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Title: The Letters of Gertrude Bell (Volume 1) (1927) Author: Gertrude Bell * A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook * eBook No.: 0400341h.html Edition: 1 Language: English Character set encoding: HTML--Latin-1(ISO-8859-1)--8 bit Date first posted: September 2004 Date most recently updated: September 2004 This eBook was produced by: M Fulton Project Gutenberg of Australia eBooks are created from printed editions which are in the public domain in Australia, unless a copyright notice is included. We do NOT keep any eBooks in compliance with a particular paper edition. Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this file. This eBook is made available at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg of Australia License which may be viewed online at http://gutenberg.net.au/licence.html ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
TO GERTRUDE'S FATHER
In the letters contained in this book there will be found many Eastern names, both of people and places, difficult to handle for those, like myself, not conversant with Arabic. The Arabic alphabet has characters for which we have no satisfactory equivalents and the Arab language has sounds which we find it difficult to reproduce. We have therefore in dealing with them to content ourselves with transliterations, some of which in words more or less frequently used in English have become translations, such as 'Koran,' 'kavass,' etc. But even these words (there are many others, but I take these two as an example) which have almost become a part of the English language are now spelt differently by experts, and at first sight it is difficult to recognise them in 'Quran' and 'qawas'--which latter form is I believe in accordance with the standardised spelling now being officially introduced in Bagdad. Gertrude herself in her letters used often to spell the same word in different ways, sometimes because she was trying experiments in transliteration, sometimes deliberately adopting a new way, sometimes because the same word is differently pronounced in Arabic or in Turkish. These variations in spelling have added a good deal to the difficulty of editing her letters especially as reference to expert opinion has occasionally shown that experts themselves do not always agree as to which form of transliteration is the best.
I have therefore adopted the plan of spelling the names as they are found when they occur in the letters for the first time, and keeping to it. Thus Gertrude used to write at first 'Kaimmakam,' in her later letters 'Qaimmaqam.' I have spelt it uniformly with a K for the convenience of the reader; and so with other words in which the Q has now supplemented the K.
The word 'Bagdad' which used to be regarded as the English name of the town, a translation and not a transliteration, was spelt as I have given it in Gertrude's first letters long ago. It is now everywhere, even when regarded as a translation, spelt 'Baghdad' and it ought to have been so spelt in this book. The same applies to the name 'Teheran' which is now always spelt 'Tehran' but of which I have preserved the former spelling.
Dr. D. G. Hogatth has been good enough to read the preceding pages of this Prefatory Note, and to give them his sanction. He adds the following paragraph:
"A more difficult question still in reproducing proper names has been raised by the vowel signs in Arabic, including that for the ain and by the diacritical points and marks which convey either nothing or a false meaning to uninstructed Western eyes."
I have therefore omitted the vowel signs altogether.
My own interpolations, inserted where required as links or elucidations, are indicated by being enclosed in square brackets [ ] and by being "indented," i.e., printed in a shorter line than the text of the letters.
The formulae beginning and ending the letters have been mostly omitted, to save space and to avoid repetition. The heading H. B. at the top of a letter means that it is addressed to Gertrude's father, and the heading F. B. means that it is addressed to me.
I am most grateful to the people who have given me counsel and help in compiling this book: Sir Valentine Chirol, Mrs. W. L. Courtney, H. E. Sir Henry Dobbs, Dr. D. G. Hogarth, Elizabeth Robins, and Major General Sir Percy Cox, who has had the kindness to read and correct many of the Proofs.
I am also much indebted to the following for placing at my disposal maps or photographs, letters or portions of letters from Gertrude in their possession, or accounts of her written by themselves: Captain J. P. Farrar, Vice-Admiral Sir Reginald Hall, Mrs. Marguerite Harrison, Hon. Mrs. Anthony Henley, The Dowager Countess of Jersey, Mary Countess of Lovelace, Hon. Mildred Lowther, Mr. Horace Marshall, Hon. Mrs. Harold Nicolson, Sir William Ramsay, Mr. E. A. Reeves, Miss Flora Russell, Lady Sheffield, Mr. Lionel Smith, Mr. Sydney Spencer, Lady Spring Rice, Colonel E. L. Strutt. Also for clerical help given me by Mrs. D. M. Chapman and my secretary Miss Phyllis S. Owen.
FLORENCE BELL
Mount Grace Priory,
August 1927.
I 1874-1892 - CHILDHOOD, OXFORD, LONDON
II 1892-1896 - PERSIA, ITALY, LONDON
IV 1897-1899 - ROUND THE WORLD, DAUPHINA, ETC.
V 1899-1900 - JERUSALEM AND THE FIRST DESERT JOURNEYS
VI 1900 - DESERT EXCURSIONS FROM JERUSALEM
VII 1901-1902 - SWITZERLAND, SYRIA, ENGLAND
VIII 1902-1903 - ROUND THE WORLD FOR THE SECOND TIME
IX 1903-1909 - ENGLAND, SWITZERLAND, PARIS
XI 1905-1909 - LONDON, ASIA MINOR, LONDON
XII 1910-1911 - ITALY, ACROSS THE SYRIAN DESERT
XIII 1913-1914 - THE JOURNEY To HAYIL
XIV 1914-15-16 - WAR WORK AT BOULOGNE, LONDON AND CAIRO
XV 1916-1917 - DELHI AND BASRAH
VOLUME ONE ILLUSTRATIONS (at the end of this file)
Gertrude Margaret Lowthian Bell, to give her all her names, although she rarely used the second, was born on the 14th July, 1868, at Washington Hall, Co. Durham, the residence of her grandfather, Isaac Lowthian Bell, F.R.S., afterwards Sir Lowthian Bell, Bart. Sir Lowthian, ironmaster and colliery owner in the county of Durham, was a distinguished man of science. His wife was Margaret Pattinson, of Alston in Cumberland, daughter of Hugh Lee Pattinson, F.R.S. Gertrude's father, now Sir Hugh Bell, was Sir Lowthian's eldest son; her mother was Mary Shield, daughter of John Shield, of Newcastle-on-Tyne. Gertrude therefore had the possibility of inheriting from both Northumbrian and Cumbrian forbears some of the energy and intelligence of the north.
Gertrude was three years old when she lost her mother, who died when Gertrude's brother Maurice was born.
Gertrude Bell, happily for her family and friends, was one of the people whose lives can be reconstructed from correspondence.
Through all her wanderings, whether far or near, she kept in the closest touch with her home, always anxious to share her experiences and impressions with her family, to chronicle for their benefit all that happened to her, important or unimportant: whether a stirring tale of adventure or an account of a dinner party. Those letters, varied, witty, enthralling, were a constant joy through the years to all those who read them. It was fortunate for the recipients that the act of writing, the actual driving of the pen, seemed to be no more of an effort to Gertrude than to remember and record all that the pen set down. She was able at the close of a day of exciting travel to toss a complete account of it on to paper for her family, often covering several closely written quarto pages. And for many years she kept a diary as well. Then the time came when she ceased to write a diary. From 1919 onwards the confidential detailed letters of many pages, often written day by day, took its place. These were usually addressed to her father and dispatched to her family by every mail and by every extra opportunity. Besides these home letters, she found time for a large =and varied correspondence with friends outside her home circle both male and female, among the former being some of the most distinguished men of her time. But the letters to her family have provided such abundant material for the reconstruction of her story that it has not been found necessary to ask for any others. Short extracts from a few outside letters to some of her intimate friends, however, have been included. The earlier of these letters, written when she was at home and therefore sending no letters to her family, show what her home life and outlook were at the time of her girlhood, when she was living an ordinary life--in so far as her life could ever be called ordinary. They foreshadow the pictures given in her subsequent family letters of her gradual development on all sides through the years, garnering as she went the almost incredible variety of experiences which culminated and ended in Bagdad. Letters written when she was twenty show that after her triumphant return from Oxford with one of the most brilliant Firsts of her year she threw herself with the greatest zest into all the amusements of her age, sharing in everything, enjoying everything, dancing, skating, fencing, going to London parties; making ardent girl friendships, drawing in to her circle intimates of all kinds. She also loved her country life, in which her occupations included an absorbing amount of gardening, fox hunting--she was a bold rider to hounds--interesting herself in the people at her father's ironworks, and in her country village, making friends in every direction. And when she was wandering far afield (her wanderings began very early--she went to Roumania when she was twenty-two and to Persia when she was twenty-three) she was always ready to take up her urban or country life at home on her return with the same zest as before, carrying with her, wherever she was, her ardent zest for knowledge, turning the flashlight of her eagerness on to one field of the mind after another and making it her own, reading, assimilating, discussing until the years found her ranged on equal terms beside some of the foremost scholars of her time.
To most people outside her own circle Gertrude was chiefly known by her achievements in the East, and it is probably the story of these that they will look for in this book. But the letters here published, from the time she was twenty until the end of her life, show such an amazing range of many-sided ability that they may seem to those who read them to present a picture worth recording at every stage.
Scholar, poet, historian, archaeologist, art critic, mountaineer, explorer, gardener, naturalist, distinguished servant of the State, Gertrude was all of these, and was recognised by experts as an expert in them all.
On the other hand, in some of the letters addressed to her family are references to subjects or events that may seem trivial or unimportant. But Gertrude's keen interest in every detail concerning her home was so delightful, and present her in such a new light to many who knew her only in public that these passages have been included.
Her love for her family, for her parents, for her brothers and sisters, her joy in her home life, has always seemed to those who shared that life to be so beautiful that it is worth dwelling on by the side of more exceptional experiences, and by the side of the world-famous achievements of one whose later life especially might well have separated her in mind and sympathy as well as in person from her belongings. But her letters show how unbreakable to the last was the bond between her and her home, and above all between her and her father. The abiding influence in Gertrude's life from the time she was a little child was her relation to her father. Her devotion to him, her whole-hearted admiration, the close and satisfying companionship between them, their deep mutual affection--these were to both the very foundation of existence until the day she died.
[This is the earliest letter extant from Gertrude, dated when she was six years old. It is addressed to me, at a time when she was not yet my little daughter but my "affectionate little friend." Mopsa, about whom she writes, was a large grey Persian cat, who played a very prominent part in the household.]
REDBARNS, COATHAM, REDCAR, Sept., 25th, 1874.
MY DEAR FLORENCE,
Mopsa has been very naughty this morning. She has been scampering all
over the dining-room Cilla says. I had a great Chase all over the hall
and dining room to catch her and bring her to Papa. She bit and made one
little red mark on my hand. During breakfast she hissed at Kitty Scott.
Auntie Ada had her on her knee and Kitty was at one side. As Auntie Ada
let Mopsa go down she hissed at Kitty and hunted her round to my side of
the table. Please Papa says will you ask Auntie Florence if she will
order us some honey like her own. I gave Mopsa your message and she sends
her love. I forgot to say Kitty was very frightened. I send you my love
and to Granmama and Auntie Florence.
Your affectionate little friend
GERTRUDE BELL.
[At the time that the above letter was written, the two children were living with their father at Redcar on the Yorkshire coast. His unmarried sister, Ada Bell, was then living with them.
Gertrude was eight when her father and I were married. She was a child of spirit and initiative, as may be imagined. Full of daring, she used to lead her little brother, whose tender years were ill equipped for so much enterprise, into the most perilous adventures, such as commanding him, to his terror, to follow her example in jumping from the top of a garden wall nine feet high to the ground. She used to alight on her feet, he very seldom did. Or she would lead a climbing expedition on to the top of the greenhouse, where Maurice was certain to go through the panes while Gertrude clambered down outside them in safety to the bottom.
They both of them rode from a very early age, and their ponies, of which they had a succession, were a constant joy.
From her early years Gertrude was devoted to flowers and to the garden. I have found a diary of hers when she was eleven. It was an imposing looking quarto volume bound in leather, apparently given her for a Christmas present in 1878 but only kept for a few pages, alas. I have left her own spelling.]
Jan. 11. 1879 Sunday--we played in liberry morning.
Feb. 11. Read Green till 9. Lessons went off rather lazily. We went into the gardin. I looked at flowers. Stilted.
Feb. 14. 1879--St. Valentines Day. I got 12 valentines. The lessons went very badly. The lessons themselves were good. Each got twopence . . . we caught a pigion we put it into a basket.
15 Feb. The pigion was brought into our room it drank some milk Maurice spilt a lot on my bed. So we went into the cuboard. Breakfast. I read all the morning. Dinner. I read all the afternoon. Tea. I played with Hugo. Mother read to us. Taught Maurice geography and read. Went to bed tired, had a little talk not fun and went to sleep.
Feb, 16 . . . . We now have out some yellow crocus and primroses snodrops and primroses. Primroses and snodrops in my garden. Crocus in Papas.
[The only remaining entry in the diary is an account of her birthday, the day she was eleven, Monday, 14th of July. The record, the celebrations, and all the presents seem amusingly childish for a little girl who was reading Green's history before breakfast, and devouring every book she could find.]
