Lady Hester Stanhope

“ Lady Hester Stanhope, daughter of Charles, third Earl Stanhope, granddaughter of the great Earl of Chatham, and niece of William Pitt, was a woman of unbounded vanity, arrogance, and ill-temper. A technical termagant she could not be, for she was never married, and that was perhaps a better fate which met General Sir John Moore at Corunna than would have been his had he survived his disastrous retreat, and returned to England. For Hester Stanhope was his fiancée; and if he had married her, she could not have failed of keeping him in a life-long subjection. ”

“ She has ever been a benefactress to me, and, if I die with a little property, it is from her generosity. You will here promise me never to urge the claim against her; for I have received double and treble its amount at her hands.” They made solemn asseverations, and, after his death, the eldest son went to Dar Jôon, and informed Lady Hester Stanhope of their father’s dying injunctions: often did the widow, too, repeat to her how sacred she held them. ”

“ Everybody who has visited Lady Hester Stanhope in her retirement will bear witness to her unexampled colloquial powers; to her profound knowledge of character; to her inexhaustible fund of anecdotes; to her talents for mimicry; to her modes of narration, as various as the subjects she talked about; to the lofty inspirations and sublimity of her language, when the subject required it; and to her pathos and feeling, whenever she wished to excite the emotions of her hearers. There was no secret of the human heart, however studiously concealed, that she could not discover ”

“ But, if such excessive requisition was ever pardonable in anybody, it was in Lady Hester Stanhope; for her vast talents seemed to lay claim to submission from all inferior beings, and even to exact it as a matter of justice. It was always customary with her (as it generally is with people who overwork their servants) to appeal first to one and then to another, whether anybody could give less trouble than she did. ”

“ To finish what remains to be said of this once shining character, but now the pensioner of an English woman, he had resided for the last ten years at a distance from Lady Hester Stanhope’s residence, and they had not even seen each other for five or six years. “I have been obliged to keep him at a distance,” said her ladyship, “for the last ten years, in order that people might not think I had taken care of him to make him trumpet my greatness: for you don’t know what harm that man has done me. ”

“ July 7.—I returned to Dar Jôon.
July 8.—The day after my arrival, before breakfast, Lady Hester Stanhope being yet in bed, a servant came for me. “I hope I have not disturbed you,”232 said she, when I entered her room; “but I wanted you just for a minute to say a word about Logmagi, whom I am going to send home for a week or two. Poor man! he is all devotedness to my service, but I must not ride a willing horse to death. He is liberal-minded, too, and charitable; not as your fine my lord is, who gives his five guineas to a somebody, and never feels the loss of his money ”

“ It is incredible how Lady Hester Stanhope used to torment herself about trifles. People, who never happened to meet with a person of her peculiar character, would be amazed at the precision with which she set about everything she undertook. The most trivial and fugitive affairs were transacted with quite as much pains and exactitude as she brought to bear upon the most important plans. ”

“ On another occasion, one of the Emir Beshýr’s people came on some message to her, but, before he entered her room, laid by his pistols and his sabre, which in Turkey these myrmidons always wear on their persons. Lady Hester’s maid whispered to her what the man was doing, when her ladyship, calling him in, bade him gird on his arms again. “Don’t think I am afraid of you or your master,” she said; “you may tell him I don’t care a fig for his poisons—I know not what fear is. It is for him, and those who serve him, to tremble. ”

“ Bankes’s writing to me a request that, in case of going to England, I would take charge of a tin box containing some of his drawings and his fresco paintings, both which were still at Mar Elias, Lady Hester advised me to have nothing to do with them, but to transmit them to him, which I did, with an excuse on the score that the trust was too great.
[98] Lady Hester Stanhope, under precisely the same circumstances, contrived to effect her entry. These difficulties were never raised against common persons. ”

“ But the most curious part was to see the women, who at once excited and expressed curiosity. They were very brown, and some of them, from the effects of fatigue and a hot sun, were, when cursorily looked at, truly hideous; but, in all of them, the outline of beauty was perceptible, either in their frame, or in their face. Wherever, likewise, a girl or young woman was to be seen, she would very often prove to be of great beauty; and black and swimming eyes were never-failing features. Lady Hester, remarkable herself for the fairness of her complexion, served as a foil to them, and they to her. ”

“ 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 ”

“ He revived my spirits by assuring me I need be under no alarm. “All of them are known,” said he, “and have their families and relations hereabouts: that one circumstance must always be a check upon them. If they 297 were not natives of the province, then I should say you were not safe among them. As for Lady Hester, you know her determined character—if she is resolved to keep them, you cannot help it. There is one,” added he, “whom I could wish not to be here; I thought him gone a year ago:” this was the one whom Lady Hester relied on for sending a bullet through the consul’s body. ”

“ Now, as servants, when fatigued, do sometimes sleep so soundly as not to hear, and sometimes are purposely deaf, Lady Hester Stanhope had got in the quadrangle of her own apartments a couple of active fellows, a part of whose business it was to watch by turns during the night, and see that the maids answered the bell: they were, therefore, sure to be roughly shaken out of their sleep, and, on going, half stupid, into her ladyship’s room, would be told to prepare a fomentation of chamomile, or elder flowers, or mallows, or the like. ”

“ Lady Hester Stanhope, noble by birth and haughty by nature, had carried out from England all the habits of her order: but a prolonged residence in the East amongst the Turks induced her to reflect on the different customs of those around her, and she adopted by degrees all such as she thought had good sense for their basis. ”

