Mrs. Hare

“ By a vast number of Canadian women, some of whom are now in middle age, the name of Dr. Hare is held in honor and veneration. His educational attainments were some years ago recognized by his selection as examiner in geology by the University of Toronto. In September, 1874, he married Katherine Isabella, daughter of the late Rev. D. C. McDowell, a well-known Methodist divine, and has one son. Mrs. Hare was for some years lady principal of the college, and discharged the duties of her position with efficiency. His recreations are riding, driving and tennis; and in politics he is an independent. ”

“ And all the little children came up and kissed him, and cried, "Hosanna! hosanna! he is good; and he has got little wings like us."
"'So Hare lived on in the island, till, one day, the angel said, "Have you ever thought what your poor mother is doing now, and would you not like to go back to her?" And Hare said, "But can I always be good and have white robes and wings if I go back to Babylon?" ”

“ She bade me seek in the environs of Paris for a small house, any one I liked, in any situation, and she would buy it for me. If there was a large house near it, so much the better—that she would buy for herself. She said she knew I could not live there upon nothing, but that she should give me an annuity, and that Félix 'à cause de son rhumatisme,' must have a little carriage. I was quite overwhelmed. 'Mais, Madame, nous ne méritons pas cela,' I said. 'Oui, Victoire, je sais que vous le méritez bien, et je le veux.' I said it was impossible I could accept such favours at her hands. ”

“ In the summer of 1832 all the family went to Baden-Baden, to meet Lady Paul and her daughter Eleanor, Sir John, the FitzGeralds, and the Bankheads. All the branches of Mrs. Hare's family lived in different houses, but they met daily for dinner, and were very merry. Before the autumn, my father returned to Italy, to the Villa Cittadella near Lucca, which was taken for two months for Mrs. Hare's confinement, and there, on the 9th of October, my sister was born. She received the names of "Anne Frances Maria Louisa." ”

“ When Hare was a little child he lived at Rome: you know what we call it?— ("Oh yes, papa, Babylon.") —Well, he lived at Babylon, and he was a very good little boy then, but he used to walk about dressed in scarlet, for they all wore scarlet there. One day a man was seen in the streets, very beautiful, a stranger with silver wings. And he said, "Are you little Hare, and would you like to go with me and learn how to be good?" for he was an angel. And little Hare said, "Oh yes, that is what I always like to be and try to be, and I shall like very much to go." ”

“ At Hare’s house she called in the full expectation of finding her mother, perhaps it might be in the midst of a debauch, but that was nothing out of the way, and surely she would get her home with her. On entering the house Peggy met Mrs. Hare and Helen M‘Dougal, who, to her surprise, denied that Mary Haldane had recently been with them, and who, in the fear of discovery, endeavoured to strengthen their repudiation by abusing the old woman and her daughter. Hare, in an adjoining apartment, heard what was going on, and set to work to deceive the girl in a much more astute manner. ”

“ After what Richard let out on the trial. As if I should look after anybody less than Dick Hare! I shall get him, too. I always knew Dick Hare loved me above everything on earth; and he does still, or he’d never had said what he did in open court. ‘It’s better to be born lucky than rich.’ Won’t West Lynne envy me! Mrs. Richard Hare of the Grove. Old Hare is on his last legs, and then Dick comes into his own. Mrs. Hare must have her jointure house elsewhere, for we shall want the Grove for ourselves. I wonder if Madame Barbara will condescend to recognize me. And that blessed Corny? ”

“ Barbara Hare rose with a gesture of impatience, not suppressed, opened the door, and glanced at the large clock in the hall. “It wants nine and twenty minutes to seven, mamma. I wish you would put your watch on of a day; four times you have sent me to look at that clock since dinner.”
“I am so thirsty!” repeated Mrs. Hare, with a sort of sob. “If seven o’clock would but strike! I am dying for my tea.”
It may occur to the reader, that a lady in her own house, “dying for her tea,” might surely order it brought in, although the customary hour had not struck. Not so Mrs. Hare. ”