When I woke up I went to see the time. It was a quarter to seven. I woke Maurice. Then I hid my face and he got out his presents. He gave me scales a fireplace with pans kitchen furniture. Then I found under my pillow a book from nurse then we got up. When we were ready we went into Mother's room and there I found a hopping toad from Auntie Bessie dinner set from Mother, watering can from Papa. Then we went downstairs to breakfast Mother and Maurice and I cooked a dinner because it was wet. We had soup fish mince crockets Puding, cheese and butter and desert.
[Gertrude never entirely mastered the art of spelling, and all her life long there were certain words in her letters that were always spelt wrong. She always wrote 'siezed,' 'ekcercise,' 'exhorbitant.' Sometimes she wrote 'priviledge.'
The cooking lessons referred to in the diary and sometimes in the early letters did not have much praftical result. She never excelled in this art.
The two or three Years following the time described in the diaries were spent happily at Redcar with Maurice--years of playing about, and studying under a German governess, and having pet animals, of which there were always one or two on hand. There were periodical onslaughts Of grief when one of these died, grief modified by the imposing funeral procession always organised for them and burial in a special cemetery in the garden.
Gertrude's and Maurice's earliest and favourite companion from babyhood onwards, was Horace Marshall their first cousin and son of their mother's sister Mrs Thomas Marshall. Then after their father's second marriage the two Lascelles boys came into the circle as intimates and cousins, the sons of my sister Mary spoken of in the letters as Auntie Mary, wife of Sir Frank Lascelles.
Florence Lascelles, my sister's only daughter, is constantly mentioned in the letters. She was a good deal younger than her two brothers and Gertrude, but as she grew up she was always one of Gertrude's chosen friends and companions. She married Cecil Spring Rice in 1904.
When Gertrude was fifteen and Maurice had gone to school, she went, first as a day scholar and afterwards as a boarder, to Queen's College in Harley Street, where a friend of her mother's, Camilla Croudace, had just been made Lady Resident. Gertrude lived at first at 95 Sloane Street with my mother Lady Olliffe, who took her and Maurice to her heart as if they had been grandchildren of her own.
The History Lecturer at Queens College at that time was Mr. Cramb, a distinguished and inspiring teacher. Gertrude's intelligence and aptitude for history impressed him keenly, and he strongly urged us to let her go to Oxford and go in for the History School. The time had not yet come when it was a usual part of a girl's education to go to a University, and it was with some qualms that we consented. But the result justified our decision. Gertrude went to Lady Margaret Hall, in 1886 just before she was eighteen, she left it in June 1888 just before she was twenty, and wound up, after those two years, by taking a brilliant First Class in Modern History.
One of her contemporaries at Lady Margaret was Janet Hogarth, now Mrs. W. L. Courtney, who, in a delightful article contributed to the North American Review, entitled "Gertrude Bell, a personal study" and also in her interesting book "Recollected in Tranquillity," has described Gertrude as she was when she first arrived at Lady Margaret Hall-I quote both from the article and the book.
". . . . . Gertrude Lowthian Bell, the most brilliant student we ever had at Lady Margaret Hall, or indeed I think at any of the women's colleges. Her journeys in Arabia and her achievements in Iraq have passed into history. I need only recall the bright promise of her college days, when the vivid, rather untidy, auburn-haired girl of seventeen first came amongst us and took our hearts by storm with her brilliant talk and her youthful confidence in her self and her belongings. She had a most engaging way of saying 'Well you know, my father says so and so' as a final opinion on every question under discussion-[and indeed to the end of her life Gertrude, with the same absolute confidence would have been capable of still quoting the same authority as final].
"She threw herself with untiring energy into every phase of college life, she swam, she rowed, she played tennis, and hockey, she danced, she spoke in debates; she kept up with modern literature, and told us tales of modern authors, most of whom were her childhood's friends. Yet all the time she put in seven hours of work, and at the end of two years she won as brilliant a First Class in the School of Modern History as has ever been won at Oxford."
And Many years later Mrs. Courtney who had herself taken a first class (in Moral Philosophy) the same year as Gertrude, writes as follows in the 'Brown Book', which is the organ of Lady Margaret Hall:
"I never lost touch with her for well nigh forty years after we parted in the First Class, as she said the day I went round to Sloane Street to wish her joy when the History List appeared"
The untidiness in Gertrude's appearance referred to by Mrs. Courtney gradually gave place to an increasing taste for dress, and she is remembered by more than one person who saw her during the finals of the History School appearing in different clothes every day. The parents of the candidates were admitted to the 'viva voce' part of the examination, and I have a vivid picture in my memory of Gertrude, showing no trace of nervousness sitting very upright at a table, beneath which her slender feet in neat brown shoes were crossed. She was, I have since been told, one of the first young women at Oxford to wear brown shoes, of which she set the fashion among her contemporaries.
Mr. Arthur Hassall of Christchurch, Oxford, who knew her well, records the following incident of Gertrude's 'viva voce.' I quote from his letter: "S. R. Gardiner, the famous historian of the times of James I and Charles I, began to 'viva voce' Miss Bell. She replied to his first question 'I am afraid I must differ from your estimate of Charles I.' This so horrified Professor Gardiner that he at once asked the examiner who sat next to him (I think it was Mr. H. O. Wakeman) to continue the 'viva voce.'"
The result of the whole examination however did her so much credit that she may perhaps be forgiven this lapse into unparalleled audacity.
Mrs. Arthur Hassall also writes: "Gertrude went to the four balls given at Commemoration that week, of which the last was the night before her 'viva voce,' and danced all the evening looking brilliantly happy." She also writes: "she was the only girl I have ever known who took her work for the schools and her examination in a gay way."
After the happy culmination of her two years at oxford she rejoined her family in London and then at Redcar. My sister-Sir Frank Lascelles being at that time Minister--at Bucharest--begged me to send Gertrude to stay with them for the winter, after the return from Oxford, opining that frequenting foreign diplomatic Society might be a help for Gertrude "to get rid of her Oxfordy manner." My sister was very fond of Gertrude, whom she called her niece and treated like a daughter: they were the greatest friends. The effect however on Gertrude's "Oxfordy manner" of the society of foreign diplomats was not all that Lady Lascelles had hoped, for it is recorded that on one occasion when a distinguished foreign Statesman was discussing some of the international problems of Central Europe, Gertrude said to him, to the stupefaction of her listeners and the dismay of her hostess: "Il me semble, Monsieur, que vous n'avez pas saisi l'esprit du peuple allemand."
There is no doubt that according to the ordinary canons of demeanour it was a mistake for Gertrude to proffer, as we have been shown on more occasions than one, her opinions, let alone her criticisms, to her superiors in age and experience.
But it was all part of her entire honesty and independence of judgment: and the time was to come when many a distinguished foreign statesman not only listened to the opinions she proffered but accepted them and acted on them.
Gertrude hardly ever dated her letters except by the day of the week, sometimes not even that, so that where the envelope has not been preserved I have had to guess the year by the context. By some mischance none of her letters from Bucharest seems to have been preserved, but we know that she was extremely happy there, and keenly interested in her new surroundings. From Bucharest she returned to London, from London she Went to Redcar, enjoying herself everywhere. At Redcar she shouldered the housekeeping and also various activities among the women at the ironworks, Clarence, Often mentioned, being Bell Bros. ironworks on the north bank of the Tees.
Her letters of this time give a picture of her relation to the Younger children-her step-brother and her two Step-sisters, Hugo, Elsa and Molly. Hugo was ten years Younger than Gertrude, Elsa eleven years younger, Molly thirteen years. Her letters often recount what she was doing with her two little sisters who adored her. Hugo by this time had gone to school. Some letters are here given that she wrote between 1889 and 1892 during the time spent in England in one of our two homes either in London in the house shared with my mother or at Redcar, where we lived until 1904. These letters are mostly about every day happenings, always lifted into something new and exciting by Gertrude's youthful zest. Some of these early letters are to her parents, others of which fragmentary extracts are given, are to Flora Russell who remained her intimate friend all her life. Flora was the elder daughter of Lord and Lady Arthur Russell, who lived in Audley Square. The Audley Square circle, the house, the hosts, the people who used to assemble there, formed for Gertrude, as for many others, a cherished and congenial surrounding.]
To H.B.
LONDON, 1889.
. . . . The little girls spent all day with Hunt [their nurse] at her brother-in-laws. They came home at eight, radiant. Molly says he was a very kind man, he gave them strawberries and cream and lots of flowers but to their surprise he had no servants though he has a conservatory! We suppose he must be a market gardener. . . .
To F.B.
RED BARNS, 1889.
I think the reason the books were so high was because of the dinner party-it was before I began to keep house wasn't it, so I am not responsible, though I feel as if I were.
I paid everything but the butcher with what you sent, and had over 1 pound balance which I have kept for next time.
I went to Clarence to-day and arranged about the nursing lecture to-morrow,-there were a lot of things to prepare for it. Then I paid some visits and came home with Papa at 4:35. Molly and I have since been picking cowslips in the fields. It is so heavenly here with all the things coming out and the grass growing long. I am glad I'm here.
To F.B.
LONDON 1889.
I must tell you an absurd story. Minnie Hope was sitting with an Oxford man. Presently he grabbed her hand and said "do you see that young lady in a blue jacket?" "yes" said Minnie lying low. "Well," said he in an awestruck voice, "she took a first in history!!"
TO F.B.
LONDON, Friday, 14th February, 1889.
. . . . In the afternoon Sophie [my younger sister, now Mrs. H. J. Kitcat] and I walked across the Green Park to the London Library where I had a delicious rummage with a very amiable sub-librarian who routed out all the editions of Sir Th. Browne and Ph. Sidney for me to see I took down the names and dates and armed with these I felt prepared to face Bain himself.
To F.B.
LONDON, July 5th, 1889.
Billy [Lascelles] and I sat in the garden and had a long talk so long that he only left himself a quarter of an hour to catch his train. I expect he missed it. He wanted to take me with him to Paddington and send me back in a hansom, don't be afraid, I didn't go-What would have happened if I had, it was ten o'clock!
Yesterday morning I went to the French Literature class at Caroline's [Hon. Mrs Norman Grosvenor] house, I came back here, dressed, and went to Queen Street for a seven o'clock dinner-we were going to the Spanish exhibition after it.
We drove in hansoms to the exhibition and Captain ---- brought me home, I hope that doesn't shock you; I discussed religious beliefs all the way there and very metaphysical conceptions of truth all the way back-that sounds rather steep doesn't it--I love talking to people when they really will talk sensibly and about things which one wants to discuss. I am rather inclined to think however that it is a dangerous Amusement, for one is so ready to make oneself believe that the things one says and the theories one makes are really guiding principles of one's life whereas a matter of fact they are not at all. One suddenly finds that one had formulated some view from which it is very difficult to back out not because of one's interlocutor but because the mere fact of fitting it with words engraves it upon one's mind. Then one is reduced to the disagreeable necessity of trying even involuntarily to make the facts of one's real life fit into it thereby involving oneself in a mist of half-truths and half-falsehoods which cling about one's mind do what one will to shake them off.
It's so hot this morning, I went into the gardens to be cool, but presently came the babies who announced that they were barons and that they intended to rob me. I was rather surprised at their taking this view of the functions of the aristocracy, till I found that they had just been learning the reign of Stephen. Molly informed me in the pride of newly acquired knowledge that there were at least 11,000 castles in his time! So we all played at jumping over a string, not a very cooling occupation, till fortunately Miss Thomson came and called them in. Did we tell you how Molly puzzled and shocked her dreadfully the other day by asking her suddenly what was the French for "this horse has the staggers"! . . . .
To F.B.
RED BARNS, October 30, 1889.
The ladies of Clarence were friendly, and oh, unexpected joy !--their accounts came right. . . .
The children and I played the race game in the nursery. They have a great plan but unfortunately they have not hit upon any way of carrying it out, of all catching the measles and being laid up together indefinitely. It seemed to me a gruesome form of conversation and I left them discussing it and their supper very happily. They have expressed no regrets as to your absence. . . .
To F.B.
RED BARNS, November 25th, 1889
My gown came from Kerswell this morning-charming I am so glad I did not have a black one. I had a delightful dancing lesson, learnt two more parts of the sword dance, began the minuet. It is lovely, you must learn it the first dancing lesson you are here. It was so fine this afternoon, a rough sea almost up to the esplanade. I walked a long time and then came in and did history for to-morrow.
[i.e. to prepare the children's lesson for the next day. She was then teaching them history.]
To F.B.
RED BARNS, December 1, 1889
. . . . The little girls and I went out before lunch. They came up into my room and I made them some Turkish coffee After lunch, they then disappeared. I expect to see them again shortly. They had supper with me last night by which they were much amused. . . .
I have read Swinburne's Jonson which I will keep for you, it is quite excellent. I should very much like for a Christmas present Jonson's works edited by Gifford in 3 vols. not big ones I think. There are some of his masques I want to read. I don't think they are to be found anywhere else. . . .
