Hester Stanhope

“ Pierre was a man exceedingly thin, with an aquiline nose, and a steady eye, full of gasconade to be mistaken for courage, wonderfully loquacious, and deeply imbued with all the mystic doctrines that Lady Hester sometimes preached about. But Pierre’s chief merit lay in his star, which, she assured me, was so propitious to her, that it could calm her convulsions, and lay her to sleep, when books, narcotics, and everything else failed. ”

“ I remember, one day, I had on a large tippet and muff of very fine fur: the tippet covered my shoulders, and came down in a point behind. ‘What is this, Hester?’ said Mr. Pitt; ‘something Siberian? 68 Can’t you command some of your slaves—for you must recollect, Griselda, Hester has slaves without number, who implicitly obey her orders’ (this was addressed to Griselda and Mr. Tickell, who were present) —‘can’t you command some of your slaves to introduce the fashion of wearing muffs and tippets into the House of Commons? ”

“ Lady Hester one day said, “I have a little angel under my command, the angel of my star—such a sweet little creature!—not like those ridiculous ones who are fiddling in Italian pictures. What fools painters are, to think angels are made so!” ”

“ The aristocracy is a proud, morose, inactive class of men, having no great fundamental principles to guide them, and not half the power that they give to themselves—very little more worthy of being trusted by their Sovereign than by the people—full of ideas, all egotistical, and full of their own importance and weight in a country, which may differ from an ounce to a pound in twenty-four hours by the wavering political line of conduct that they may observe during that time, and which neither secures the confidence of the people, nor the friendship of their Sovereign. ”

“ Pitt would stop, perhaps, until a person was gone out of the room to say, ‘That man is the most egregious ass I ever saw;’ but I, were he a king, must say it to his face. I might, if I chose, flatter and deceive you and a hundred others. There is no one whom I could not lead by the nose, if I chose to do it; I know every man’s price, and how to buy him: but I will not stoop to the baseness of making you run your head through a wall, even though I saw some advantage for myself on the other side. ”

“ Pitt used to say to me, ‘Hester, what sort of a being are you? We shall see, some day, wings spring out of your shoulders; for there are moments when you hardly seem to walk the earth.’ There was a man who had known me well for fifteen years, and he told me, one day, that he had tried a long time to make me out, but he did not know whether I was a devil or an angel. ”

“ Three or four days had elapsed, when, quitting my house in the morning to go to Lady Hester’s, I found that all her people were full of an extraordinary dream she had had. She had seen in her vision a man with a white beard, who had conducted her among the ravines of Mount Lebanon to a place, where, in a cavern, lay two youths apparently in a trance, and had told her to lead them away to her residence. She attempted to raise them, and at the same moment the earth opened, and she awoke. ”

“ To this her ladyship said nothing at the time; but to-day, being in a state of excitement, the word insult recurred to her recollection. “Do you not know,” she asked, “that people of my rank and spirit are incapable of insults towards their friends: it is only the vulgar who are always fancying themselves insulted. If a man treads on another’s toe in good society, do you think it is taken as an insult? It is only people like —— and —— who take such things into their heads. I never have hurt a person’s feelings in my life intentionally, except, perhaps, by my wit. ”

“ January 17, 1838.—What a day of anxiety and sorrow for me, and of anguish for Lady Hester! From morning until midnight to see a melancholy picture of a never-dying spirit, in an exhausted frame, wrestling with its enemy, and daring even to set the heaviest infirmities of nature at defiance. Yet, who does not bend under the power of disease? Lady Hester held out as long as a human being could do ”

“ There will rise up evil tongues against her, and a sovereign will try to put her down; but the voice of the people will cry aloud, and nations will assemble to protect her.’ Now, doctor,” said Lady Hester, “does not that mean just what has happened? Is not the Queen trying to put me down, and going to deprive me of my pension?—and you will see, when I have written my letter, how many persons will turn on my side. But isn’t it very extraordinary how that man in a coffee-house knew what was going to happen?—yet so it is: they have secret communications with spirits. ”

“ I have embodied thus much in Lady Hester Stanhope’s own words of what may give a tolerable idea of her notion of planetary influence. What her own star was may be gathered from what she said one day, when, having dwelt a long time on this, her favourite subject, she got up from the sofa, and, approaching the window, she called me to her—“Look,” said she, “at the pupil of my eyes; there! my star is the sun—all sun—it is in my eyes: when the sun is a person’s star, it attracts everything.” ”

“ In the most common concerns, Lady Hester’s servants made much bustle and did little. They ran in different directions, jostled and crossed each other half a dozen at a time for the same thing, entirely reversing one of her favourite maxims, that everything in a great person’s house should be done as if by magic, and nobody should know who it was set it a going. ”

“ Doctor, he made a noise sometimes like the low growl of a tiger, and his people knew then that blood must flow. It was his custom, when the fit was on him, to send for some poor wretch from prison, and kill him with his own hand. He would then grow calm, smoke his pipe, and seem for a time quieted. But he was a shrewd man, and a clever pasha. He wrote with his own hand (which pashas never do, except on particular 123 occasions) a letter to the Shaykh Beshýr, desiring him to pay marked attention to me. The Shaykh was highly flattered with the distinction shown him. ”

