I Had Always, However, Understood That Lady Hester
Stanhope Wore The Male Attire, And I Began To Utter In English
The
common civilities that seemed to be proper on the commencement of a
visit by an uninspired mortal to a
Renowned prophetess; but the
figure which I addressed only bowed so much the more, prostrating
itself almost to the ground, but speaking to me never a word. I
feebly strived not to be outdone in gestures of respect; but
presently my bowing opponent saw the error under which I was
acting, and suddenly convinced me that, at all events, I was not
YET in the presence of a superhuman being, by declaring that he was
not "miladi," but was, in fact, nothing more or less god-like than
the poor doctor, who had brought his mistress's letter to Beyrout.
Her ladyship, in the right spirit of hospitality, now sent and
commanded me to repose for a while after the fatigues of my
journey, and to dine.
The cuisine was of the Oriental kind, which is highly artificial,
and I thought it very good. I rejoiced too in the wine of the
Lebanon.
Soon after the ending of the dinner the doctor arrived with
miladi's compliments, and an intimation that she would he happy to
receive me if I were so disposed. It had now grown dark, and the
rain was falling heavily, so that I got rather wet in following my
guide through the open courts that I had to pass in order to reach
the presence chamber. At last I was ushered into a small
apartment, which was protected from the draughts of air passing
through the doorway by a folding screen; passing this, I came
alongside of a common European sofa, where sat the lady prophetess.
She rose from her seat very formally, spoke to me a few words of
welcome, pointed to a chair which was placed exactly opposite to
her sofa at a couple of yards' distance, and remained standing up
to the full of her majestic height, perfectly still and motionless,
until I had taken my appointed place; she then resumed her seat,
not packing herself up according to the mode of the Orientals, but
allowing her feet to rest on the floor or the footstool; at the
moment of seating herself she covered her lap with a mass of loose
white drapery which she held in her hand. It occurred to me at the
time that she did this in order to avoid the awkwardness of sitting
in manifest trousers under the eye of an European, but I can hardly
fancy now that with her wilful nature she would have brooked such a
compromise as this.
The woman before me had exactly the person of a prophetess - not,
indeed, of the divine sibyl imagined by Domenichino, so sweetly
distracted betwixt love and mystery, but of a good business-like,
practical prophetess, long used to the exercise of her sacred
calling. I have been told by those who knew Lady Hester Stanhope
in her youth, that any notion of a resemblance betwixt her and the
great Chatham must have been fanciful; but at the time of my seeing
her, the large commanding features of the gaunt woman, then sixty
years old or more, certainly reminded me of the statesman that lay
dying {15} in the House of Lords, according to Copley's picture.
Her face was of the most astonishing whiteness; {16} she wore a
very large turban, which seemed to be of pale cashmere shawls, so
disposed as to conceal the hair; her dress, from the chin down to
the point at which it was concealed by the drapery which she held
over her lap, was a mass of white linen loosely folding - an
ecclesiastical sort of affair, more like a surplice than any of
those blessed creations which our souls love under the names of
"dress" and "frock" and "boddice" and "collar" and "habit-shirt"
and sweet "chemisette."
Such was the outward seeming of the personage that sat before me,
and indeed she was almost bound by the fame of her actual
achievements, as well as by her sublime pretensions, to look a
little differently from the rest of womankind. There had been
something of grandeur in her career. After the death of Lady
Chatham, which happened in 1803, she lived under the roof of her
uncle, the second Pitt, and when he resumed the Government in 1804,
she became the dispenser of much patronage, and sole secretary of
state for the department of Treasury banquets. Not having seen the
lady until late in her life, when she was fired with spiritual
ambition, I can hardly fancy that she could have performed her
political duties in the saloons of the Minister with much of
feminine sweetness and patience. I am told, however, that she
managed matters very well indeed: perhaps it was better for the
lofty-minded leader of the House to have his reception-rooms
guarded by this stately creature, than by a merely clever and
managing woman; it was fitting that the wholesome awe with which he
filled the minds of the country gentlemen should be aggravated by
the presence of his majestic niece. But the end was approaching.
The sun of Austerlitz showed the Czar madly sliding his splendid
army like a weaver's shuttle from his right hand to his left, under
the very eyes - the deep, grey, watchful eyes of Napoleon; before
night came, the coalition was a vain thing - meet for history, and
the heart of its great author was crushed with grief when the
terrible tidings came to his ears. In the bitterness of his
despair he cried out to his niece, and bid her, "ROLL UP THE MAP OF
EUROPE"; there was a little more of suffering, and at last, with
his swollen tongue (so they say) still muttering something for
England, he died by the noblest of all sorrows.
Lady Hester, meeting the calamity in her own fierce way, seems to
have scorned the poor island that had not enough of God's grace to
keep the "heaven-sent" Minister alive.
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