The little girls think it is a great pity you are coming back so soon, because we are so comfortable. We shall be delighted to have you though, one's own society palls after a time.
We had a capital cooking lesson yesterday, made scones and gingerbread and boiled potatoes . . . ..
To F.B.
LONDON, 1889.
About the little girls frocks Hunt would like to have one for Molly made of cambric matching the pattern of Elsa, 16d a yard 40 in. wide: the other two one for each little girl of nainsook which is a shade finer and will she says wash better, 13d. and 38 in. wide. There are two insertions, one at 6d. not very pretty, one at 10d. very pretty indeed.
Would you like to have Molly's cambric frock trimmed with the 6d. insertion and the two nainsook frocks with the 10d or would you prefer them to be all trimmed with the cheaper insertion? The cheap insertion is not at all bad and I think it would not look otherwise than well but there is no doubt that the other is nicer. However it is also 4d a yd. dearer. . . .
Mr. Grimston says that he cannot supply us with mutton for 9d a pound, it is so dear now. I have asked the other butchers and find they are all selling it at 10d or 10+ a pound so I think it would be best to pay him 10d for legs and loins-what say you? . . . .
To F.B.
LONDON, February 12, 1890.
. . . .Met Lord ---- in Piccadilly who stopped and said Oh, how do you do? and then of course had nothing more to say. So I told him I was going to the Russells' where he said we should probably meet-and then we went our ways, It is so foolish to stop and talk in the street-one only does it out of surprise.
. . . . Miss Croudace gave me tickets for a soirée at the Old Water Colours this evening, but I have no one to take me so I can't go. . . .
To F.B.
RED BARNS, April 2nd, 1890.
I have just returned from Clarence where I found only a few mothers but some very agreeable ladies amongst them. I walked back with a very friendly lady-I wonder who she was. She lives in the New Cottages and only comes up to the other end of Clarence for the Mothers' Meeting and for confinements!
. . . . Elsa's cambric frock is quite charming. It fits her perfectly and is most becoming. I never saw her look so bewitching and so grown up too.
To F.B.
RED BARNS, April 17th, 1890.
. . . . I should like to go to the first drawing room if You could because I shall want some evening gowns and shall have none till I can use my court gown.
To F.B.
RED BARNS, April 18th, 1890.
I like the pattern you sent us very much, it is charming. I certainly think a green velvet train would be nicer than a black don't you? I am just going to Clarence so good-bye.
To F.B.
RED BARNS, Nov. 26, 1890.
. . . . The little girls and I had a peaceful evening together. They appeared about half past six and I read them selections from Stanley's letters by which they were much interested.
We looked out his route in the map. Molly was so enthusiastic that she carried the atlas and the Times up to the nurses and expounded it all to Lizzie. Elsa had great difficulty with her knitting. The stitches kept dropping in the most unaccountable way and had to be picked up from the very bottom of the cuff. 3 guinea pigs have been sold! the little girls have realised 2/6 by the transaction.
[Lizzie, first our nursery maid, then lady's maid, was Hunt's daughter. She was with us 38 years and is still in touch with us all.]
To F.B.
RED BARNS, 1890.
The children rode on donkeys this afternoon but it was not very successful for we refused the assistance of the donkey boy and consequently could not get the donkeys to move! We passed a ridiculous hour and finally left our beasts standing peacefully on the esplanade and came home. I don't think judging by their former activity that there was any fear of their escaping.
To F.B.
London, 1890.
This is just a little line to tell you how I am getting on. I had a very nice morning. Lizzie and I went out together and did some delightful shopping in Sloane Street and then walked up Piccadilly and up Bond Street and went on myself in a hansom to the National Gallery where I spent a peaceful hour.
To F.B.
LONDON, Feb. 8th, 1892.
All the sales are over I'm afraid. I went to Woollands this afternoon for the sashes, they had nothing approaching the colour, but I will find it somewhere. I am much interested about your gown, though as you rightly supposed a little sorry its black!. . . .
To-day Flora and I called on Sarah Lyttelton [now Hon. Mrs. John Bailey] and had a delightful long talk with her. I like her so much. . . I want some sashes which are either in a cardboard box or on the high shelf outside my bedroom door. If there are any ribbons I should like them too. . . .
I went to Audley Square where Henry James appeared.
To F.B.
LONDON, Feb. 14, 1892.
Horace came here about three on Saturday and we walked to Kensington Square, where I took him to call on Mrs. [J. R.] Green. It was pleasant and amusing. . . . Mrs. Green told me that Mr. York Powell had said to her-this is not a becoming story, and suited for the ears of one's immediate family only-that I was the only girl he had ever examined who knew how to use books or had read things outside the prescribed course and that he thought I had got into the heart of my subject. What a little daring it takes to deceive his misguided sex!
To F.B.
LONDON, Feb. 16th, 1892.
. . . . I ordered the buttons today at Woollands. I hope they will prove satisfactory.
I regret to announce to you the death of my trumpeter, under which painful circumstances I'm bound to tell you that Lady Edward [Cavendish] has been very complimentary about me to Auntie Mary. She is pleased to approve of me.-We all dined at Devonshire House on Thursday.
The Lytteltons have invited me to a dance of theirs on the 25 th. I shall go if Lady Arthur will take me. I suppose I can ask her.
Feb. 18th. This afternoon I called on the Lushingtons.
[She was at this time staying in London with Lady Lascelles.]
To F.B.
LONDON, Feb. 20, 1892.
We dined at Devonshire House. There were there Lady Edward, William Egerton, Alfred Lyttelton and Victor Cavendish [now Duke of Devonshire] who came in from the House announcing that he must be back in 30 minutes but finally stayed till ten. Victor C. is tremendously interested in his politics, talks of nothing else; it is very nice to see, as genuine enthusiasm always is.
To F.B.
LONDON, Feb. 22nd, 1892.
. . . . Yesterday such an absurd thing happened. Auntie Mary had gone out; Florence and I were walking together; the boys alone here, hear a ring and a voice asking for Lady Lascelles, then for me, then angrily, "Well, it's a very odd thing for I was told particularly to come here this afternoon." Presently we came in and found Lord Stanley's card-now this was very odd for Lord Stanley does not know Aunt Mary--We wondered what could be the explanation until tea time when Auntie Maisie came she said "I hear Henry is giving you Persian lessons!" Then it appeared that Grisel Ogilvie to whom I had related my attempts to find a teacher of Persian had sent him--he is a good Persian scholar. Auntie Maisie had met him at Dover Street at lunch and he had told her he was coming here to teach me--and had asked if he Would be likely to find us in. She had said "no" but he had come all the same. . . .
I had another offer of lessons on Saturday afternoon at Miss Green's from Mr. Strong. I feel I shall end by receiving special instruction from the Shah in person. . .
To F.B.
London, Feb. 26th, 1892.
I have been paying a visit to Maclagan this morning. Which I think was wise as I have been feeling tired and unenergetic lately. He gave me a tonic and told me to take care of myself and not do too much. . . .
It was pleasant at Mansfield Street. Mr. William Peel, Horace, Diana, Harold, Grisel, Mildred Hugh Smith. [Horace Marshall, Diana Russell, Harold Russell, Lady Grisel Ogilvie and Mildred Hugh Smith, now Countess Buxton, G.B.E.]
Uncle Lyulph presently went to sleep; Harold, Mildred and I had a long and amusing talk together which lasted all the evening. She is such a nice girl.
On Thursday I walked in the afternoon with Flora and went back with her to tea. . . .
The Stanley dance was extraordinarily successful. There were about 20 little girls and ten big ones and a few young men. We danced wildly with the children and the young men. At eight a kind of elaborate tea was provided for the children and for us a small dinner of soup and cutlets and so on. Uncle Lyulph was quite taken aback by the splendor of his party, "I knew we should have something to eat," he said, "but this gloat I certainly did not expect." He was so much pleased by the success of the evening that Auntie Maisie thinks he will let her give a real grown up ball. . . .
["Uncle Lyulph," then Lord Stanley of Alderley, afterwards Lord Sheffield. "Auntie Maisie," now Lady Sheffield.]
[During this year, there are very few letters to her family. I have inserted a few extracts from her letters to Flora Russell, recording some of her doings.]
To Flora Russell
REDCAR, Jan. 4, 1892
My DEAREST FLORA,
* * * *I had a long and delightful letter from Clara the other night, she
is a person who charms and interests me immensely
[Clara Grant Duff, now Mrs. Huth Jackson].
To the same.
RED BARNS, Jan. 10, 1892.
Lady Arthur's approval is very well worth having, and I am grateful to you for telling me of it. . . .
To the same.
RED BARNS, Jan. 23, 1892.
We have spent a racketing fortnight dancing and acting; I am just beginning to fall back into my usual peaceful frame of mind which is rather difficult to regain. I feel to have got rather behindhand with the whole world during the course of it and that I must hurry along very fast to catch it up again. But it's the old world I really want to catch up. I have just got to an inviting stage in my Latin when I feel there is really no reason I shouldn't read anything-and as a matter of fact I can read nothing without dictionaries and great labour. The slough of despond is nothing to it. But I mean to wade on diligently for the next fortnight and stumble as best I may over the horrid catching briars of prepositions and conjunctive moods. . . .
To the same.
RED BARNS, August 13, 1892.
We spent a madly amusing five days at Canterbury, of which nothing remains to tell except that we danced every night, saw a good deal of cricket and talked a little. . . .
Do you remember discussing what other girls do with their days? Well! I have found out what one particular class does-they spend the entire time in rushing from house to house for cricket weeks, which means cricket all day and dancing all night; your party consists of an eleven and enough girls to pair off with-you discuss byes and wides and Kemp at the wicket and Hearne's batting and any other topic Of a similar nature that may occur to you. It seems to me to be rather a restless sort of summer. . . .
To the same.
RED BARNS, July 22, 1892.
The Lascelles are moved to Teheran which is rather thrilling. They are coming back to England now and my uncle goes to Persia in October, my aunt later, I don't know when. I should like her to take me out with her, Persia is the place I have always longed to see, but I don't know if she will.
I expect my aunt will be rather annoyed for she will hate being so far away, but it is a great promotion. As for me if only I go there this winter everything will have turned out for the best.
I wear a blue-green velvet in my hair which is becoming.
To the same.
RED BARNS, Dec. 23, 1892.
I have been reading Latin with great energy. It's a language of which I know very little but whose difficulties must be mastered somehow for I constantly find myself brought up against a blank wall by my ignorance of it. It is very interesting to learn but I could wish it were a little easier. . . .
To the same.
RED BARNS, 1892.
This is for the private eye: Bentley wishes to publish my Persian things, but wants more of them, so after much hesitation I have decided to let him and I am writing him another six chapters. It's rather a bore and what's more I would vastly prefer them to remain unpublished. I wrote them you see to amuse myself and I have got all the fun out of them I ever expect to have, for modesty apart they are extraordinarily feeble. Moreover I do so loathe people who rush into print and fill the world with their cheap and nasty work and now I am going to be one of them. At first I refused, then my mother thought me mistaken and my father was disappointed and as they are generally right I have given way. But in my heart I hold very firmly to my first opinion. Don't speak of this. I wish them not to be read.
To the same.
RED BARNS, Jan. 28, 1892.
I read a certain amount of history with the children's lessons, for exercise, and the works of Balzac for amusement. Dante for edification. It's an agreeable and a varied programme.
[Gertrude went to Teheran, to her great joy, in the spring of 1892. Her letters from Persia, of which there were a good many, are like those from Roumania unfortunately not to be found. The only one we have is addressed to her cousin Horace Marshall, written from Gula Hek, the exquisite summer resort of the British Legation.]
To Horace Marshall
GULAHEK, June 18, 1892.
DEAR COUSIN MINE,
Are we the same people I wonder when all our surroundings, associations,
and acquaintances are changed? Here that which is me, which womanlike is
an empty jar that the passer by fills at pleasure, is filled with such
wine as in England I had never heard of, now the wine is more important
than the jar when one is thirsty, therefore I conclude, cousin mine, that
it is not the person who danced with you at Mansfield St. that writes to
you to-day from Persia-Yet there are dregs, English sediments at the
bottom of my sherbet, and perhaps they flavour it more than I think.
Anyhow I remember you as a dear person in a former existence, whom I
should like to drag into this one and to guide whose spiritual coming I
will draw paths in ink. And others there are whom I remember yet not with
regret but as one might remember people one knew when one was an
inhabitant of Mars 20 centuries ago. How big the world is, how big and
how wonderful. It comes to me as ridiculously presumptuous that I should
dare to carry my little personality half across it and boldly attempt
to measure with it things for which it has no table of measurements that
can possibly apply. So under protest I write to you of Persia: I am not
me, that is my only excuse. I am merely pouring out for you some of what
I have received during the last two months.
