Lady John Russell: A Memoir with Selections from Her Diaries and Correspondence. Various
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9, 1835 We went to Miss Berry's in the evening. I thought it very tiresome, but was glad to see Lord John Russell and his wife. BOWOOD, December 26, 1835 The evening was very quiet, there was not much to alarm one, and the prettiest music possible to listen to. Mr. Moore singing his own melodies--it was really delightful, and a kind of singing I never heard before. He has very little voice, but what he has is perfectly sweet, and his real Irish face looks quite inspired. The airs were most of them simply beautiful, and many of the words equally so.
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January 31, 1836, ADMIRALTY I am reading "Ivanhoe" for the first time, and delighted with it, but things cannot be as they should be, when I feel that I require to forget myself in order to be happy, and that unless I am taken up with an interesting book there never, or scarcely ever, is a moment of real peace and quiet for my poor weary mind. What is it I wish for? O God, Thou alone canst clearly know--and in Thy hands alone is the remedy. Oh let this longing cease! Turn it, O Father, to a worthy object! Unworthy it must now be, for were it after virtue, pure holy virtue, could I not still it? Dispel the mist that dims my eyes, that I may first plainly read the secrets of my wretched heart, and then give me, O Almighty God, the sincere will to root out all therein that beareth not good fruit. … February 4, 1836, ADMIRALTY The great day of the opening of Parliament. Soon after breakfast we prepared to go to the House of Lords--that is to say, we made ourselves great figures with feathers and finery. The day has been, unfortunately, rainy and cold, and made our dress look still more absurd. The King did not come till two, so that we had plenty of time to see all the old lords assembling. Their robes looked very handsome, and I think His Majesty was the least dignified-looking person in the house. I cannot describe exactly all that went on. There was nothing impressive, but it was very amusing. The poor old man could not see to read his speech, and after he had stammered half through it Lord Melbourne was obliged to hold a candle to him, and he read it over again. Lord Melbourne looked very like a Prime Minister, but the more I see him and so many good and clever men obliged to do, at least in part, the bidding of anyone who happens to be born to Royalty, the more I wish that things were otherwise--however, as long as it is only in forms that one sees them give him the superiority one does not much mind. After the debate, several of Papa's friends came to dine here. Lord Melbourne, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Glenelg, and the Duke of Richmond, who has won my heart--they talked very pleasantly. March 9, 1836, ADMIRALTY I wonder what it is that makes one sometimes like and sometimes dislike balls, etc. It does not always depend on whom one meets. I am sure it is not, as most books and people seem to think, from love of admiration that one is fond of them or else how should I ever be so, when it is so impossible for anybody ever to admire my looks or think me agreeable? I sometimes wish I was pretty. And I do not think it is a very foolish wish: it would give me courage to be agreeable.
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All through this year there are many troubled entries:
March 28, 1836, ADMIRALTY Youth may and ought to have--yes, I see by others that it has--pleasures which surpass those of unthinking though lovely childhood: but have I experienced them? … What makes the same sun seem one day to make all nature bright, and the next only to show more plainly the dreariness of the landscape? Oh wicked, sinful must be those feelings that make me miserable--selfish and sinful--and I cannot reason them away, for I do not understand them. Prayer has helped me before now, and I trust it will still do so. O Lord, forsake me not--take me into Thy own keeping. … Mama fifty to-day [March 30, 1836]. Oh the feelings that crowd into my heart as if they must burst it when I look to this day three years ago. I cannot write or think clearly of it yet. I can only feel--but what, I do not myself know--at one moment agony, doubts, and fears, as if it was still that fearful day; then joy almost too great to bear. When I think of her as she now is, then everything vanishes in one overpowering feeling of intense thankfulness. I have several times to-day seen her eyes fill with tears--every birthday of those one loves gives one a melancholy feeling, and the more rejoicings there are the stronger that feeling is. June 27, 1836, ADMIRALTY It was decided that we should go to the Duchess of Buccleuch's breakfast. My horror of breakfasts is only increased by having been to this one, though I believe it was particularly pleasant. Certainly the day was perfect, and the sight and the music pretty; but I scarcely ever disliked people more or felt more beaten down by shyness. My only thoughts from the moment we went in were: How I wish it was over, and how I wish nobody would speak to me.
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September 6, 1836, ROEHAMPTON Mama and I went to dine at Holland House. … The rooms are just what one would expect from the outside of the handsome old house, with a number of good pictures in the library, where we sat, all portraits. Lord Holland is perfectly agreeable, and not at all a man to be afraid of, in the common way of speaking, but for that very reason I always am afraid of him--much more than of her, who does not seem to me agreeable. I was very sorry Lord Melbourne did not come, as he would have made the conversation more general and agreeable.
The impression she made on others in her girlhood will be seen by this passage in the "Reminiscences of an Idler," by Chevalier Wyhoff: "I had the honour of dancing a quadrille with Lady Fanny Elliot, the charming daughter of the Earl of Minto. Her engaging manners and sweetness of disposition were even more winning than her admitted beauty."
In July it was decided that her brother Henry should go out to Australia with Sir John Franklin. The idea of parting troubled her extremely, and, moreover, the project dashed all the castles in the air she had built for him. August 21st was the day fixed for his sailing. The 20th came--"dismal, dismal day, making things look as if they understood it was his last." Long afterwards, whenever she saw the front of Roehampton House, where she said good-bye to him, the scene would come back to her mind--the waiting carriage and the last farewells. The autumn winds had a new significance to her now her brother was on the sea. She was troubled too about religious problems, but she found it difficult, almost impossible, to talk about the thoughts which were occupying her. Writing of her cousin Gilbert Elliot, afterwards Dean of Bristol, for whom she felt both affection and respect, she says: "In the evening Cousin Gilbert talked a great deal, and not only usefully but delightfully, about different religious sects and against the most illiberal Church to which he belongs--but how could I be happy? The more he talked of what I wished to hear, the more idiotically shy I felt and the more impossible it became to me to ask one of the many questions or make one of the many remarks (foolish very likely, but what would that have signified?) which were filling my mind."
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December 24, 1836, BOWOOD Mr. Moore sang a great deal, and one song quite overcame Lady Lansdowne. At dinner I sat between Henry11 and Miss Fazakerlie, who told me that last year she thought me impenetrable. How sad it is to appear to every one different from what one is. I like both her and Henry better than ever, but oh, I dislike myself more than ever--and so does everybody else--almost. Is it vain to wish it otherwise?--no, surely it is not. If my manner is so bad must there not be some real fault in me that makes it so, and ought I not to pray that it may be corrected?
She read a great deal at this time; Jeremy Taylor, Milton, and Wesley, Heber, Isaac Walton, Burnet; Burns was her favourite on her happiest days. She thought that work among the poor of London might help her; but her time was so taken up both with looking after the younger children and by society that she seems to have got no further than wondering how to set about it.
On June 20th, 1837, William IV died, and in July Parliament was dissolved. On the 4th they were back again at Minto.
Her uncle John Elliot was successful in his candidature of Hawick. "Hawick," she writes, "has done her duty well indeed--in all ways; for the sheriff's terrible riots have been nothing at all. Some men ducked and the clothes of some torn off. We all felt so confused with joy that we did not know what to do all the evening." These rejoicings ended suddenly: Lady Minto was called to the death-bed of her mother, Mrs. Brydone.
August 19, 1837, MINTO I feel this time as I always do after a great misfortune, that the shock at first is nothing to the quiet grief afterwards, when one really begins to understand what has happened. I cannot help constantly repeating over and over to myself that she is gone, and sometimes I do not know how to bear it and however to be