)" Visits to the Exchange, the Bank, and the Guildhall were followed by a call on Rothschild, "the Grand Ally of the Grand Alliance," at his house of business. "On my presenting my card," says our hero, "he remarked ironically that we were lucky people who could afford to travel about, and take our pleasure, while he, poor man, had such a heavy burden to bear. He then broke out into bitter complaints that every poor devil who came to England had something to ask of him.... After this the conversation took a political turn, and we of course agreed that Europe could not subsist without him; he modestly declined our compliments, and said, smiling, "Oh no, you are only jesting; I am but a servant, with whom people are pleased because he manages their affairs well, and to whom they allow some crumbs to fall as an acknowledgment."
On October 19 the prince went to Newmarket for the races. During his stay he was introduced to a rich merchant of the neighbourhood, who invited him to spend a couple of days at his country-house. He gives Lucie a minute account of the manners and customs of an English _menage_, but these are only interesting to the modern reader in so far as they have become obsolete. For example: "When you enter the dining-room, you find the whole of the first course on the table, as in France. After the soup is removed, and the covers are taken off, every man helps the dish before him, and offers some to his neighbour; if he wishes for anything else, he must ask across the table, or send a servant for it, a very troublesome custom.... It is not usual to take wine without drinking to another person. If the company is small, and a man has drunk with everybody, but happens to wish for more wine, he must wait for the dessert, if he does not find in himself courage to brave custom."
On his return to town the prince, who had been elected a member of the Travellers" Club, gives a long dissertation on English club life, not forgetting to dwell on the luxury of all the arrangements, the excellent service, and the methodical fashion in which the gaming-tables were conducted. "In no other country," he declares, "are what are here emphatically called "business habits" carried so extensively into social and domestic life; the value of time, of order, of despatch, of routine, are nowhere so well understood. This is the great key to the most striking, national characteristics. The quant.i.ty of material objects produced and accomplished--_the work done_--in England exceeds all that man ever effected. The causes that have produced these results have as certainly given birth to the dulness, the contracted views, the inveterate prejudices, the unbounded desire for, and deference to wealth which characterise the great ma.s.s of Englishmen."
During this first winter in London the prince was a regular attendant at the theatres, and many were the dramatic criticisms that he sent to his "friend" at Muskau. He saw Liston in the hundred and second representation of Paul Pry, and at Drury Lane found, to his amazement that Braham, whom he remembered as an elderly man in 1814, was still first favourite. "He is the genuine representative of the English style of singing," writes our critic, "and in popular songs is the adored idol of the public. One cannot deny him great power of voice and rapidity of execution, but a more abominable style it is difficult to conceive.... The most striking feature to a foreigner in English theatres is the natural coa.r.s.eness and brutality of the audiences. The consequence is that the higher and more civilised cla.s.ses go only to the Italian Opera, and very rarely visit their national theatre.
English freedom has degenerated into the rudest licence, and it is not uncommon in the midst of the most affecting part of a tragedy, or the most charming cadenza of a singer, to hear some coa.r.s.e expression shouted from the gallery in a stentor voice. This is followed, either by loud laughter and applause, or by the castigation and expulsion of the offender."
The poor prince saw Mozart"s _Figaro_ announced for performance at Drury Lane, and looked forward to hearing once more the sweet harmonies of his Vaterland. "What, then, was my astonishment," he exclaims, in justifiable indignation, "at the unheard-of treatment which the masterpiece of the immortal composer has received at English hands! You will hardly believe me when I tell you that neither the count, the countess, nor Figaro sang; these parts were given to mere actors, and their princ.i.p.al airs were sung by other singers. To add to this the gardener roared out some interpolated English popular songs, which suited Mozart"s music just as a pitch-plaster would suit the face of the Venus de" Medici. The whole opera was, moreover, arranged by a certain Mr. Bishop; that is, adapted to English ears by means of the most tasteless and shocking alterations. The English national music, the coa.r.s.e, heavy melodies of which can never be mistaken for an instant, has to me, at least, something singularly offensive, an expression of brutal feeling both in pain and pleasure that smacks of "roast-beef, plum-pudding, and porter.""