Lady Isabel Burton

“ It is infamous the way half the men in the world live and die, and are never missed, and, like a woman, leave nothing behind them but a tombstone. By ambition I mean men who have the will and power to change the face of things. I wish I were a man: if I were, I would be Richard Burton. But as I am a woman, I would be Richard Burton’s wife. I love him purely, passionately, and devotedly: there is no void in my heart; it is at rest for ever with him. For six years this has been part of my nature, part of myself, the basis of all my actions, even part of my religion ”

“ At last I reached the crest of the hill, and beheld Jerusalem beneath me. I reined in my horse, and with my face towards the Sepulchre gazed down upon the city of my longing eyes with silent emotion and prayer. Every Christian bared his head; every Moslem and Jew saluted. We rode towards the Jaffa Gate, outside of which were stalls of horses and donkeys, and a motley crowd, including lines of hideous-looking lepers. I went to the Damascus Hotel, a comfortable and very quiet hostel, with no tourists or trippers, of which I was glad, for I had come on a devotional pilgrimage. ”

“ The grand staircase and ante-chamber were decked with garlands, and festoons of white and gold muslin and ribbons. The blaze of lights, the odour of flowers, the perfumes, the diamonds, and the magnificent dresses of the cream of the British aristocracy smote upon my senses; all was new to me, and all was sweet. Julian’s band played divinely. My people had been absent from London many seasons, so at first it seemed strange. But at Almack’s every one knew every one else; for society in those days was not a mob, but small and select. ”

“ The hills were covered with woodland and verdure; the deep blue Adriatic was in the foreground, dotted with lateen sails; and the town filled the valley and straggled up the slopes. The sky was softly blue on a balmy day; the bees and birds, the hum of insects, the flowers and fresh air, and the pretty, animated peasants, combined to form a picture which made one feel glad to live.
"The charm of Trieste is that one can live exactly as one pleases. Richard and I drew out a line for ourselves when we first went to Trieste, and we always kept to it as closely as we could. ”

“ My life seems to be like an express train, every day bringing fresh things which must be done. I am goaded on by time and circumstances, and God, my first beginning and last end, is always put off, thrust out of the way, to make place for the unimportant, and gets served last and badly. This cannot continue. What friend would have such long-enduring patience with me? None! Certainly less a king! far less a husband! ”

“ Not a night passes here that I do not dream that Richard has come home and will not speak to me; not a day that I do not kneel down twice, praying that God may send him a ray of divine grace, and bring him to religion, and also, though I feel quite unworthy of so high a mission, that I may be his wife, for I so love and care for him that I should never have courage to take upon myself the duties of married life with any other man. I have seen so much of married life; have seen men so unjust, selfish, and provoking ”

“ My heart said, 'You can have six thousand guineas; your husband worked for you, kept you in a happy home with honour and respect for thirty years. How are you going to reward him? That your wretched body may be fed and clothed and warmed for a few miserable months or years, will you let that soul, which is part of your soul, be left out in cold and darkness till the end of time, till all those sins which may have been committed on account of reading those writings have been expiated, or passed away perhaps for ever? ”

“ Our road after this, till six o’clock in the evening, lay through the most exquisite forests, but with terrible footing for the mules—thick, pudding-like, wet mud, and loose, slippery stones, corduroys of hard mud striping some of the most difficult places, where only a surefooted mule can tread. We stopped, in passing, at the house of a Mr. Brockenshaw, an English miner. It was a tumbledown ranch, but in the wildest, most desolate, and most beautiful spot imaginable. The chief features of the scenery were mountain-peaks, virgin forests, and rivers. ”

“ I do hate Santos. The climate is beastly, the people fluffy. The stinks, the vermin, the food, the niggers are all of a piece. There are no walks; and if you go one way, you sink knee-deep in mangrove swamps; another you are covered with sand-flies; and a third is crawling up a steep mountain by a mule-path to get a glimpse of the sea beyond the lagoons which surround Santos. I stayed there a fortnight and some days, and I got quite ill and peevish. At last Richard was to go to Ignipe, and I to São Paulo again. ”

“ The prettiest thing in Trieste was the swimming school. It was moored out at the entrance to the harbour. We used to reach it in a boat, and get hold of Tonina, the old woman who provided us with the camerino, or little stall to undress in, and who would grin from ear to ear at our chaff and the thought of her bakshish. The women's costumes were short trousers, with bodice or belt of blue serge or white alpaca trimmed with red. We plunged into the great vasca or basin, an acre of sea, bottomless, but enclosed on all sides with a loaded net, to keep out the sharks. ”

“ He was every inch a soldier and a sultan, and his mind was as beautiful as his face. Both he and Richard were Master-Sufi, and they greatly enjoyed a talk together, both speaking purest Arabic.
When I look back on those dear days and friends in Damascus, my eyes fill and my heart throbs at the memories which crowd upon me. When I think of all those memories, none is dearer to me than the recollection of the evenings which we four—Lady Ellenborough, Abd el Kadir, Richard, and myself—used to spend together on the top of our house. ”