Well in this country the men wear flowing robes of green and white and brown, the women lift the veil of a Raphael Madonna to look at you as you pass; wherever there is water a luxuriant vegetation springs up and where there is not there is nothing but stone and desert. Oh the desert round Teheran! miles and miles of it with nothing, nothing; ringed in with bleak bare mountains snow crowned and furrowed with the deep courses of torrents. I never knew what desert was till I came here; it is a very wonderful thing to see; and suddenly in the middle of it all, out of nothing, out of a little cold water, springs up a garden. Such a garden! trees, fountains, tanks, roses and a house in it, the houses which we heard of in fairy tales when we were little: inlaid with tiny slabs of looking-glass in lovely patterns, blue tiled, carpeted, echoing with the sound of running water and fountains. Here sits the enchanted prince, solemn, dignified, clothed in long robes. He comes down to meet you as you enter, his house is yours, his garden is yours, better still his tea and fruit are yours, so are his kalyans (but I think kalyans are a horrid form of smoke, they taste to me of charcoal and paint and nothing else.) By the grace of God your slave hopes that the health of your nobility is well? It is very well out of his great kindness. Will your magnificence carry itself on to this cushion? Your magnificence sits down and spends ten minutes in bandying florid compliments through an interpreter while ices are served and coffee, after which you ride home refreshed, charmed, and with many blessings on your fortunate head. And all the time your host was probably a perfect stranger into whose privacy you had forced yourself in this unblushing way. Ah, we have no hospitality in the west and no manners. I felt ashamed almost before the beggars in the street-they wear their rags with a better grace than I my most becoming habit, and the veils of the commonest women (now the veil is the touchstone on which to try a woman's toilette) are far better put on than mine. A veil should fall from the top of your head to the soles of your feet, of that I feel convinced, and it should not be transparent.
Say, is it not rather refreshing to the spirit to lie in a hammock strung between the plane trees of a Persian garden and read the poems of Hafiz-in the original mark you!-out of a book curiously bound in stamped leather which you have bought in the bazaars. That is how I spend my mornings here; a stream murmurs past me which Zoroastrian gardeners guide with long handled spades into tiny sluices leading into the flower beds all around. The dictionary which is also in my hammock is not perhaps so poetic as the other attributes let us hide it under our muslin petticoats.
This also is pleasant: to come in at 7 o'clock in the morning after a two hours' ride, hot and dusty, and find one's cold bath waiting for one scented with delicious rose water, and after it an excellent and longed for breakfast spread in a tent in the garden.
What else can I give you but fleeting impressions caught and hardened out of all knowing? I can tell you of a Persian merchant in whose garden, stretching all up the mountain side, we spent a long day, from dawn to sunset, breakfasting, lunching, teaing on nothing but Persian foods. He is noted for his hospitality every evening parties of friends arrive unexpectedly "he goes out, entertains them" said the Persian who told me about it, "spreads a banquet before them and relates to them stories half through the night. Then cushions are brought and carpeted mattresses and they lie down in one of the guest houses in the garden and sleep till dawn when they rise and repair to the bath in the village." Isn't it charmingly like the Arabian Nights! but that is the charm Of it all and it has none of it changed; every day I meet our aged kalendars and ladies who I am sure have suits of Swans feathers laid up in a chest at home., and some time when I open a new jar of rose water I know that instead of a sweet smell, the great smoke of one of Suleiman's afreets will come out of its neck.
In the garden there are big deep tanks where in the evenings between tennis and dinner I often swim in the coldest of cold water. Before we left Teheran when it was too hot to sleep, I used to go out at dawn and swim under the shadow of the willows. We were very glad to leave Teheran though we liked the house there. It began to be very stuffy and airless; here, though we are only 6 miles away, there is always air, except perhaps between two and four in the afternoon when one generally sleeps. We are much higher up and much nearer the hills and all round us are watered fields where the corn is almost ripe for cutting The joy of this climate! I do think an English summer will be very nice after it.
I learn Persian, not with great energy, one does nothing with energy here. My teacher is a delightful old person bright eyes and a white turban who knows so little French (French is our medium) that he can neither translate poets to me nor explain any grammatical difficulties. But we get on admirably nevertheless and spend much of our time in long philosophic discussions carried on by me in French an by him in Persian. His point of view is very much that of an oriental Gibbon, though with this truly oriental distinction, that he would never dream of acknowledging in words or acts his scepticism to one of his own countrymen. It would be tacitly understood between them and their intercourse would be continued on the basis of perfect agreement. Now this is a great simplification and promotes, I should imagine, the best of good manners. . . .
Goodbye, write to me and tell me how the world goes with you.
[This letter, bearing the impress of her youth, shows the first effect on Gertrude's mind of the impact of the East. It practically summarises her impressions. We have further records of them in a book she wrote the year after her return, published by Bentley in 1894, entitled "safar Nameh " i.e., "Persian Pictures," in which the life of the town and of the bazaars, the desolate places so strangely near them, the dwellers in the tents, the divine Persian gardens and many other aspects of her surroundings, are described with the glowing eagerness of a first experience. The little book attracted attention and was favourably reviewed.. I have dwelt on it here, for the interest of comparing it in one's mind with the books of Eastern travel Gertrude was to publish many years later, when she was no longer a spectator only, but a sharer to the full in the Eastern life that she described.
She had, as we have seen in many of the letters, a special and very valuable gift, that of forming extremely vivid impressions, whether of places or of human beings. She would dive beneath the surface, estimating, judging, characterising in a few words that were not often mistaken. She would ride through a countryside and report on its conditions, human, agricultural, economic, and her report would be adopted. When she came into contact with human beings, whether chiefs of the desert or men and women of her own Western world, she would label them, after her first meeting with them, in a sentence.
I am not pretending that her judgments were always infallible. But on the whole they were correct often enough to enable her to thread her way successfully through the labyrinth of her experiences.
It was characteristic of Gertrude, and it was an inestimable advantage to her, that she insisted on learning Persian before going to Teheran. She arrived there knowing as it is commonly called, the language, i.e., able to understand what she heard and what she read. But she had not yet reached the stage in which the learner of a language finds with rapture that a new knowledge has been acquired, the illuminating stage when not the literal meaning only of words is being understood, but their values and differences can be critically appreciated. It was not long before Gertrude was reading Persian Poetry by this light and with the added understanding brought to her by her knowledge of Western literature.
She was wont when she was at home and someone asked her a question about history to reply with a laugh " Oh! that is not my period," although it must be confessed that an answer to the question was generally forthcoming. But in literature it would be hard to say offhand what was her " period."
She published a translation of the Divan of Hafiz in 1897. The book includes a life of Hafiz, which is practically a history of his times as well as a critical study of his work. These, and the notes on his poems at the end of the book, show how wide was her field of comparison. She draws a parallel between Hafiz and his contemporary Dante: she notes the similarity of a passage with Goethe: she compares Hafiz with Villon, on every side gathering fructifying examples which link together the inspiration of the West and of the East.
The book on its publication was extremely well received.
I quote here from two of the translations.]
TO HAFIZ OF SHIRAZ
(Two first stanzas)
Thus said the Poet: " When Death comes to YOU, All ye whose life-sand through the hour-glass slips, He lays two fingers on your ears, and two Upon your eyes he lays, one on your lips, Whispering: Silence. "Although deaf thine ear, Thine eye, my Hafiz, suffer Time's eclipse, The songs thou sangest still all men may hear.
Songs of dead laughter, songs of love once hot, Songs of a cup once flushed rose-red with wine, Songs of a rose whose beauty is forgot, A nightingale that piped hushed lays divine: And still a graver music runs beneath The tender love notes of those songs of thine, Oh, Seeker of the keys of Life and Death!"
DIVAN OF HAFIZ x1v
(From poem on the death of his son)
The nightingale with drops of his heart's blood Had nourished the red rose, then came a wind, And catching at the boughs in envious mood, A hundred thorns about his heart entwined, Like to the parrot crunching sugar, good Seemed the world to me who could not stay The wind of Death that swept my hopes away. Light of mine eyes and harvest of my heart, And mine at least in changeless memory! Ah! when he found it easy to depart, He left the harder pilgrimage to me!
Oh Camel-driver, though the cordage start, For God's sake help me lift my fallen load, And Pity be my comrade of the road! He sought a lodging in the grave--too soon! I had not castled, and the time is gone. What shall I play? Upon the chequered floor Of Night and Day, Death won the game--forlorn And careless now, Hafiz can lose no more.
Gertrude, who was an ardent lover of poetry all her life long, and who kept abreast of the work of the moderns as well as of their predecessors, seemed, strangely enough, after the book of Hafiz had appeared, to consider her own gift of verse as a secondary pursuit, and to our surprise abandoned it altogether. But that gift has always seemed to me to underlie all she has written. The spirit of poetry coloured all her prose descriptions, all the pictures that she herself saw and succeeded in making others see.
It was a strangely interesting ingredient in a character capable on occasion of very-definite hardness and of a deliberate disregard of sentiment: and also in a mental equipment which included great practical ability and statesmanlike grasp of public affairs.
But in truth the real basis of Gertrude's nature Was her capacity for deep emotion. Great joys came into her life, and also great sorrows. How could it be otherwise with a temperament so avid of experience? Her ardent and magnetic personality drew the lives of others into hers as she passed along.
She returned to England from Teheran in December of 1892. In January 1893 we find her starting for Switzerland and northern Italy with Mary Talbot, a beloved friend who had been with her at Lady Margaret Hall. Mary Talbot married the Rev. W. O. Burrows, now Bishop of Chichester, in 18 96. She died, to Gertrude's great sorrow, in 1897.
In April she went to Algiers with her father to stay with some of his relations, afterwards going back to Switzerland, and then joining Maurice, who was established in a German family at Weimar that he might learn the language. Needless to say that as soon as Gertrude arrived at Weimar she arranged to have German lessons, and went three times a week to talk with " a delightful old lady living in whose house do you think?--Frau von Stein's!" Her letters all through these travels from the beginning of the year are as usual amusing and full of observation, whether describing the flamboyant setting of the foreign residents at Algiers or the trim traditional life of the ladies of Weimar. But it is not worth while to take up space by accounts of routes already well- trodden, or places and social surroundings well known.
Gertrude came back to England from Germany in the early summer of 1893 and does not seem to have gone abroad again until the spring of 1896. There are no letters of the two intervening years. and unfortunately no records. In the spring of 1896 Gertrude travelled in the north of Italy, first in the company of Mrs. Norman Grosvenor and then of Mrs. J. R. Green, both of whom were her dear friends. Her father was with her part of the time.
They stayed in Venice, they stayed in Florence. As might be expected, on her arrival in Italy, Gertrude at once arranged to have Italian lessons. She writes from Venice "At 3 I had my parlatrice until 4. "
The Talbots (now General the Hon. Sir Reginald and Lady Talbot) were staying in Florence, which was a great added enjoyment. Lady Talbot was Mrs. Grosvenor's sister.
After Gertrude's return from Italy she was at home until the end of the year.]
To F.B.
LONDON, 1896.
One line to say we had a most amusing party at the Portsmouths yesterday. I made the acquaintance of Miss Haldane, whom I have long wished to know, and I am going to tea with her tomorrow. Haldane was most complimentary about my book--which I think he hasn't read by the way. A delightful review in the Athenaeum.
E. and I dined with the Stracheys first--very pleasant, we four, St. Loe had just finished reviewing my book!
Flora lunched to-day and we went out together afterwards. Tomorrow I have a Buddhist Committee lunch.
I wrote my review of Lafcadio this morning, the sort of blissful morning when one suddenly realises at the end of a few hours that one has been quite unconscious of the passing Of time. I'm just going to finish it now.
Moll looked charming last night.
To F.B.
LONDON, Feb. 12th, 1896.
I Studied my grammar this morning and went to the London Library where I looked through volumes and volumes of Asiatic Societies . . . and found little to my purpose.
To F.B.
LONDON, Thursday, Feb. 14th, 1896.
I had a very nice evening with the Ritchies--Pinkie Was there and she played the piano, and we talked (not wile she played) and it was very merry. They are looking very well. I think they are coming to you for Easter.
I came away rather early for I had a lesson at 5. My Pundit was extremely pleased with me, he kept congratulating Me on my proficiency in the Arabic tongue! I think his other pupils must be awful duffers. It is quite extraordinarily interesting to read the Koran with him-and it is such a magnificent book! He has given me some Arabian Nights for the next time and I have given him some Hafiz poems to read, so we shall see what we shall see. He is extremely keen about the Hafiz book. . . .
To F.B.
LONDON, Feb. 17, 1896.
This morning I stayed in and read some most illuminating articles on Sufyism. There's a lot to know but I guess I'll know some of it before I've done. I expect I shall get my reading ticket to-morrow.
To F.B.
LONDON, Feb. 24, 1896.
My Pundit brought back my poems yesterday-he is really pleased with them. I asked him if he thought they were worth doing and he replied that indeed he did. He is full of offers of assistance and wants to read all that I have done, which from a busy man is, I think, the best proof that he likes what he has seen. Arabic flies along-I shall soon be able to read the Arabian Nights for fun.
To F.B.
LONDON, 1896.