“ It is impossible to say what was not projected; but her faithful Miss Williams still rose uppermost in her mind, and her first care was to see the last duties, yet remaining, paid to her memory.
As that excellent person occupied an important position in Lady Hester Stanhope’s house and affairs, I will here make room for the following account of her sickness and death, as it was given me by Um 134 Ayôob, a respectable widow of Jôon. This woman was in the habit of doing needlework at Lady Hester’s, when she would pass whole days together at the house. ”

“ When Lady Hester Stanhope recounted this story to me, I had not the least doubt left in my mind of her conviction that all these things would be fulfilled. “You,” she said, “are of such a cold disposition, that nothing one can say makes any impression on you. ”

“ When Brothers was taken up, and thrown into prison (in Mr. Pitt’s time) , he told those who arrested him to do the will of Heaven, but first to let him see Lady Hester Stanhope. This was repeated to her ladyship, and curiosity induced her to comply with the man’s request. Brothers told her that “she would one day go to Jerusalem, and lead back the chosen people; that, on her arrival in the Holy Land, mighty changes would take place in the world, and that she would pass seven years in the desert.” Trivial circumstances will foster a foolish belief in a mind disposed to encourage it. ”

“ November 19.—I had taken to my house to read the book that Sir Gore Ouseley had sent Lady Hester Stanhope, and I related to her the anecdote of the old woman and the copper dish. [12] This threw a gleam of satisfaction over her countenance. “Ah!” said she, and she made a sigh of pleasurable feeling, “these are the people I like; that’s my sort: but the people 117 now-a-days, who call themselves gentlemen, and don’t know how to blow their nose!—when the first peer of the realm will go about bragging what a trick he has played some poor woman whom he has seduced! ”

“ 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. ”

“ She, moreover, was accustomed to mark, not merely the day, but the precise hour, that persons coming to visit her were to present themselves. She would do so with Duke Maximilian, or with Matteo Lunardi. On the morning to which I have referred, Lady Hester was in bed. “What do you want?” said she, in rather an angry tone. I replied that I had brought her a cut-glass cup and stand for her sherbet and lemonade, as hers was so common that it gave me pain to see her use it. “No, doctor,” she said, “I am much obliged to you, but you must send it away again. ”

“ The tailor was a cringing knave, fit for a great person’s parasite. He had somehow found his way into Lady Hester’s establishment, from having married the daughter of a Syrian woman, named Mariam, or Mary, a creature of incomparable suavity of manners and considerable beauty, who had82 been housemaid during her ladyship’s stay at Latakia, some years before. This woman had two daughters, one of whom, on becoming the tailor’s wife at about twelve years of age, interested Lady Hester Stanhope so far as to make her extend her favours to the husband: he was named Yûsef el Tûrk. ”

“ I sincerely trust that nothing will be found in the following pages which can with just cause wound the feelings of any living person: and it is to be borne in mind that chagrin and disappointment had soured Lady Hester’s temper, and put her out of humourx with all mankind; so that her praise and blame must be received with all due reservation.
Before I conclude, I think it necessary to add a few lines respecting the last months of her existence. Lady Hester Stanhope died, as far as I have been able to learn, unattended by a single European, and in complete isolation. ”

“ Meshmûshy is by nature so inaccessible, that no person, from mere idle curiosity, would think of ascending to it. There, her society was literally confined to myself; for the priests were too unmannered to gain access to her presence, and the shaykh of the village was a farmer, without any other knowledge than that required for his agricultural occupations.
That Lady Hester had no thoughts at this time of going to Europe, much less of returning to England, is pretty evident. ”

“ As a romance, the Memoirs of the Princess may challenge a comparison with many works of our best novelists. The authoress seems to have a most unbounded indulgence for the errors of others; but the Emir Beshýr, notwithstanding, must still be left with all his stains upon him, as a wily, sanguinary, and perfidious, but successful prince.
It is not pretended that Lady Hester Stanhope did not personally dislike the Emir Beshýr ”

“ I then read the death of Mary Queen of Scots, of Lady Jane Grey—on the effects of tight-lacing, and on boarding-school mismanagement. “Oh!” observed she, “if I had time, I would write a book on Swiss governesses: they are the most artful, nasty creatures!—you can’t imagine.”
It may be recollected by some of my readers that in her correspondence with Lord Palmerston, Lady Hester Stanhope made use of this expression, “Whoever had been the bearer of a disagreeable message to me, would have found me to be a cousin of Lord Camelford’s. ”

“ The French agent, with whom I had been on terms of acquaintance for some years, during my previous residence in Syria, well aware of our dispute with Lady Hester Stanhope, prudently resolved to pay his court to her by not being very courteous to us. All the Frank families imitated his example, and, instead of receiving ten or fifteen visits, which we should otherwise have expected, not one single person called upon us. So much for friendships in the Levant. ”

“ December 2.—I had taken a long ride in the morning, and had seen a frigate under her studding sails running towards Sayda. The arrival of a ship of war was always an event to set the house in commotion; for it was very well known that, if her colours were English or French, the chances were ten to one that either the captain or some of the officers would come up to Jôon. Accordingly, on returning home at about 4 o’clock, I told Lady Hester Stanhope of it: but she was not well, had passed the night badly, and all she said was,—“Well, if they come, I shall not see any of them.” ”