Miss Russell

“ I can watch you as one at a puppet-show. Tender is the tint of your cheeks, heavenly the azure of your eyes, snow-like your pearly teeth; but to me, my dear, you are no more than a cunning contrivance of beauty; the sweetest dummy, from which I can turn away with the lightest sigh, to think that I [170] could ever have been so weak as to bestow a thought upon you.
She left us to seek her mamma, and then we got talking, as people not absolutely at their ease will talk—about the weather. Theresa was admirably lady-like in her manner to Mr. Curling. ”

“ The daughters are very beautiful, accomplished, and amiable, especially the youngest, Lucy. I came very near being at my old game of falling in love, but I find that love and painting are quarrelsome companions, and that the house of my heart is too small for both of them; so I have turned Mrs. Love out-of-doors. Time enough, thought I (with true old bachelor complacency) , time enough for you these ten years to come. Mr. Russell's portrait I have painted as a present to Miss Russell, and will send it to her as soon as I can get an opportunity. It is an excellent likeness of him. ”

“ He looked round him an instant, and then came straight up to Grace and me, taking the heaving and slanting deck as easily as though it were the floor of a ball-room.
"I am the second mate of the Carthusian," said he, touching his cap with an expression of astonishment and admiration in his eyes as he looked at Grace. "Are all your people ready to leave, sir? Captain Parsons is anxious that there should be no delay."
"The lady and I are perfectly ready," said I, "but my men have made up their minds to stick to the yacht with the hope of carrying her home." ”

“ That afternoon we buried the body and I took command of the ship.
I saw nothing of Miss Le Grand for two days. She kept her cabin, and was seen only by the stewardess, who waited upon her. At the expiration of that time I received a message, and went at once to her berth. I never could have figured so striking a change in a fine woman full of beauty in so short a time, as I now beheld. The fire had died out of her eyes, and still there lurked something weird in the very spiritlessness, and dull and vacant sadness of her gaze. ”

“ Lady John Russell herself is an abiding example of the best type of woman, quick to sympathise, ready to counsel, who, while admiring her husband as a statesman and giving him every assistance in his public career, admired the man more than the politician. ”

“ A little past her stood Lady Monson, gazing seawards under the shelter of her hand. Her shape made a very noble figure of a woman against the blue brilliance of atmosphere betwixt the edge of the spread sail and the forecastle rail; the cap she wore I supposed she had found in her sister’s box. Her hair was extraordinarily thick and long and of a lustreless black, and looked a very thunder-cloud upon her back, as I have before said; it put a wild and almost savage spirit into her beauty, which this slender headgear of lace or whatnot somewhat qualified ”

“ Lady John Russell used her very considerable intellectual gifts not for herself but for others, for her husband, her children, her friends. Her mind was intensely receptive and ever eager for information. Thinking always more of others than of herself, she could throw herself into their thoughts and feelings. ”

“ I re-entered the cabin, and found my sweetheart with her elbows on the table and her cheeks resting in her hands. The blush had scarcely faded from her face when I had quitted her; now she was as white as a lily.
"Why do you leave me alone, Herbert?" she asked, turning her dark, liquid eyes upon me without shifting the posture of her head.
"My dearest, I wish to see our little ship clear of Boulogne harbour. We shall be getting a pleasant breeze presently, and it cannot blow too soon to please us. ”

“ He looked solemn, stroked up his fine black hair, and with a sweetness of countenance peculiarly his own, and in a gently modulated but sufficiently audible tone of voice he begged of his friend Neilson to respect the dignity of the Bench.” Russell was a deeply religious character, with that combined humility, consciousness of his own weakness, and striving after perfection which is the foundation of saintliness. There is nothing nobler, more touching, or more edifying in our history than the story of how he went to his death. ”