My domino is going to be so nice and it will cost me very little for it is all made of a beautiful piece of white stuff Papa gave me in Algiers. Lizzie is making it. . . .
Give my love to Lisa. [Elizabeth Robins, the dear friend of us all, and the constant guest--then as now.] I wish I could come and have a long talk with her to-night over the fire.
To H. B.
PALAZZO GRITTI (VENICE), Saturday, April 14th, 1896.
Mrs. Green went in the morning to see Lady Layard, who offered us her gondola to go out and see the arrival of the Emperor. Meanwhile I went and called upon the Wards who are at the Hôtel de l'Europe and found them all and combined many meetings. Dorothy and Arnold walked me home.
At 2Mrs. Green and I started out in a splendid gondola and went nearly to the Lido amidst a crowd of boats. It was very gorgeous for the Municipio appeared in splendid gondolas hung with streamers and emblems and rowed by 8 gondoliers in fancy dresses of different colours. About 3 the Hohenzollern steamed in through the Lido port, a magnificent great white ship with all the sailors dressed in white and standing in lines upon the deck. The guns fired, the ships in the harbour saluted and all the people cheered. The Hohenzollern anchored nearly opposite the Piazzetta and we saw the King and Queen and a crowd of splendid officers Come up in a steam launch all hung with blue. They went on board the Hohenzollern and presently we saw them all go away again with the Emperor and his two little boys. We were much amused, and for magnificence there never was anything like a festa with the Ducal Palace for background. It was a very imperial way of arriving to steam up in your gorgeous white ship. I only wished it had not been that Particular emperor we were welcoming.
To H. B.
VENICE, PALAZZO GRITTI, Thurrsday, April, 1896.
Mrs. Green and I went out in a gondola and saw the sun set behind the Euganean Hills. . . . she is a great dear. . . .
To H. B.
FLORENCE, Sunday, April, 1896.
Caroline [Grosvenor] is a delightful companion-we are particularly happy.
To F.B.
LONDON, May 7th, 1896.
I had a real busy morning and settled all my summer clothes and ordered a gown at Mrs. Widdicombe's. I hope it will be ready before you come as I should like you to pronounce upon it. Tomorrow I intend to spend an hour or two over my Hafiz things and get them all straight.
To F.B.
LONDON, Saturday, May 13th, 1896.
I went to the British Museum on my bicycle this morning. It adds a great joy to my studies and I feel all the brisker for it. The children have had a tennis court marked in the square. I am just going out to see! them play. They are looking blooming and are such angels! However we will try not to be too foolish about our family.
To F.B.
LONDON, Sat., May, 1896.
. . . I was invited to Lady Lockwood's dance but I really couldn't be bothered to hunt up a chaperon and go to it. . . .
To F.B.
LONDON, Monday, May 11th, 1896.
. . . About the children's flower gowns--we finally decided that the cheapest and best thing we could do was to trim the gowns with field flowers (artificial of course), buttercups) daisies and forget-me-nots. We have cut a sort of ruche of tulle round the bottom of the skirt with little bunches of flowers tucked into it, and hung flowers from the neck and from the waist in little streams--on the whole I think this plan has made as much show as possible for as little money and the dresses look quite charming . . . I hope I've done right about it. The children were extremely anxious to have their gowns very flowery. Elsa was inclined to think that they didn't look flowery enough as it was, but we all assured her they were very very nice, and I really think 15/- is enough to have spent on this absurd amusement. . . .
To F. B.
LONDON, 1896.
We had a very merry dinner and started out about ten, along the embankment, the Strand and through the City to the Tower Bridge, then home by Holborn Viaduct and oxford Street. The Strand was pretty full but the City quite empty, all brilliantly lighted and the asphalt pavement excellent good going. It was a delicious night with a little moon and I enjoyed it extremely. We went back to supper with the Tyrrells and I was not in till 1:30. However I went off after breakfast to the Museum where I asked for a book they' hadn't got! It is rather funny that I should have exhausted the whole British Museum in a fortnight, but it's also a bore, for I wanted a nice French translation and now I shall have to fall back on the original Persian which they have. . . .
I have told Lizzie about the bonnet and cloak so you will find them ready.
To F.B.
LONDON, May 15th, 1896.
Our party last night was a great success, the babies looked charming. I was much complimented upon their appearance. It was most amusing being a chaperon. I sat on a bench and watched them dancing round and knew just what you felt like at Oxford. . . .
To F.B.
LONDON, Thursday, May, 1896.
went up to the Museum this morning and read a Persian life of Hafiz with a Latin crib. I think I got at the meaning of it with the help of a Persian dictionary, but a Latin translation is not so clear to me as it might be. . . . I didn't go to Lady Pollock's on Tuesday, because I had Promised to go to a party at Audley Square and I couldn't combine the two unchaperoned. Audley Square was amusing . .. I am going down to Caroline (in Kent) for Whitsuntide. I want to bicycle down on Saturday if I can get an escort, it's only 17 miles, and send my luggage by train. London is beginning to feel very Whitsuntidy. Beatrice Clementi came to see me this afternoon just before I went out. She is to be married in November. . . [to Sir Douglas Brownrigg, Bt., now Rear-Admiral, retired.]
To H.B.
LONDON, June, 1896.
It is very close here and has been raining a good deal think of ordering a tasteful costume for Ascot consisting of a short skirt, a waterproof and a large umbrella. Florence and I arranged the flowers at 95 and did the dinner table at 90 most elegantly--I dine there to-night. The rest of the party are Lady Edward John Cavendish and Mr. Chirol. Then I had a long talk with Auntie Mary, who seems very brisk and well.
I took Florence with me to try on my gown and we walked together in the Square until a storm of rain came on and drove us in.
Auntie Maisie asks me to dine with her Friday and go to a ball, and Maurice is to come to dinner if she can possibly find a place for him, and at any rate to come in directly after dinner and go to the ball too.
To F.B.
LONDON, Thursday, June, 1896.
. . . We have had a most delightful day. We started about 10:30, Gerald, Florence, Uncle Frank and I, got to Ascot half an hour before the first race, which we saw from the top of the Royal Enclosure Stand; then we lunched in the Bachelors' tent, Billy being our host, and I sat next Colonel Talbot and was much amused. He had a Carpenter niece with him. Then we went back and saw all the races over the railing of the Royal enclosure, which is just opposite the winning post. The family had small bets on, mostly unsuccessful (I didn't bet, I need not say). . . .
At the end of all we had tea in the Guards' tent and came home very comfortably, getting in about 7:30. I am going again to-morrow. . . .
My gown was a dream and was much admired. I am going this evening with Auntie Mary and Florence and the Johnsons to sit out of doors in the Imperial Institute and listen to the band-rather nice as it is very hot.
Florence and I did amuse ourselves so much! What a dear Lord Granville is. . . .
To F. B.
LONDON, July 14th, 1896.
Thank you very much for your letter and will you thank the little girls for me, I have no time to write to them to-day. Hugo came up in great form and we started off to Lord's together, but on the way discovered that he had lost the blue tassel on his umbrella, which saddened us dreadfully! So we tried in many shops to get one, and failed alas! However we were Comforted at Lord's when we saw that many many Eton boys had no tassel! We had the most excellent places, we carried our lunch with us and supplemented it with green-gages, after eating which we both made fervent wishes as they were the first we had eaten this year. I asked Hugo what he had wished, to which he replied, "Why I wished Eton might win--what in the world is there to wish for besides? He was such a darling!
To F. B.
LONDON, 1896.
I saw Heinemann this morning. He was extremely pleasant. I told him a lot about the book and he expressed a desire to see it. So at any rate it will have a reading. I shall send him the poems and preface from Berlin, Mr. Strong cannot come to town and has not yet finished the preface. . . .
[In January 1897 we find her starting for the British Embassy at Berlin. Her first letter is sent from the station at York.]
To F.B.
YORK, Jan. 6th, 1897.
I can't conceive what I am doing in this station, nor why I am going away. It's too silly. I wish I were stopping quietly at home.
All sorts of smart people on this platform! One begins to realise what the world is like when one gets to York, doesn't one. Never mind, I'll be smart too presently!
To F.B.
BERLIN, Saturday, Jan. 1897.
The reason why I had not sent the poems to H. was because Mr. Strong has not yet sent me back the preface. . . . I hope I may get it by the next bag. Meantime I have sent the 30 poems with their notes to H. and explained to him why the preface is not with them and apologised for the delay.
To her sister.
BERLIN, Jan. 22nd, 1897.
DEAREST ELSA,
I made my bow to the 'Kaiser Paar' on Wednesday. It was a very fine show.
We drove to the Schloss in the glass coach and were saluted by the guard
when we arrived. We felt very swell! Then we waited for a long time with
all the other dips. in a room next to the throne room and at about 8 the
doors were thrown open. We all hastily arranged one another's trains and
marched in procession while the band played the march out of Lohengrin.
The Emperor and Empress were standing on a dais at the end of the room
and we walked through a sort of passage made by rows and rows of pages
dressed in pink. The 'Allerbôchst' looked extremely well in a red
uniform--I couldn't look at the Empress much as I was so busy avoiding
Aunt Mary's train. She introduced me and then stood aside while I made
two curtseys. Then I wondered what the dickens I should do next, but Aunt
Mary made me a little sign to go out behind her, so I 'enjambéd' her
train and fled!
To F.B.
BERLIN, Jan. 24th, 1897.
. . . . The Princess Frederic Leopold's ladies asked when I was going to be introduced to her . . . . we arranged that I should be presented during the first polka of the first Court ball. . . .
To F.B.
BERLIN, Monday Jan. 25th, 1897.
. . . We have been skating all the afternoon with surprising energy, A very ridiculous thing happened-I had retired into a secluded corner and put my muff down to make a centre round which to skate a figure, when suddenly I was aware of a short fat German gentleman arriving into the middle of my figure on his back. He picked up my muff and himself and handed them both to me, so to speak, with a low bow. . . . We propose if the frost lasts making a big party, sledging down to Potsdam and skating there. I hope it will come off, it Would be very amusing. . . .
To F.B.
BERLIN, Thursday, Jan. 28th, 1897.
On Thursday afternoon I went with Aunt Mary to see Florence perform the gavotte. A great 'Probe' at the Kaiserhof to which all the people who were going to dance at the Court Ball came . . . . After the lesson was over there were a couple of waltzes, so I offed with my coat and danced too. There is a rather nice sort of variant of the 'pas de quatre' which they call the 'pas de patineur' which I quickly learnt. . . .
To F.B.
BERLIN, Tuesday, 1897.
. . . .F. and I went to see Henry IV last night, the Emperor having invited all the Embassy to come to the royal box. Uncle F. and Aunt M. were dining with the Frederic Leopolds so they were obliged to decline the box for themselves but the Emperor said that he hoped we should go as we should be chaperoned by Countess Keller, one of the ladies-in-waiting. Accordingly we went off by ourselves and sat very comfortably with Countess Keller in the second row of chairs-no one might sit in the front row even when the royalties were not in the box. All the Embassy and a lot of the Court people were with us, the Emperor and Empress were in a little box at the side. The play was very well done. The Falstaff excellent and the whole thing beautifully staged. There was no pause till the end of the second act when there was a long entr'acte. Countess Keller bustled away and presently came hurrying back and whispered something to Knesebeck and Egloffstein, two of the Court people, and they came and told F. and me that we were sent for. So off we went rather trembling, under the escort of Countess K. and Egloffstein who conducted us into a little tiny room behind the Emperor's box where we found the 'Kaiser Paar' sitting and having tea. We made deep curtseys and kissed the Empress's hand, and then we all sat down, F. next to the Emperor and I next to the Empress and they gave us tea and cakes. It was rather formidable though they were extremely kind. The Emperor talked nearly all the time; he tells us that no plays of Shakespeare were ever acted in London and that we must have heard tell that it was only the Germans who had really studied or really understood Shakespeare. One couldn't contradict an Emperor, so we said we had always been told so. Egloffstein's chair broke in the middle of the party and he came flat on to the ground which created a pleasing diversion-I was so glad it wasn't mine! Countess K. was a dear and started a new subject whenever the conversation languished. After about 20 minutes the Empress got up, we Curtseyed to her, shook hands with the Emperor. Florence thanked him very prettily for sending for us and we bowed ourselves out. Wasn't it amusing! Florence said she felt shy but she looked perfectly self-possessed and had the prettiest little air in the world as she sat talking to the Emperor. I felt rather frightened, but I did not mind much as I knew I need do nothing but follow Florence's lead. The Empress sits very upright and is rather alarming. He flashes round from one person to the other and talks as fast as possible and is not alarming at all. . . . We go again to-night to the second part . . . but we shall not be sent for as Uncle Frank and Aunt Mary will be there.
To F. B.
BERLIN, Feb. 5th, 1897.
