Tracks of a Rolling Stone [33]
there in a black one. My candid friends suggested withdrawal, my relations cut me assiduously, strangers by my side whispered at me aloud, women turned their shoulders to me; and my only prayer was that my accursed tie would strangle me on the spot. One pair of sharp eyes, however, noticed my ignominy, and their owner was moved by compassion for my sufferings. As I was slinking away, Lord Palmerston, with a BONHOMIE peculiarly his own, came up to me; and with a shake of the hand and hearty manner, asked after my brother Leicester, and when he was going to bring me into Parliament? - ending with a smile: 'Where are you off to in such a hurry?' That is the sort of tact that makes a party leader. I went to bed a proud, instead of a humiliated, man; ready, if ever I had the chance, to vote that black was white, should he but state it was so.
Beards and moustache came into fashion after the Crimean war. It would have been an outrage to wear them before that time. When I came home from my travels across the Rocky Mountains in 1851, I was still unshaven. Meeting my younger brother - a fashionable guardsman - in St. James's Street, he exclaimed, with horror and disgust at my barbarity, 'I suppose you mean to cut off that thing!'
Smoking, as indulged in now, was quite out of the question half a century ago. A man would as soon have thought of making a call in his dressing-gown as of strolling about the West End with a cigar in his mouth. The first whom I ever saw smoke a cigarette at a dining-table after dinner was the King; some forty years ago, or more perhaps. One of the many social benefits we owe to his present Majesty.
CHAPTER XI.
DURING my blindness I was hospitably housed in Eaten Place by Mr. Whitbread, the head of the renowned firm. After my recovery I had the good fortune to meet there Lady Morgan, the once famous authoress of the 'Wild Irish Girl.' She still bore traces of her former comeliness, and had probably lost little of her sparkling vivacity. She was known to like the company of young people, as she said they made her feel young; so, being the youngest of the party, I had the honour of sitting next her at dinner. When I recall her conversation and her pleasing manners, I can well understand the homage paid both abroad and at home to the bright genius of the Irish actor's daughter.
We talked a good deal about Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb. This arose out of my saying I had been reading 'Glenarvon,' in which Lady Caroline gives Byron's letters to herself as Glenarvon's letters to the heroine. Lady Morgan had been the confidante of Lady Caroline, had seen many of Byron's letters, and possessed many of her friend's - full of details of the extraordinary intercourse which had existed between the two.
Lady Morgan evidently did not believe (in spite of Lady Caroline's mad passion for the poet) that the liaison ever reached the ultimate stage contemplated by her lover. This opinion was strengthened by Lady Caroline's undoubted attachment to her husband - William Lamb, afterwards Lord Melbourne - who seems to have submitted to his wife's vagaries with his habitual stoicism and good humour.
Both Byron and Lady Caroline had violent tempers, and were always quarrelling. This led to the final rupture, when, according to my informant, the poet's conduct was outrageous. He sent her some insulting lines, which Lady Morgan quoted. The only one I remember is:
Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!
Among other amusing anecdotes she told was one of Disraeli. She had met him (I forget where), soon after his first success as the youthful author of 'Vivian Grey.' He was naturally made much of, but rather in the Bohemian world than by such queens of society as Lady Holland or Lady Jersey. 'And faith!' she added, with the piquante accent which excitement evoked, 'he took the full shine out of his janius. And how do ye think he was dressed? In a black velvet jacket and suit to match, with a red sash round his waist,
Beards and moustache came into fashion after the Crimean war. It would have been an outrage to wear them before that time. When I came home from my travels across the Rocky Mountains in 1851, I was still unshaven. Meeting my younger brother - a fashionable guardsman - in St. James's Street, he exclaimed, with horror and disgust at my barbarity, 'I suppose you mean to cut off that thing!'
Smoking, as indulged in now, was quite out of the question half a century ago. A man would as soon have thought of making a call in his dressing-gown as of strolling about the West End with a cigar in his mouth. The first whom I ever saw smoke a cigarette at a dining-table after dinner was the King; some forty years ago, or more perhaps. One of the many social benefits we owe to his present Majesty.
CHAPTER XI.
DURING my blindness I was hospitably housed in Eaten Place by Mr. Whitbread, the head of the renowned firm. After my recovery I had the good fortune to meet there Lady Morgan, the once famous authoress of the 'Wild Irish Girl.' She still bore traces of her former comeliness, and had probably lost little of her sparkling vivacity. She was known to like the company of young people, as she said they made her feel young; so, being the youngest of the party, I had the honour of sitting next her at dinner. When I recall her conversation and her pleasing manners, I can well understand the homage paid both abroad and at home to the bright genius of the Irish actor's daughter.
We talked a good deal about Byron and Lady Caroline Lamb. This arose out of my saying I had been reading 'Glenarvon,' in which Lady Caroline gives Byron's letters to herself as Glenarvon's letters to the heroine. Lady Morgan had been the confidante of Lady Caroline, had seen many of Byron's letters, and possessed many of her friend's - full of details of the extraordinary intercourse which had existed between the two.
Lady Morgan evidently did not believe (in spite of Lady Caroline's mad passion for the poet) that the liaison ever reached the ultimate stage contemplated by her lover. This opinion was strengthened by Lady Caroline's undoubted attachment to her husband - William Lamb, afterwards Lord Melbourne - who seems to have submitted to his wife's vagaries with his habitual stoicism and good humour.
Both Byron and Lady Caroline had violent tempers, and were always quarrelling. This led to the final rupture, when, according to my informant, the poet's conduct was outrageous. He sent her some insulting lines, which Lady Morgan quoted. The only one I remember is:
Thou false to him, thou fiend to me!
Among other amusing anecdotes she told was one of Disraeli. She had met him (I forget where), soon after his first success as the youthful author of 'Vivian Grey.' He was naturally made much of, but rather in the Bohemian world than by such queens of society as Lady Holland or Lady Jersey. 'And faith!' she added, with the piquante accent which excitement evoked, 'he took the full shine out of his janius. And how do ye think he was dressed? In a black velvet jacket and suit to match, with a red sash round his waist,