“ Russell talked much, talked kindly of all men, talked well of many things, said startling things of society and art and poetry so gently that you did not think until afterwards that in another you would hold them gages of combat. I can hear him yet, as I sat and tried at the same time to listen to him and to look at his flaming-hearted spirits with luminous angel wings and flashing halos enveloped in an atmosphere in which "the peacock twilight rays aloft its plumes and blooms of shadowy fire"—I can hear him saying, "You can't read Shakespeare, can you?" ”

“ Somewhere about this time Grace came out of her berth. She brought an atmosphere of flower-like fragrance with her, but the motions of the yacht obliged her to sit quickly, and she gazed at me with laughter in her eyes from the locker, graceful in her posture as a reposing dancer. Her face lengthened, however, when I told her about the weather, that in short there was nothing visible from the deck but a muddy, jumbled atmosphere of vapour and drizzle.
"I counted upon seeing the Isle of Wight," cried she; "there has been no land so far except those far-off high cliffs yesterday afternoon." ”

“ It is through the eyes of Mary McCracken that we of to-day are permitted to see Thomas Russell. So living and breathing is the portrait, for which a woman’s love has mixed the colours, that though Russell has been lying for one hundred and fifteen years in the grave which she made for him in Downpatrick, it seems to us as if we might have passed him in the streets to-day. ”

“ What you have said—that I loved you as Mary Robertson—is true. I know in my own heart that my love cannot dishonour us—that it cannot gain nor lose by what the future may hold in store for me with you, dear one, as my wife. ”

“ Russell had at least no reason to complain of having disclosed his mind to a careless listener. I was moved almost to tears at his story: but, stronger than all other feelings, was admiration of his principles and character. I felt that some of us had almost done him irreverence in venturing to discuss him so lightly as we had often done. How little we know the hearts of others, and how readily we prate about “seeing through” a man, when in truth what we see is but a surface, and the image conveyed to our mind from it but the reflection of ourselves! ”

“ A woman’s hair is her glory, they say, and I felt as though I was parting with a crown of beauty as I watched my long raven-black tresses in the glass falling under the shearing snip of the remorseless scissors. But there was a sense of triumph in me, too—the elation of love—the feeling that what I was doing was for Tom’s sake, and that this was the very least of the sacrifices I was willing to make for him.
I obliged the man to crop me as close behind as though I were a convict, but to leave me enough in front to part my hair on one side. ”

“ I took the former lady aside, leaving Grace in charge of the acidulated gentlewoman with the curls.
"Miss Bellassys tells me," said I, "that you have warmly counselled her to allow Captain Parsons to marry us. You are very good. You could not do us a greater service than by giving such advice. She has consented, asking only that the ceremony shall be privately performed in the captain's cabin."
"She is very young," replied Mrs. Barstow, "too young I fear to realise her position. I am a mother, Mr. Barclay, and my sympathies are entirely with your charming sweetheart. ”

“ Lady John had neither the temperament, the inclination, nor the health required for such a rôle in the world of politics. Some are of opinion that Lord John Russell’s position as a statesman suffered, that he allowed himself to be too much absorbed by his domestic affairs, and that the illnesses of his wife and the care of his young family weighed too heavily upon him. This is as it may be, but the ideal domestic life of the Russells did not prevent a perfect sympathy and understanding between husband and wife in the larger affairs in which the great statesman was engaged. ”

“ But in his grasp of every case presented to him, and in his power of imposing the view he sought to uphold upon a northern jury, even Russell was not his equal. A man of great physique, in person cumbrous and heavy, and in facial expression unalert and uninspiring, he sometimes gave to his hearers rather the impression of a giant talking in his sleep. ”

“ The nation may recognise the services of its great men, but can never gauge to the full extent the influences which sustained them. The uplifting associations of a singularly happy domestic life must be taken into account in any estimate of the forces which shaped Lord John Russell’s career. It is enough to say—indeed, more cannot with propriety be added—that through the political stress and strain of nearly forty years Lady Russell proved herself to be a loyal and noble-hearted wife. ”