. . . .The Court Ball on Wednesday was a fine show. We were asked for eight o'clock and at a quarter past we formed up for waiting. The ambassadresses sat on a line of chairs to the left of the throne in the Weiser Saal, and we stood meekly behind them. After about half an hour someone tapped tapped on the floor with a wand and in came a long procession of pages followed by the 'Kaiser Paar' and all the 'Furstliche Personen.' The whole room bobbed down in deep curtseys as they came in . . . . In to supper . . . . back to the ball room. The room was almost empty and the few people that were there were dancing the 'trois temps'--one is only allowed to dance the 'deux temps' when the Empress is there. It was a very delicious half-hour for the floor is peerless and all these officers dance so well. Then followed the gavotte which Florence danced very prettily.
To H. B.
BERLIN, Feb. 8th, 1897
I wish you many many happy returns of your birthday and may your children become less and less tiresome with every succeeding year!. . . .
The house is all upside down for the ball. Wherever one goes one finds lines and lines of waiters arranging tables. We can seat 340 people at supper. There are to be tables in all the ball rooms, the Chancery ante-room and even the big bedroom. We all intend to bring our partners up to the big bedroom which makes a delightful supper-room. Florence and I went into the kitchen this morning and inspected the food. I never saw so many eatables together. . . .
To F.B.
BERLIN, Feb. 10th, 1897.
* * * *It was a great success and very splendid. Florence and I were of course (as it was in our own house) covered with bows and loaded with flowers. There were supper tables in all the drawing-rooms--it looked extremely nice. . . .
I went to tea with Marie von Bunsen and stayed till past 7. She is most interesting. . . .
To F.B.
BERLIN, Feb. 12th, 1897.
The Court Ball on Wednesday was much nicer than the first one. . . . The Emperor wore a gorgeous Austrian uniform in honour of an Austrian Archduke who was there--the brother of the man who is heir to the throne. He will be Emperor himself someday as the heir is sickly and unmarried. The Emperor William is disappointing when one sees him close; he looks puffy and ill and I never saw anyone so jumpy. He is never still a second while he is talking. . . .
Uncle Frank is in a great jig about Crete. He thinks there is going to be red war and an intervention of the Powers and all sorts of fine things. I wonder.
To F.B.
BERLIN, Feb. 14th, 1897.
. . . . Florence and I spent the most heavenly morning at the 'Haupt Probe'. . . Since then we have been bicycling round the house for exercise as it is raining and we could not go out. . . .
On Friday Mr. Acton, Mr. Spring Rice and Lord Granville dined with us. After dinner we played hide and seek till we were so hot we could play no longer and finished up the evening with pool and baccarat . . . . I went to the National Gallery to see the modern pictures . . . .I had been reading about modern German painters and knew what I wanted to look at. . . . Should like to go out but I mayn't go by myself. So I suppose I can't!
To F.B.
BERLIN, Feb. 17th, 1897.
[The play referred to in this letter is the second part of Henry IV.]
We had a most exciting evening at the play yesterday. We were all sent for in the entr'acte. We had a very agreeable tea with the Emperor and Empress and her sister. . . . It was like an act out of another historical drama--but a modern one. A sheaf of telegrams were handed to the Emperor as we sat at tea. He and Uncle fell into an excited conversation in low voices; we talked on to the Empress trying to pretend we heard nothing but catching scraps of the Emperor's remarks, " Crete . . . . Bulgaria . . . . Serbia . . . . mobilizing," and so forth. The Empress kept looking up at him anxiously; she is terribly perturbed about it all and no wonder for he is persuaded that we are all on the brink of war. . . .
[Gertrude came back to England at the beginning of March. My sister Mary Lascelles died on April 3rd, after three days' illness. Her death made a terrible gap in Gertrude's life.]
To F.B.
REDCAR, April 7th, 1897.
I have been to Clarence to-day-it was no use sitting and moping so I thought I had better make myself useful if I could. . . .
[In August of that year we all went to the Dauphiné, staying at La Grave under the shadow of the Meije, objective of all Dauphin climbers, This holiday makes an epoch, as it was the beginning of Gertrude's climbing experiences, although this year she did nothing very adventurous.
She went over the Brèche with two guides, slept at the refuge, came down over the Col des Cavales and proudly strode back into the village next morning between her guides, well pleased with herself.
She was at home with us all the rest of the year.
On the 29th December 1897 Gertrude and her brother Maurice left home for Southampton, to embark on a voyage round the world.
Gertrude kept a diary letter on the voyage. She posts from Jamaica, Guatemala, San Francisco--wherever she had an opportunity. It is not worth while reproducing all that she and Maurice saw on this well-known route, which has so often been described. They enjoyed it all, taking part in the unpretentious diversions of a voyage. They asked the Captain's permission to mark out a golf course on board, which had a great success.]
"There are a lot of children on board, with whom I have made friends," she writes.
"Eight of us are playing a piquet tournament: I am first-favourite at present."
(Then there was a ball on board.]
"We took a great deal of trouble to make it go, Maurice was the life and soul of it."
[Then we are told of]
"a partial eclipse of the moon, seated in the stalls, so to speak, our deck chairs. It was most luxuriously arranged by nature."
"I won the piquet tournament to the great joy of the other members of the party."
[She and Maurice returned to London in June.
In September, after a delightful two months in the West of Scotland--we had taken the Manse at Spean Bridge for the summer--Gertrude is at Redcar again, enchanted to return to her books.]
To F.B.
REDCAR, September 2nd, 1898.
. . . .Hugo has been playing golf and we are now going to have a game of racquets before settling down to our work. Oh, how I wish I were going to have a month of this. The bliss of being really at work is past words.
Herbert Pease stands for Darlington, I see in the evening papers . . . ..
To H. B.
Saturday 22nd September, 1898.
. . .I'm going to Rounton on Sunday . . . . having finished a great batch of Arabic and Persian for Mr. Ross. [Now Sir Denison Ross.]
To F.B.
REDCAR, Autumn 1898.
I have been at the Infirmary all the afternoon. I've got another engagement--to lecture at the High School. I've been arranging about my lantern slides. . . .
By the way, confided to Lisa that she felt quite anxious about Elsa because she thought we were all so beautiful and so clever that we couldn't all go on living. Elsa won't mind being the 'offer' to the jealous gods, I hope!
To F.B.
LONDON 1898.
. . . . That angel of a Mr. Vaughan Williams has found me a real Persian-at least he is an Afghan and his name is Satdar and he speaks beautiful Persian. I have written to him to-day. Isn't it interesting. . . .
[Gertrude begins the year 1899 at Redcar, she and Hugo are left together for a few days at Red Barns.]
To F.B.
REDCAR, January 6th, 1899.
. . . . Hugo and I have made an excellent 'ménage'--we get on admirably and I have come to know him much better, chiefly because he has told me all his views as to his future. They are rather a blow to me, I admit. He is one of the most lovable and livable with people I have ever come across.
To her sister Elsa.
LONDON, Jan. 1899.
. . . . I thought the braid a little too braidy. A modification of it would be lovely. I should have no braid on the coat just the seams strapped. 'Tis very smart so. I went to Prince's this morning and skated . . . . with Flora and a lot of people. . . . Next time I'm in London I shall have a few lessons there. It's silly not to be able to skate well when everybody does.
My new clothes are very dreamy. You will scream with delight when you see me in them!
To F. B.
LONDON, Jan. 1899.
I have sent off the purple dress and a grey one which is nine guineas and very nice indeed. It has a dark coat and everything suitable to Elsa. My only doubt is whether the black trimming is not too black. There is another most elegant elephant grey costume strapped with grey, but the coat is quite tight fitting so that it might not be so becoming to Elsa. . . . .
To F.B.
LONDON, Thursday, Mar. 17th, 1899.
. . . I write from a sofa. This morning at Prince's I fell violently on my knees and when I shortly after took my skates off, I found I couldn't walk. . . . Maclagan, however, says I must lie up for a few days. Isn't it boring? I'm writing to all the amusing people to come and see me, having dressed the part well in a Japanese tea gown. . . .
I shall beguile the time with my pundits while I'm invalided. I've told them all to come.
It is so provoking because I was getting to skate really well.
[In the spring of the year 18 99 Gertrude went abroad again to Northern Italy, by herself, then to Greece, with her father and her uncle Thomas Marshall, a classical Scholar and translator of Aristotle, deeply interested at going to Greece for the fifth time. A most successful tour altogether. In Athens they find Dr. Hogarth and go the Museum, " where Mr. Hogarth showed us his recent finds-pots Of 4000 B.C. from Melos. Doesn't that Make one's brain reel?" Another distinguished archaeologist, Professor Dôrpfeld is there also. They listen with breathless interest to his lecture on the Acropolis: "he took us from stone to stone and built up a Wonderful chain of evidence with extraordinary ingenuity until we saw the Athens of 600 B.c. I never saw anything better done."
She also writes from Athens Papa has bought him a grey felt hat, in which he looks a dream of beauty and some yellow leather gaiters to ride in the Peloponnesus. He will look smart, bless him . . . . . .
Then to Constantinople, and back again to England in May.
In August she started with Hugo for Bayreuth, joining on the way Sir Frank Lascelles and his daughter Florence, and Mr. Chirol (now Sir Valentine Chirol). They go to Nuremberg and Rothenburg on the way, enjoying themselves ecstatically everywhere. She writes] " this is really too charming. You never met a more delightful travelling party. Florence is in the seventh heaven all the time. His Ex. a perfect angel, Mr. Chirol, and in fact all of us, endlessly cheerful and delighted with everything." [They hear Parsifal and The Ring at Bayreuth. Gertrude, "tief gerührt", as she tells us, sends home long, vivid descriptions of the performances. These letters on a subject now almost hackneyed are too long to insert here. She was not, and did not pretend to be, an expert on music) but she cared for it very much.
Hugo, who was an admirable musician, was conservative in his tastes and was at first prepared to be on the defensive with regard to Wagner.
Gertrude also records some personal social experiences.]
To F.B.
BAYREUTH.
Frau Cosima has asked us all to a party on Friday evening. Great Larks! . . . . The restaurant was crowded when the door opened and in came the whole Wagner family in procession, Frau Cosima first on Siegfried's arm. There was a great clapping as she passed down the room to her table.
To F.B.
BAYREUTH, Wed. Aug. 16th, 1899.
This morning about half past 8 came a message from the Grand Duke [of Hesse] asking us whether we could be at the theatre at 9 as he would show us the stage. We bustled up and arrived only a few minutes late. It was most entertaining; we were taken into every corner, above and below. We descended through trap doors and mounted into Valhalla. We saw all the properties, and all the mechanism of the Rhine maidens; we explored the dressing rooms, sat in the orchestra and rang the Parsifal bells! The Grand Duke was extremely cheerful and agreeable--he's quite young--and of course everyone was hats off and anxious to show us all we wanted to see. It's a very extraordinary place, the stage; the third scene of Siegfried was set. We shall feel quite at home when we see it to-night. Hugo is delighted with it all. He was much impressed by the Walküre though he says it will take a great deal to make him a Wagnerian.
[After Bayreuth the party breaks up, all of them except Gertrude returning to England.]
I'm awfully sorry to have parted with Hugo. He really is one of the most delightful people in the world. The Harrachs, you will be glad to hear, thought him very beautiful . . . when I told you that they were people of discernment!
[After this Gertrude went back through Switzerland to the Dauphiné and fulfilled her year-old purpose of ascending the Meije.)
To H.B.
LA GRAVE, Monday, 28th August, 1899 .
I sent you a telegram this morning [" Meije traversée") for, I thought you would gather from my last that I meant to have a shot at the Meije and would be glad to hear that I had descended in the approved, and in no other manner. Well, I'll tell you--it's awful! I think if I had known exactly what was before me I should not have faced it, but fortunately did not, and I look back on it with unmixed satisfaction--and forward to other things with no further apprehension. . . .
We left here on Friday at 2:30, Mathon, Marius and I, and walked up to the Refuge de l'Alpe in two hours. Two German men turned up at the Refuge. . . . Madame Castillan gave us a very good supper and I went at once to bed. I got off at 4:30 and got to the top of the clot at 8:10. In the afternoon, there arrived a young Englishman called Turner with Rodier as guide and a porter. I went out to watch the beautiful red light fading from the snows and rocks. The Meije looked dreadfully forbidding in the dusk. When I came in I found that Mathon had put my rug in a corner of the shelf which was the bed of us all and what with the straw and my cloak for a pillow I made myself very comfortable. We were packed as tight as herrings, Mr. Turner next to me, then the two Germans and Rodier. Mathon and the porters lay on the ground beneath us. Our night lasted from 8 till 12, but I didn't sleep at all. Marius lighted a match and looked at his watch. It was ten o'clock. " Ah, c'est encore trop matin," said Rodier. It seemed an odd view of 10 p.m. We all got up soon after 12 and I went down to the river and washed a little. It was a perfect night, clear stars and the moon not yet over the hills. . . . We left half an hour later, 1 a.m., just as the moon shone into the valley. Mathon carried a lantern till we got on to the snow when it was light enough with only the moon. . . .
