The Story of My Life, volumes 1-3 - Augustus J. C. Hare

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Simpkinson, who was sitting behind with me, said, in a careless way, "As for me, my chief association with Michaelmas Day is a roast goose." Then Uncle Julius turned round, and, in a voice of thunder, audible to every one on the road, exclaimed, "Ignorant and presumptuous young woman!" He had never seen her till that day. As she said to me years after, when she was a wife and mother, "That the Archdeacon should call me ignorant and presumptuous was trying, still I could bear that very well; but that he should dare to call me a young woman was not to be endured." However, her only alternative was to bear the affront and be driven two miles home, or to insist upon getting out of the carriage and walking home through the mud, and she chose the former course, and afterwards my uncle, when he knew her good qualities, both admired and liked her.

      It must have been about this time that Uncle Julius delivered his sermons on "the Mission of the Comforter" at Cambridge, and many of his friends used to amuse my mother by describing them. The church was crowded, but the congregation was prepared for sermons of ordinary length. The Halls then "went in" at three, and when that hour came, and there was no sign of a conclusion, great was the shuffling of feet. This was especially the case during the sermon on "The Church the Light of the World," but Uncle Julius did not care a bit, and went on till 3.20 quite composedly.

      At this time it used to be said that Uncle Julius had five popes—Wordsworth, Niebuhr, Bunsen, Frederick Maurice, and Manning.[22] They were very different certainly, but he was equally up in arms if any of these were attacked.

      I was not six years old before my mother—under the influence of the Maurices—began to follow out a code of penance with regard to me which was worthy of the ascetics of the desert. Hitherto I had never been allowed anything but roast-mutton and rice-pudding for dinner. Now all was changed. The most delicious puddings were talked of—dilated on—until I became, not greedy, but exceedingly curious about them. At length "le grand moment" arrived. They were put on the table before me, and then, just as I was going to eat some of them, they were snatched away, and I was told to get up and carry them off to some poor person in the village. I remember that, though I did not really in the least care about the dainties, I cared excessively about Lea's wrath at the fate of her nice puddings, of which, after all, I was most innocent. We used at this time to read a great deal about the saints, and the names of Polycarp, Athanasius, &c., became as familiar to me as those of our own household. Perhaps my mother, through Esther Maurice's influence, was just a little High Church at this time, and always fasted to a certain extent on Wednesdays and Fridays, on which days I was never allowed to eat butter or to have any pudding. Priscilla Maurice also even persuaded Uncle Julius to have a service in the schoolroom at (the principal village) Gardner Street on saints' days, which was attended by one old woman and ourselves. My mother, who always appropriated to charities all money she received for the sale of my Uncle Augustus's sermons, also now spent part of it in the so-called "restoration" of Hurstmonceaux Church, when all the old pews were swept away and very hideous varnished benches put in their place. Uncle Julius, as soon as he became Archdeacon, used to preach a perfect crusade against pews, and often went, saw and hammer in hand, to begin the work in the village churches with his own hands.

      Our own life through these years continued to be of the most primitive and simple kind. A new book or a new flower was its greatest event—an event to be chronicled and which only came once or twice a year. Many little luxuries, most common now, were not invented then, steel-pens and wax-matches for instance, and, amongst a thousand other unobserved deficiencies, there were no night-lights, except of a most rudimentary kind. No one ever thought of having baths in their rooms then, even in the most comfortable houses: a footpan or a "bidet" was the utmost luxury attempted.

      It was in the spring of 1839 that I had my first associations with death. Often, in my earliest childish days, had I seen the sweet and charming Lady Parry, who, as Bella Stanley, had been one of the dearest friends of my mother's youth. While our dear cousins Charlotte and Emma Leycester were at Lime, the news came of her death, and I remember how they and my mother sate over the fire crying, and of gradually understanding the cause, and of tears being renewed for several mornings afterwards, when details were received from Sir Edward Parry and old Lady Stanley.

      From MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.

      "Lime, June 18, 1839.—During a week spent in London, Augustus was part of every day with his brothers and sister. Their first meeting was at Sheen. Augustus was much excited before they came, and when he saw his brothers, threw himself on my neck and kissed me passionately. They were soon intimate, and he was very much delighted at playing with them, and was not made fretful by it. There seemed to be a strong feeling of affection awakened towards them, unlike anything he has shown to other children. I have begun to teach Augustus to draw, but it is wearisome work from his inattention. … His delight in flowers and knowledge of their names is greater than ever, and it is equally necessary to control his gratification in this as in other pleasures. The usual punishment for his impatience over dressing is to have no garden flowers.

      "In all the books of education I do not find what I believe is the useful view taken of the actual labour of learning to read—that of forcing the child's attention to a thing irksome to it and without interest. The task is commonly spoken of as a means to an end, necessary because the information in books cannot otherwise be obtained, and it is to be put off till the child's interest in the information is excited and so made a pleasure to him. Now it seems to me to be an excellent discipline whereby daily some self-denial and command may be acquired in overcoming the repugnance to doing from duty that which has in itself no attraction. In the first struggle to fix the attention and learn that which is without interest, but which must be done, a habit is gained of great importance. And in this way nothing is better suited to the purpose than the lesson of reading, even though little progress may be made for a long time.

      "I find in giving any order to a child, it is always better not to look to see if he obeys, but to take it for granted it will be done. If one appears to doubt the obedience, there is occasion given for the child to hesitate, 'Shall I do it or no?' If you seem not to question the possibility of non-compliance, he feels a trust committed to him to keep and fulfils it. It is best never to repeat a command, never to answer the oft-asked question 'why?'

      "Augustus would, I believe, always do a thing if reasoned with about it, but the necessity of obedience without reasoning is specially necessary in such a disposition as his. The will is the thing that needs being brought into subjection.

      "The withholding a pleasure is a safe punishment for naughtiness, more safe, I think, than giving a reward for goodness. 'If you are naughty I must punish you,' is often a necessary threat: but it is not good to hold out a bribe for goodness—'If you are good I will give you such a thing.'"

      In the autumn of 1839 we went for the first time to Norwich and spent Christmas there, which was most enchanting to me. The old buildings of Norwich gave me, even at five years old, the intense and passionate pleasure with which I have ever since regarded them. No others are the same. No others come back to me constantly in dreams in the same way.

      RUIN IN THE PALACE GARDEN, NORWICH. RUIN IN THE PALACE GARDEN, NORWICH.

      My Aunt Kitty was deeply interesting,

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