“ You now return to the large hall where you first undressed, wrap in woollen shawls, and recline on a divan. The place is all strewn with flowers, incense is burned around, and a cup of hot coffee is handed and a narghileh placed in your mouth. A woman advances and kneads you as though you were bread, until you fall asleep under the process, as though mesmerized. When you wake up, you find music and dancing, the girls chasing one another, eating sweetmeats, and enjoying all sorts of fun. Moslem women go through a good deal more of the performance than I have described. ”

“ Imagine eight hundred Moslems, ranging in point of colour through every shade from lemon or cafe au lait to black as ebony; races from every part of the world, covering every square inch of deck, and every part of the hold fore and aft, packed liked sardines, men, women, and babies, reeking of cocoa-nut oil. It was a voyage of horror. I shall never forget their unwashed bodies, their sea-sickness, their sores, the dead and the dying, their rags, and last, but not least, their cookery. ”

“ He is a gentleman in every sense of the word—not only in manners, dress, and appearance, but in birth and position, and, better still, in ideas and actions; and of course he is an Englishman. His religion is like my own, free, liberal, and generous-minded. He is by no means indifferent on the subject, as most men are; and even if he does not conform to any Church, he will serve God from his innate duty and sense of honour. The great principle is there. He is not only not a fidgety, strait-laced, or mistaken-conscienced man on any subject; he always gives the mind its head. ”

“ In Isabel’s diary at this time there occurs the following note:
“Richard has just come back with flying colours from Mecca; but instead of coming home, he has gone to Bombay to rejoin his regiment. I glory in his glory. God be thanked!”
Then a sense of desolation and hopelessness sweeps over her soul, for she writes:
“But I am alone and unloved. Love can illumine the dark roof of poverty, and can lighten the fetters of a slave; the most miserable position of humanity is tolerable with its support, and the most splendid irksome without its inspiration. ”

“ There was a large patio, or courtyard, and a broad carved oak staircase, and tiers of large balconies to correspond, running all round the interior of the house, into which galleries the rooms open. Green creepers covered the roof and balcony, and hung over, falling into the patio, giving it an ancient and picturesque look, like an old ruin. Rita, a peasant woman, came out to wait upon me, in a long white mantilla, topped by a black felt Spanish wide-awake, a comfortable-looking woman, but neither young nor pretty. The food was as poor and ancient as the hotel, and the servants to match. ”

“ But what was incomprehensible to me was how she could have given up all she had in England to live with that dirty little black—or nearly so—husband. I could understand her leaving a coarse, cruel husband, much older than herself, whom she never loved (every woman has not the strength of mind and the pride to stand by what she has done) ; I could understand her running away with Schwartzenburg; but the contact with that black skin I could not understand. Her Shaykh was very dark—darker than a Persian, and much darker than an Arab generally is. ”

“ But there can be no two opinions among fair-minded people as to the heroism, the purity, and the sublime self-sacrifice of the motives which prompted Lady Burton to this deed. Absolutely devoted to her husband and his interests as she had been in his lifetime, she was equally jealous of his honour now that he was dead. Nothing must tarnish the brightness of his good name. It was this thought, above all others, which led her to burn The Scented Garden. For this act the vials of misrepresentation and abuse were poured on Lady Burton's head. ”

“ These are the white town and the black town, apparently broken by an inlet of sea, and based upon a strip of yellow sand. The sea is most unwholesome and stagnant. The houses of Port Said looked like painted wooden toys. The streets were broad, but the shops were full of nothing but rubbish, and were surround by dogs and half-naked, dark-brown gutter-boys. There is a circular garden in the centre of the European part, with faded flowers, and a kiosk for the band to play in. The most picturesque and the dirtiest part is the Arab town, with its tumble-down houses and bazar. ”

“ I shall often remember the gondolier’s serenades, the beautiful moon and starlight, the gliding about in the gondola in all the romantic parts of Venice, the soft air, the stillness of the night, hearing only the splash of oars, and nothing stirring except perhaps some dark and picturesque figure crossing the bridge, the little Madonna chapel on the banks of the Lido edging the Adriatic, the Piazza of San Marco with the band, and ices outside Florian’s, the picturesque Armenians, Greeks, and 115Moors, and the lovely water-girls with their bigolo, every language sounding in one’s ears. ”

“ I had always been taught to look upon it as the opening of Fashion’s fairy gates to a paradise; nor was I disappointed, for, to a young girl who has never seen anything, her first entrance into a brilliant ballroom is very intoxicating. The blaze of light and colour, the perfume of scent and bouquet, the beautiful dresses, the spirited music, the seemingly joyous multitude of happy faces, laughing and talking as if care were a myth, the partners flocking round the door to see the new arrivals—all was delightful to me. ”