At 1:30 we reached the glacier and all put on our ropes. . . . It wasn't really cold, though there was an icy little breath of wind down from the Brèche. This was the first time I had put on the rope . . . . we went over the glacier for another hour . . . . we got into the Promontoir, a long crest of rock and rested there ten minutes . . . . we left there at 2:40. . . . We had about three hours up very nice rock, a long chimney first and then most pleasant climbing. Then we rested again for a few minutes. . . . I had been in high feather for it was so easy, but ere long my hopes were dashed! We had about two hours and a half of awfully difficult rock, very solid fortunately, but perfectly fearful. There were two places which Mathon and Marius literally pulled me up like a parcel. I didn't a bit mind where it was steep up, but round corners where the rope couldn't help me! . . . . And it was absolutely sheer down. The first half-hour I gave myself up for lost. it didn't seem possible that I could get up all that wall without ever making a slip. You see, I had practically never been on a rock before. However, I didn't let on and presently it began to seem quite natural to be hanging by my eyelids over an abyss. . . . just before reaching the top we passed over the Pas du Chat, the difficulty of which is much exaggerated. . . . It was not till I was over it that Mathon told me that it was the dreaded place. We were now at the foot of the Pyramide Duhamel and we went on till we came in sight of the Glacier Catré, where we sat down on a cornice, 7:45. . . . The Germans got up a quarter of an hour later having climbed up the rock a different way. . . . At 8:45 we got to the top between the Pic du Glacier carré and the Grand Pic de la Meije and saw over the other side for the first time. We left at 9 and reached the summit at 10:10, the rock being quite easy except one place called the Cheval Rouge. It is a red flat stone, almost perpendicular, some 15 feet high, up which you swarm as best you may with your feet against the Meije, and you sit astride, facing the Meije, on a very pointed crest. I sat there while Marius and Mathon went on and then followed them up an overhanging rock of 20 feet or more. The rope came in most handy--! We stayed on the summit until 11. It was gorgeous, quite cloudless. . . . I went to sleep for half-an-hour. It's a very long way up but it's a longer way down-unless you take the way Mathon's axe took. The cord by which it was tied to his wrist broke on the Cheval Rouge and it disappeared into space. There's a baddish place going down the Grand Pic. The guides fastened a double rope to an iron bolt and let Mr. Turner and me down on to a tiny ledge on which we sat and surveyed the Aiguille d'Arve with La Grave in the foreground. Then was a very nasty bit without the double rope-how anyone gets down those places I can't imagine. However, they do. Then we crossed the Brèche and found ourselves at the foot of the first dent. Here comes the worst place on the whole Meije. I sat on the Brèche and looked down on to the Châtelleret on one side and La Grave on the other. . . . Then Mathon vanished, carrying a very long rope, and I waited. . . . Presently I felt a little tug on the rope. " Allez, Mademoiselle," Said Marius from behind and off I went. There were two little humps to hold on to on an overhanging rock and there La Grave beneath and there was me in mid-air and Mathon round the corner holding the rope tight, but the rope was sideways of course-that's my general impression of those ten minutes. Added to which I thought at the time how very well I was climbing and how odd it was that I should not be afraid. The worst was over then, and the most tedious part was all to come. It took us three hours to get from the Grand Pic to the Pic Central-up and down over endless dents. We followed the crest all the way, quite precipitous rock below us on the Châtelleret side and a steep slope on the other. There was no difficulty, but there was also no moment when you had not to pay the strictest attention. . . . I felt rather done when we got to the Pic Central. . . . There was an hour of ice and rock till at last we found ourselves on the Glacier du Tabuchet and with thankfulness I put on my skirt again. It was then 3 and we got in at 6:30. The glacier was at first good then much crevassed. We skirted for nearly an hour the arête leading up to the Pic de Momme and it was 5:30 before we unroped. . . . When I got in I found everyone in the Hotel on the doorstep waiting for me and M. Juge let off crackers, to my great surprise. . . .
I went to bed and knew no more till 6 this morning, when I had five cups of tea and read all your letters and then went to sleep again until ten. I'm really not tired but my shoulders and neck and arms feel rather sore and stiff and my knees are awfully bruised.
[After the Meije there is one more letter, too long to insert here, from La Grave, in which she relates her successful ascent of the Ecrins. She comes back to England in the middle of September, well pleased, as shown by her letters, with her progress in climbing.]
In November 1899 she starts for Jerusalem, with many hopes and plans, including learning more Arabic. Dr. Fritz Rosen was then German Consul at Jerusalem. He had married Nina Roche, whom we had known since she was a child, the daughter of Mr. Roche of the Garden House, Cadogan Place. Charlotte Roche was Nina's sister. They made everything easy for Gertrude.
On the way she writes a long letter from Smyrna, where everyone was most kind and hospitable. She describes the "Mediterranean race " to which the inhabitants of Smyrna belong].
It speaks no language though it will chatter with you in Half a dozen, it has no native land though it is related by marriage to all Europe, and with the citizens of each country it will talk to its compatriots and itself as " we "; it centres round no capital and is loyal to no government though it obeys many. Cheerful, careless, contented, hospitable to a fault, it may well be all, for it is divested of all natural responsibilities, it has little to guard and little to offer but a most liberal share in its own inconceivably hugger mugger existence. Kindness is its distinctive quality, as far-as I have sampled it, and I hope I may have many opportunities of sampling it further.
[From Beyrout she writes]
We settled that when I come riding down from Damascus in the spring . . .
..
[The last part of the voyage is made on a Russian boat] all the stewards speak Russian and we communicate by signs, my fellow passengers are an American Catholic Priest and a Russian engineer and 400 Russian peasants who are making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
To F.B.
S.S. RUSSIA, Sunday 10th Dec., 1899.
The pilgrims are camped out all over the deck. They bring their own bedding and their own food and their passage from Odessa costs them some 12 roubles. They undergo incredible hardships: one woman walked from Tobolsk, she started in March.
To H.B.
HOTEL JERUSALEM, 13th December, 1899.
Here I am most comfortably installed. I am two minutes' walk from the German Consulate. My apartment consists of a very nice bedroom and a big sitting room, both opening on to a small vestibule which in its turn leads out on to the verandah which runs all along the first story of the hotel courtyard with a little garden in it. I pay 7 francs a day including breakfast, which is not excessive. My housemaid is an obliging gentleman in a fez who brings me my hot bath in the morning and is ready at all times to fly round in my service. I spent the morning unpacking and turning out the bed and things out of my sitting room; it is now most cosy-two armchairs, a big writing table, a square table for my books, an enormous Kiefert map of Palestine lent me by Uncle Tom and photographs of my family on the walls. The floor is of tiles but they have laid down a piece of carpet on it. There is a little stove in one corner and the wood fire in it is most acceptable. I propose buying a horse! for which I shall pay about 18 pounds and sell him at the end for no less, I hope. The keep is very little, Dr. Rosen says, and you see the alternative would be to use theirs. Now they have only 3 for their 3 selves and I already have all my meals except breakfast with them, so don't think I can infringe further on their hospitality.
We got in soon after 8, and the kind Rosens came on board with a kavass and carried me off to a very nice hotel where we breakfasted. The garden was full of parrots and monkeys which breakfasted also when I had finished. It was a delicious sunny day. We drove round about Jaffa, caught the only train at 1:20 to Jerusalem. It was 5 before we arrived, Charlotte met us. The Consulate is small but very comfy, all the rooms open on to a long central living room which is full of beautiful Persian things. The two boys were much excited by my arrival and greeted me with enthusiasm. They are perfect dears, these people. I feel as if I should love them very much indeed. And so charming about all arrangements, hospitality and kindness itself.
To-day Dr. R. and I went for a long walk, I left a card and a letter of introduction on Mrs. Dickson at the English consulate. One's first impression of Jerusalem is extremely interesting, but certainly not pleasing. The walls are splendid (Saracenic on Jewish foundations), but all the holy places are terribly marred by being built over with hideous churches of all the different sects.
[Gertrude's interest in the holy places was that of the archaeologist only and not that of the believer.
There is no space to insert in extenso her long and interesting letters from Jerusalem, where she was entirely happy learning Arabic, exploring her surroundings, and being admitted into the delightful intimacy of the Rosens. But some extracts from the letters are given here.]
To F.B.
This morning I went out with Charlotte and the children (I have not Yet got my teacher). The two boys rode on a donkey and looked angels. They are delicious children. I saw a charming little horse, a bay, very well bred with lovely movements rather showy, but light and strong and delightful in every way We have embarked on negotiations for him which promise to take some time as they now ask 40 pounds and my price is 18 to 20! He comes of a well-known stock so that I should run no risk of losing on him when I sell him. Charlotte, Dr. R'. and I rode this afternoon, I on a pony belonging to the hotel keeper, very bad, much too small and slow, he wouldn't do at all. My saddle had to be wrapped round him!
This morning I had my first lesson. My teacher's name is Khalil Dughan and he is exactly what I want. I learnt more about pronunciation this morning than I have ever known.
In the afternoon, Nina, Dr. R. and I rode out.
To F.B.
December 13th, 1899
My days are extremely full and most agreeable. I either have a lesson or work alone every morning for 4 hours-the lesson only lasts one and a half hours. I have 3 morning and 3 afternoon lessons a week. I am just beginning to understand a little of what I hear and to say simple things to the servants, but I find it awfully difficult. The pronunciation is past words, no western throat being constructed to form these extraordinary gutturals. Still it's really interesting. We lunch at 12:30 and go out about 2, generally riding till 5. Then I come home to my work till 7 when I dress and go in to dinner. I aim at being back by 10 to get another hour's work but this doesn't always happen, especially now when Nina is very busy preparing a Xmas tree and we spend our evenings tying up presents and gilding walnuts, Dr. R. reading to us, the while, all his travel letters from Persia--extremely interesting.
My horse is much admired. My teacher, also, is a success. He has the most charming fund of beautiful oriental stories and I make him tell them to me by the hour as I want to get used to the sound of words. He is a Christian and his family claims to have been Crusaders.
He has given me a lecture of his, written out in English on the customs of the Arabs. It begins "The Arabs are the oldest race on earth; they date from the Flood!!" Comes my housemaid, "The hot water is ready for the Presence," says he. "Enter and light the candle," say I. "On my head," he has replied--it sounds ambiguous in English! That means it's dressing time.
To her sister Elsa.
JERUSALEm, December 20th, 1899.
The days fly here so that I scarcely know how to catch at them for a moment's time to write to you. It is now 11 p.m. and I must go to bed quickly so as to be up early and prepare my lesson before my Arab comes. (I may say in passing that I don't think I shall ever talk Arabic, but I go on struggling with it in the hope of mortifying Providence by my persistence. I now stammer a few words to my housemaid--him of the fez--and he is much delighted.) With Charlotte, who is a most spirited companion, I explored a great part of the inner town. We are quite the family party and I love them all. The boys are angels. Now to bed.
The first night of rain I was awakened by a rushing sound of water and found that it was falling in sheets on to my pillow! I took up my bed and walked and spent the rest of the night in peace.
To F.B.
JERUSALEM, Thursday, Dec. 28, 1899.
It has rained quite persistently for 5 days. You may imagine how I say 'Heil dir, Sonne!' this morning when I woke and saw the sun. Yesterday the Rosens had a Xmas tree for all the German children. It was most successful and the children were dears. I am beginning to feel very desperate about Arabic and I am now going to try a new plan. A Syrian girl is to come and spend an hour with me 3 Or 4 times a week and talk to me. I shall take her out walks sometimes, if she is satisfactory, and converse with her. It is an awful language.
To F.B.
JERUSALEM, Jan. 1st, 1900.
Will You order Heath to send me out a wide gray felt sun hat (not double, but it must be a regular Terai shape and broad brimmed) to ride in, and to put a black velvet ribbon round it With Straight bows. My Syrian girl is charming and talks very Prettily but with a strong local accent. It adds enormously to one's difficulties that one has to learn a patois and a purer Arabic at the same time. I took her out for a long walk on Friday afternoon and went photographing about Jerusalem. She was much entertained, though she was no good as a guide, for she had never been in the Jewish quarter though she has lived all her life here! That's typical of them. I knew my way, however, as every Englishwoman would-it's as simple as possible.
She came with us on the following day on a most delightful expedition. We started at 9 in the morning-it was Sunday and therefore a legitimate holiday-and rode down the Valley of Hinnon and all along the brook Kedron (which is dry at this season) through a deep valley full of immensely old olive trees and rock tombs scarcely older. Then up a long hill and down on the other side into a shallow naked valley, where there were many encampments of the black Bedouin tents, and so into an extraordinary gorge called the Valley of Fire. The rock lies in natural terraces and is full of caves; the Brook Kedron (it had rejoined us in a roundabout way) has cut the steepest, deepest cleft for its bed and on either side rise these horizontal layers of stone. They have been a regular city of anchorites, each living in his cave and drawing his ladder up behind him when he went in. Half a mile or so further on lies the citadel of this cave town, the Monastery of Mar Saba, itself half cave and half building, its long walls and towers creeping up the steep rock, the dome of its chapel jutting out from it, and the irregular galleries and rows of cells hanging out over a precipice. The rock itself is full of little square windows and these are the cave cells and probably about as old as St. Saba who lived in the 6th century.