“ I have known many of those persons whom the world calls “great ladies” in later times, but I have never known any one who was more truly “a lady” in every best and highest sense, than Mrs. Pile.
On leaving Alton, we went to join the Marcus Hares in the express train at Swindon. Uncle Marcus, Aunt Lucy, her maid Griffiths, and my mother were in one compartment of the carriage; my little cousin Lucebella, Lea, an elderly peer (Lord Saye and Sele, I think) , and I were in the other, for carriages on the Great Western were then divided by a door. ”

“ Hare-Naylor of my own childhood, who was less and less liked by her stepsons as years went on. She became the mother of three children, Georgiana, Gustavus, and Reginald—my half aunt and uncles. In 1815, Mr. Hare-Naylor died at Tours, and was buried at Hurstmonceaux.
The breaking up of their home, the loss of their beloved mother, and still more their father’s second marriage, made the four Hare brothers turn henceforward for all that they sought of sympathy or affection to their Shipley relations. The house of their mother’s eldest sister, Lady Jones, was henceforward the only home they knew. ”

“ The common remark was, that “he was a poor silly-looking body;” and nothing can better describe his appearance; for though Hare is certainly no beauty, every one has seen hundreds of uglier men. He can neither read nor write, and his mind, in other respects, is just as untutored as an Esquimaux Indian’s. What is called the moral sense, seems in him to stand below zero; and in this opinion we are borne out by all the medical gentlemen who had an opportunity of seeing and conversing with him here. ”

“ No officers of justice, searching for a fugitive, ever made a louder. Richard Hare, his face turned to chalk, his eyes starting, and his own light hair bristling up with horror, struggled into his wet smock-frock after a fashion, the tails up about his ears and the sleeves hanging, forced on his hat and his false whiskers, looked round in a bewildered manner for some cupboard or mouse-hole into which he might creep, and, seeing none, rushed to the fireplace and placed his foot on the fender. ”

“ Barbara, with whom Aunt Caroline was most furious at times. She had a large pension after her death. It used to be said that the reason why Mrs. Barbara had only one arm and part of another was that Aunt Caroline had eaten the rest. [20]
It was when we were staying with Aunt Marianne in 1839 that I first saw my real mother. "On est mère, ou on ne l'est pas," says the Madame Cardinal of Ludovic Halévy. In my case "on ne l'était pas." I watched Mrs. Hare's arrival, and, through the banisters of the staircase, saw her cross the hall, and was on the tiptoe of expectation ”

“ Assail the poet, and defame the man."
After another winter at Rome, the family went to Lausanne, and thence my father, with my beautiful Albanese nurse, Lucia Cecinelli, took me to meet Mrs. Gayford, the English nurse sent out to fetch me by my adopted mother from Mannheim on the Rhine. There the formal exchange took place which gave me a happy and loving home. I saw my father afterwards, but he seldom noticed me. Many years afterwards I knew Mrs. Hare well and had much to do with her ”

“ I remember Uncle Julius coming out with tears streaming down his cheeks, and an open letter in his hand, one day when all the family were sitting under the trees. It was the news of the death of Dr. Arnold of Rugby.
In the autumn Mrs. Hare came with her children to spend some time at Hurstmonceaux Rectory. It was then arranged that I should call her “Italima” (being a corruption of “Italian Mama”) , and by that name I will henceforth speak of her in these memoirs, but this must not be taken to imply any greater intimacy, as she never treated me familiarly or with affection. ”

“ For several years our grandparents carried on a most laborious contest of dignity with poverty on their ruined estate of Hurstmonceaux, where their only daughter Anna Maria Clementina was born in 1799. Finding no congenial associates in the neighbourhood, Mrs. Hare-Naylor consoled herself by keeping up an animated correspondence with all the learned men of Europe, while her husband wrote dull plays and duller histories, which have all been published, but which few people read then and nobody reads now. ”

“ Not only, however, were these individuals sane; one among them, and the leader, was intelligent, had wit and humour, could feel the superficial sentiment of a pathetic lyric, and, above all, possessed ingenuity to the extent of inventing a new crime which has gone, with his name, over the world. The women, too, were intelligent and apt; nor has it been said that Mrs Hare did not feel the yearnings of a mother, or that M‘Dougal was false to the affection, however low, which bound her to the tyrant who enslaved her. ”

