Digitised Manuscripts and Books

of my own age and was unmercifully teased by my cousins who belonged to an older generation; while I was too young to be admitted to or to have appreciated the Salon of my Aunt Betty, Baroness James.

My Aunt was one of the most accomplished women of a highly accomplished time. A most brilliant and fascinating talker, she received for many years with unrivalled grace and consummate tact most of the eminent statesmen, lawyers, men of letters, artists, and beautiful and clever women of the day. One of her constant visitors was General Changarnier, with whom she kept up a daily correspondence after he was banished by Napoleon III. I have heard from the few persons who were privileged to see her letters to him, and which she unfortunately destroyed when they were returned to her after his death, that they contained not only a most faithful and interesting record of all the passing political, literary, and social events of the day, but were written in a style which Madame de Sevigné might not have disclaimed. My Aunt was as much beloved as she was esteemed in Paris. Heine pays her a graceful tribute in his memoirs, for when the poor stricken poet lay on his bed of sickness she often ministered to his wants and charmed away his sufferings with her sympathy and conversation.

But to return to my personal reminiscences. The attractions of Paris, as I have said, were small, and they paled into insignificance besides those of ‘old’ England. In my earliest childhood England was already the land of my dreams, the goal to which tended my conception of all earthly bliss. My first recollection of the country I have now long made my home, is of Gunnersbury, my Grandmother’s villa near Acton, where I was spoilt beyond all measure, not by my Grandmother only, but by my Uncles and Aunts. I revelled in the society of my cousins. Once I was taken to see the famous glasshouses of Mrs. Lawrence, the mother of Sir Trevor, and they much impressed me for at Frankfort ‘glass’ was then unknown. How greatly I appreciated the contents of the Gunnersbury ‘glass’ can hardly be understood now, when South African, Australian and American peaches, and Brazilian pines are as common as gooseberries. Once too I drove, late in the afternoon, to London in my Uncle’s private cab, sitting between him and my Mother, and stared at the endless succession of market gardens, which with the flaring red and bright blue lamps in the chemists’ windows largely monopolised my attention. I remember, too, that when I was but five years of age I tried to assist in the rescue of my cousin Evelina who had fallen into the pond, and was hunted, to my indescribable terror, by the llama in the park, which I had foolishly excited and provoked, from which, however, I escaped by flying as fast as my little legs could carry me and scrambling back over the railings.

My first clear perception of London was not until 1851 when my Brother and I were allowed to proceed to England for the opening of the Great Exhibition; and when we were the guests of my Uncle Mayer at 107 Piccadilly, my Grandmother having died in the preceding year. We shared the same small bedroom, and quarrelled and fought to our heart’s content, much to the amusement of my Uncle, who surprised us one morning standing in our nightshirts on our beds hurling blankets and pillows at each