To F.B.
JERUSALEM, Jan. 5th, 1900.
What a terrible time it is. I feel such a beast to be writing to you about my pleasant doings in the midst of all this, still I can do no good to you all by being very anxious. On Wednesday we rode down to the Dead Sea, over a long stretch of country on which grew thorny plants, then through a curious belt of hard mud heaps, then along the Jordan valley and finally across a bit of absolute desert, white with salt and plantless. It was a glorious day, bright and hot.
To Her Sister.
JERUSALIM, Jan. 11th, 1900.
My DEAREST ELSA,
It is sad about Berlin and all your beautiful clothes. I was thrilled by
your account of your coat-it sounds too beautiful. But dear, dear! that
you should not be going to shine in it in imperial circles! I am
extremely happy and much amused, and I am very busy with Arabic. Whenever
I can I get Ferideh to come and spend the afternoon with me, but as she
teaches in a school, I can usually only get her on a Saturday. She comes
to tea with me, however, two other days a week and we converse for an
hour. I often go walking alone of an afternoon and explore the
surrounding country And nearly always find some exciting flower among the
rocks. The earliest flower place is the Valley of Hinnon. I went there
yesterday afternoon for starch hyacinths and cyclamen and had a
tremendous scramble. As I came back along the
Road I met an Arab who greeted me avffably and told me he had seen me
climbing on the rocks. So we walked home together We had a long talk--my
conversations are limited to rather simple subjects. The first thing they
always say is, "We have heard that there is a great deal of water in your
country." then I expatiate on the greenness of it and the distance and
the cold and so forth. It's awful fun.
To H.B.
JERUSALEM, Jan. 11th, 1900.
I am just beginning to feel my feet after a fearful struggle. The first fortnight was perfectly desperate--I thought I should never be able to put two words together. Added to the fact that the language is very difficult there are at least three sounds almost impossible to the European throat. The worst I think is a very much aspirated H. I can only say it by holding down my tongue with one finger, but then you Can't carry on a conversation with your finger down your throat can you? My little girl Ferideh Yamseh is a great success. She talks the dialect, but that is all the better as I want to understand the people of hereabouts. I went to visit her and her family after dinner yesterday--they are quite close. It was most amusing. I found the mother a pretty charming woman who has had ten children and looks ridiculously young (they marry at 13). Two sisters and presently a brother came in. The mother talks nothing but Arabic so the visit was conducted in that language with great success Ferideh interpreting from time to time. I was regaled on cocoa, a very sweet Arab pastry and pistachios which I love and shown all the photographs of all their relations down to the last cousin twice removed. . . .
My Sheikh has just told me that Ladysmith is relieved I do hope it is true and that this is the beginning of good news. I am sending you a little packet of seeds. They are more interesting for associations sake than for the beauty of the plant--it is the famous and fabulous mandrake. By the way the root of the mandrake grow to a length of 2 yards, so I should think somebody shrieks when it is dug up-if not the mandrake, then the digger.
I took Ferideh for a drive and a walk yesterday and talked Arabic extremely badly and felt desponding about it. However there is nothing to be done but to struggle on with it. I should like to mention that there are five words for a wall and 36 ways of forming the plural. And the rest is like unto it.
To H.B.
JERUSALEM, Jan. 11th-14th, 1900.
Sunday 14. This goes to-morrow. It ought to reach you in a week as it goes by a good post via Egypt. The posts are arranged thus: Sunday and Monday outgoing posts and the rest of the week nothing. Dr. R. Nina and I rode this afternoon, heavenly weather. We went an exploring expedition through a lovely valley under a place called Malba. The path of course awful. In one place we had to get off, pull down a wall and lead our horses over it. There are no decent paths at all, only the hard high road. I so often wish for you--always when I'm making a nice expedition. Next spring let us come here together. Anyhow let us have a nice travel together soon.
To F. B.
JERICHO, January 17th, 1900.
I rode down here yesterday afternoon with Isa, one of the kavasses. We started at 1:30 and got here at 5, which was pretty good going. It was a most pleasant day for riding, cool and not sunny, today is brilliantly sunny, I came down the last hill in company with a band of Turkish soldiers, ragged, footsore, weary, poor dears ! but cheerful. We held a long conversation. The Russian Pilgrim House we visited last night and found it packed with pilgrims as tight as herrings sleeping in rows on the floor. Even the courtyard was quite full of them and on a tree an eikon round which a crowd of them were praying, Charlotte and I rode off with Isa about 11 and went down to the Jordan, taking our lunch with us. There ,*we found an enormous crowd assembled. Bedouin and fellaheen, kavasses in embroidered clothes. Turkish soldiers, Greek priests and Russian peasants, some in furs and top boots and some in their white shrouds, which were to serve as bathing dresses in the holy stream and then to be carried home and treasured up till their owner's death. We lunched and wandered about for some time, I photographing some of these strange groups--long-haired Russian priests in their shrouds standing praying in the hot sun by the river bank, among the tamarisk bushes and the reeds, every one, men and women, had chains of beads and crucifixes hung round their necks. The sun was very hot and we waited and waited while those who were going to be baptised signed their names and paid a small fee. We found ourselves ensconced on willow boughs just opposite to the place where the priests were coming down to bless the water. We waited for about half an hour, then the crowd opened and a long procession of priests came to the water's edge with lighted candles. The shrouded people clambered down the mud banks and stood waist deep In the stream until the moment when the priest laid the cross three times upon the water, then suddenly, with a great firing off of guns, everyone proceeded to baptise himself by dipping and rolling over in the water. It was the strangest sight. Some of them had hired monks at a small fee to baptise them and they certainly got their money's worth of baptism, for the monks took an infinite pleasure in throwing them over backwards into the muddy stream and holding them under until they were quite saturated. We then rowed back, returned to our horses and got back about 5.
To F.B.
JERUSALEM, Feb. 18th, 1900.
There is a regular commerce apart from all others here to supply the Russian pilgrims with relics, souvenirs and the necessities of Russian peasant life. I bless the typewriter. it is such a joy to open an envelope of yours and find long sheets from the typewriter. It is rather terrible to think that Maurice is off; I hoped he wouldn't leave till the end of the month, Anyhow you will telegraph to me on his arrival, won't you, and all items of news you receive from him which can be conveyed by telegram. He writes in great spirits and it may be that it will be good for him, the out-of-door life there. My last letter I have sent home to be forwarded to him. Do you know the way when something disagreeable happens, that one looks back and tries to imagine what it would have been like if it hadn't happened? That's how I feel about his going.
[Maurice had gone out to the Boer War in command of the Volunteer Service Company, Yorkshire Regiment. He and Gertrude were bound together by the closest affection and her constant anxiety and solicitude about him is shown in her letters.]
Do you know these wet afternoons I have been reading the story of Aladdin to myself for pleasure, without a dictionary! It is not very difficult, I must confess, still it's ordinary good Arabic, not for beginners, and I find it too charming for words. Moreover I see that I really have learnt a good deal since I came for I couldn't read just for fun to save my life. It is satisfactory, isn't it? I look forward to a time when I shall just read Arabic-like that! and then for my histories! I really think that these months here will permanently add to the pleasure and interest of the rest of my days! Honest Injun. Still there is a lot and a lot more to be done first--SO to work!
To F.B.
JERUSALEM, Feb. 28, 1900.
Sunday, was too many for me. I did not go out at all but sat It home and read Aladdin and looked at the streaming rain. Monday was a little better. Charlotte and I put on short skirts and thick boots and went for a long walk to a lovely spring she knew of. We walked down a deep valley which s long as we have known it has been as dry as a bone and where to our surprise we found a deep swift stream, Ain Tulma, our object, was on the other side and as there are no bridges in this country, (there being no rivers as a rule) there was nothing for it but to take off our shoes and stockings and wade. The water came above our knees. The other side was too lovely--the banks of the river were carpeted with red anemones, a sheet of them, and to walk by the side of a rushing stream is an unrivalled experience in this country. When we got to Ain Tulma we found the whole place covered with cyclamen and orchis and a white sort of garlic, very pretty, and the rocks out of which the water comes were draped in maidenhair. There were a lot of small boys, most amiable young gentlemen, who helped us to pick cyclamen, and when I explained that I had no money they said it was a bakshish to me--the flowers. We had a very scrambly walk back, waded the stream again and when we got to a little village at the foot of the hill, we hired some small boys to carry our flowers home for us. (In this village I lost my way and we found ourselves wandering over the flat roofs and Jumping across the streets below!) I hurried on (as it was 5 and I had a lesson at 5:30) with 5 little beggar boys in my train. They were great fun. We had long conversations all the way home. It's such an amusement to be able to understand. The differences of pronunciation are a little puzzling at first to the foreigner. There are two k's in Arabic--the town people drop the hard k altogether and replace it by a guttural for which we have no equivalent; the country people pronounce the hard k soft and the soft k ch, but they say their gutturals beautifully and use a lot of words which belong to the more classical Arabic. The Bedouins speak the best; they pronounce all their letters and get all the subtlest shades of meaning out of the words. I must tell you this is a great day--a German post office has been opened, and we expect marvels from it. There is parcel post and all complete and I advise you to put German Post Office on to your letters to me. One of our kavasses has gone to be Post Office kavass and as I passed down the Jaffa Street he rushed out open armed to greet me and begged me to come in. So in I went and retired behind the counter and shook hands warmly with the two post masters (they dined with us a few nights ago) and bought 6 stamps to celebrate the occasion--which I didn't pay for, as I had no money--the kavass saying all the time--"Al! ketear 'al!" which means "It is extremely high," and is the superlative of admiration in Arabic. The tourists who were sending off telegrams were rather surprised to see someone seemingly like themselves come in hand in hand with an old Arab and fall into the arms of the officials behind the counter! It was extremely high!
Friday 2. To-day came the joyful news of the relief of Ladysmith. My horse is extremely well. We are going for a long ride to-morrow. The R's and I have been planning expeditions. We mean to go for 10 days into Moab about the 18th. It will be lovely. We shall take tents, Dr. R. Nina and I. Our great travel is not till the end of April, but I shall go to Hebron some time early in April. Goodbye.
To F.B.
>
JERUSALEM, March 6th, 1900.
By the way, I hope Elsa clung to the Monthly Cousin article and did not allow it to be published elsewhere. The style of it was only suited to that journal, but I'm glad it pleased. It's a gorgeous day. I'm going riding-in my new hat!
[The Monthly Cousin was a typewritten and handwritten periodical edited by Elsa and Molly, of which the contributors were the wide family circle of the Bells and of their cousins. It appeared regularly from 1897 to 1907, and has been preserved as a precious family record. Gertrude revelled in it, and on occasion contributed to it.]
To H.B.
AYAN MUSA, Tuesday, March 20, 1900.
From my tent.
I left Jerusalem yesterday soon after 9, having seen my cook at 7 and arranged that he should go off as soon as he could get the mules ready. (His name is Hanna--sounds familiar doesn't it! but that H is such as you have never heard.) I rode down to Jerusalem alone--the road was full of tourists, caravans of donkeys carrying tents for cook and Bedouin escorts. I made friends as I went along and rode with first one Bedouin and then another, all of them exaggerating the dangers I was about to run with the hope of being taken with me into Moab. Half way down I met my guide from Salt, east of Jordan, coming up to meet me. His name is Tarif, he is a servant of the clergyman in Salt and a Christian therefore, and a perfect dear. We rode along together, sometime, but he was on a tired horse, so I left him to come on slowly and hurried down into Jericho where I arrived with a Bedouin at 1--famished. I went to the Jordan hotel. We then proceeded to the Mudir's for I wanted to find out the truth of the tales I had been told about Moab, but he was out. By this time Tarif and Hanna had arrived and reported the tents to be one and a half hours behind, which seemed to make camping at the Jordan impossible that night. . . I determined to pass that night in Jericho and make an early start.
This morning I got up at 5 and at 6 was all ready, having sent on my mules and Hanna to the Jordan bridge. I knocked up the Mudir and he said he would send a guide to Madeba to make the necessary arrangements for me. The river valley is wider on the other side and was full of tamarisks in full white flower and willows in the newest of leaf, there were almost no slime pits and when we reached the level of the Ghor (that is the Jordan plain) behold, the wilderness had blossomed like the rose. It was the most unforgettable sight--sheets and sheets of varied and exquisite colour--purple, white, yellow, and the brightest blue (this was a bristly sort of Plant which I don't know) and fields of scarlet ranunculus. Nine-tenths of them I didn't know, but there was the yellow daisy, the sweet-scented mauve wild stock, a great splendid sort of dark purple onion, the white garlic and purple mallow, and higher up a tiny blue iris and red anemones and a dawning pink thing like a linum. We were now joined by a cheerful couple, from Bethlehem, a portly fair man in white with a yellow keff