“ I must observe that, on the preceding day, at Lady Hester’s request, I had ridden over to Mar Elias to see General Loustaunau, the decayed French officer, who had now lived on her bounty for a period of more than twenty years. And although, from being of a choleric and violent temper, he had, on more than one occasion, embroiled himself with her, yet the only difference it made in her treatment towards him was merely to keep him at a distance from herself: but she had never, for one day, ceased to occupy herself with his wants and to provide for his comforts. ”

“ There were moments when her countenance had still something very beautiful about it. Her mouth manifested an extraordinary degree of sweetness, and her eyes much mildness.
She never would have her likeness taken, when in the bloom of her beauty, and it is not probable it can be ever done now. There is a sort of resemblance between her and Mr. Pitt, (if I may judge from his portraits.) She has told me also, that she was like the late Duchess of Cumberland. ”

“ When a grand Llama is to be chosen, why do they go about until they have found a particular boy with certain marks, known to the learned of that country—a child born under a certain star? It is because, when they have found such a 329 one, he has no occasion for instruction; he is born the man for their purpose.
“Thus, the Duke of Wellington is not a general by trade—I mean by instruction; for, if examined before a court-martial on all the branches of military tactics, perhaps he would be found deficient. Hundreds may know more of them than he does: but he is a general by his star. ”

“ You, who have read and thought a great deal upon men and manners, must be aware that there are situations almost unknown in Europe from which persons, in what is called a semi-barbarous country, cannot extricate themselves with honour without taking a part either for or against humanity: besides, there are extraordinary gusts of knowledge—of extraordinary information—which, if you do not take advantage of them at the moment, are lost to you for ever. ”

“ Of another class of servants taken from the villages, Lady Hester used to say, “I have tried the Syrian fellahs” (peasants) “for twenty years as servants, and I ought to know pretty well what they are fit for. It is my opinion that, for hard work, lifting heavy things, going with mules and asses, for foot messengers across the country, and for such business, you may make something of them, but for nothing else. The women are idle, and prone to thieving; and it is impossible to teach them any European usages.” ”

“ Tom Paine was a clever man, and not one of your hugger-mugger people, who have one day one set of ideas, and another set the next, and never know what they mean.’
“I am an aristocrat, and I make a boast of it. We shall see what will come of people’s conundrums about equality. I hate a pack of dirty Jacobins, that only want to get people out of a good place to get into it themselves. Horne Tooke always liked me, with all my aristocratical principles, because he said he knew what I meant.
“No, doctor, Bouverie was right: I liked the country. ”

“ Every man smokes his pipe; and a good story-teller (for such a one is rarely wanting in a party of a dozen,) relates some traditionary tale, which absorbs for the time all the faculties of his hearers. The cook was one of this sort, a Christian of the village of Abra, a shrewd fellow, who went by the name of Dyk, or the Cock, from his rather strutting air, or from the vigorous exercise of his authority over his wife, whom he beat every now and then to keep her in proper discipline—a redeeming quality in the eyes of Lady Hester, who otherwise would have dismissed him from her service. ”

“ Pitt had. Mr. Pitt used to say, ‘You must guide him with a hair; if I only move my leg, he goes on; and his pace is so easy, it’s quite charming: but, if you thwart him or contradict him, he is unmanageable;’—that’s me.”
But, to return to General Loustaunau, or the Prophet—as his name has already appeared several times, it may not be amiss to give a short outline of his life, the particulars of which he communicated to me himself. From a village in the Pyrenees, near to Tarbes, one day, a young man, about twenty-four years of age, sallied forth, he knew not whither, to seek his fortune. ”

“ Lady Hester related this droll adventure to me more than once, to show, I believe, what a distinguished and real Turkish appearance she made on horseback, which was perfectly true: but to return to the servants.
A Turk for work is little better than a brute animal: he moves about nimbly, when roused by vociferation and threats, and squats down like a dog the moment he is left to himself. England produces no type of the Syrian serving-man. ”

“ Lady Hester went on: “What a mean fellow the Prince was, doctor! I believe he never showed a 90 spark of good feeling to any human being. How often has he put men of small incomes to great inconvenience, by his telling them he would dine with them and bring ten or a dozen of his friends with him to drink the poor devils’ champagne, who hardly knew how to raise the wind, or to get trust for it! ”

“ Pitt. Now it was a rickety old card-table, a rush-bottomed chair, a white pipe-clay inkstand, wax that would not be used in a counting-house in Cheapside; and both the Sultaness and her vizir (for so I shall presume to style her and myself) , fitting their spectacles on their noses, equally blind, equally old, and almost equally ailing.
I finished the address to the Duke. “How many et ceteras have you put?” asked Lady Hester:—“what! only two? I suppose you think he’s a nobody!” ”