“ Good-bye, Russell. Do your duty nobly; win deathless glory on the battlefield in defence of our sacred cause; and remember that your laurels will be very precious to my lonely heart."
He watched the wonderful loveliness of face and form, till his pride was utterly melted, and, sinking on his knees, he threw one arm around her waist exclaiming—
"O Irene, you have conquered! With God's grace I will so spend the residue of my life as to merit your love, and the hope of reunion beyond the grave." ”

“ There, in old age, Lord Russell loved to wander with wife or child or friend, and there, through the loop-holes of retreat amid his books and flowers, he watched the great world, and occasionally sallied forth, so long as strength remained, to bear his part in its affairs. ”

“ Indeed we hear but little of the happy unions: it is the brawling, rocky brook that is the most noisy: the slow, deep waters are dump. Every one will remember the wife of Lord William Russell, whose conduct by the side of her husband, on his trial, stands out as one of the most beautiful pictures in all history. ”

“ Now, there was Russell, a man of twenty-seven or eight, a grown man that had lived his independent life for years before he had married Ellen. And yet, honestly, when he looked up then, his face and his eyes were like those of a boy that had done something that he had been scolded for. He looked kind of apologetic and explanatory—a look no man ought to be required to look unless for a real reason. It seems so—ignominious for a human being to have to look like that when they hadn't done a thing wrong. ”

“ He gravely beckoned with an air of ceremony, and Mr. Tooth and I went up to him. He looked at Mr. Tooth, who immediately said:
"Captain, a wedding at sea is good enough to remember; something for a man to talk about. Can't I be present?" and he dropped his head on one side with an insinuating smile.
"No, sir," answered Captain Parsons, with true sea grace, and putting his hand on my arm he carried me right aft. "The hour's at hand," said he. "Who's to be present, d'ye know? for if it's to be private we don't want a crowd."
"Mrs. Barstow and Miss Moggadore—nobody else, I believe." ”

“ I was instantly at her side.
"The ceremony is fixed for ten, I think?" said Mrs. Barstow, and here Miss Moggadore arrived as one who had a right to be with us, not to say of us.
"Yes, ten o'clock," I answered. "But do these people know what is going to happen?"
"Oh, it will certainly have got about. A ship is like a village—the lightest whisper is everywhere echoed."
"No matter, Grace," said I, "let them stare. What isn't kindness must be admiration."
"I am of opinion," said Miss Moggadore, "that the ceremony ought to be public." ”

“ His enduring smile lay broad with such expansion, indeed, as gave an air of elation to his face.
'No,' said he, wagging his head, while he slipped the elastic band of his sou'-wester behind his whisker; 'we will not live together as strangers, as you desire. Brotherly love is still practicable, and nothing that you can say or do, my young friend, shall dissuade me from cultivating it. That we shall be long together I do not believe,' he added, with a significance that astonished me and sent my eyes askant at Helga, whose back was still upon us. ”

“ He left us to give the necessary orders to his men, and, whilst the steamer launched her own boat, I stood talking with Caudel, telling him of our adventures aboard the Carthusian, of our marriage, and so forth. He listened very gravely whilst I talked of my marriage.
"I fear it's a sham," said I, "but it will be something to strengthen my hands with when I come to tackle Lady Amelia."
"A sham!" cried he, "no fear, sir. If you've been married by the master of a ship, there's no more splicing wanted. You're a wedded man. There can be no breaking away from it." ”

“ MINTO, November 4, 1838
This morning brought us the sad, sad news of the death of Lady John Russell. God give strength to her poor unhappy husband, and watch over his dear little motherless children.
The only event of importance which occurred in the family during 1838 was the marriage of the eldest daughter, Mary, to Ralph Abercromby, son of the Speaker and afterwards Lord Dunfermline. It was a very happy marriage, but Lady Fanny missed her sister very much, and her accounts of the wedding and the last days before it are mixed with regrets. ”