“ She was then living with her mother Lady Boyle in the same house of Millard’s Hill, near Frome, in which my great-aunts Caroline and Marianne Hare had lived before; and, to my great surprise and delight, I was allowed to go by the coach to spend two days with her there. It was on this occasion that I first wore a morning-coat instead of a jacket, and very proud I was of it. Apropos of dress, at this time and for many years afterwards, all young gentlemen wore straps to their trousers, not only when riding, but always: it was considered the ne plus ultra of snobbism to appear without them. ”

“ Nay, we have seen Hare using as much liberty of punishing M‘Dougal when his friend was present, as Burke had of thrashing Mrs Hare, which it is certain he often did. Nay, the women even had their battles royal, and the men were, as well, often engaged in fierce conflict. ”

“ Lea, however, was less patient, and openly expressed her abhorrence of her own trial in having to come up to the Rectory daily to dress my mother for dinner, and walk back to Lime through the dark night, coming again, shine or shower, in the early morning, before my mother was up.
I would not have any one suppose that, on looking back through the elucidation of years, I can see no merits in my Aunt Esther Hare. The austerities which she enforced upon my mother with regard to me she fully carried out as regarded herself. “Elle vivait avec elle-même comme sa victime,” as Mme. ”

“ Hare is a familiar figure, not only on the stage, but on horseback in the Row, or, more delightful still to his acquaintances, talking from an easy-chair as no one but himself can talk, or rising after dinner to make one of his inimitable speeches. ”

“ Careful as to his personal appearance, Francis Hare was always dressed in the height of the fashion. It is remembered how he would retire and change his dress three times in the course of a single ball! In everything he followed the foibles of the day. "Francis leads a rambling life of pleasure and idleness," wrote his cousin Anna Maria Dashwood; "he must have read, but who can tell at what time?—for wherever there is dissipation, there is Francis in its wake and its most ardent pursuer. ”

“ As for Hare, she would never live with him again.
Owing to the threatening attitude of the populace, the authorities saw they must themselves devise means for Mrs. Hare’s safe removal to Ireland. On the afternoon of her rescue an immense crowd surrounded the police office expecting to see her depart, but it was feared that the spirit of riot might again break forth with renewed vigour. She was detained in custody until Thursday, the 12th of February, when she sailed from the Broomielaw in the steamer Fingal, for Belfast, which port was not far from her native place. ”

“ Se trouvant à la fenêtre, il entend M. Hare faire un mouvement dans le lit: Félix regarde de près, il écoute, il touche: M. Hare venait de finir."
My father was buried in the English Cemetery at Palermo, where there is a plain sarcophagus over his grave. The English Consul sent the following certificate to Mrs. Hare:—
"On Saturday, the 15th January, 1842, the remains of the late Francis George Hare, Esquire, were interred in the Protestant Burial Ground at the Lazzaret of Palermo, in the presence of a large concourse of Sicilian noblemen, and of the British, French, and American residents. ”

“ He was fêted and invited everywhere. "On disait de M. Hare," said one who knew him intimately, "non seulement qu'il était original, mais qu'il était original sans copie." "In these years at Florence," said the same person, "there were many ladies who were aspirants for his hand, he was si aimable, pas dans le sens vulgaire, mais il avait tant d'empressement pour tout le sexe feminin." His aunts Lady Jones and her sister Louisa Shipley constantly implored him to return to England and settle there, but in vain: he was too much accustomed to a roving life. ”

“ Aunt Esther was, from her own personal characteristics, a person I never could have loved. Yet my uncle was now entirely ruled by her, and my gentle mother considered her interference in everything as a cross which was "sent to her" to be meekly endured. The society at the Rectory was now entirely changed: all the relations of the Hare family, except the Marcus Hares, were given to understand that their visits were unwelcome, and the house was entirely filled with the relations of Aunt Esther—old Mr. and Mrs. Maurice ”