CHAPTER XI. After Return Home—Marriage

AFTER RETURN HOME—MARRIAGE

Yacht to Norway—Dover—Marriage—Relations of my own; those of my wife

On returning to England, my gratification was great in finding all my immediate relatives well and eager to welcome me. But I was rather used up in health, and desired to get out of the way of being lionised, which is exceedingly wearisome to the lion after the first excitement and novelty of the process have worn away. So I gladly accepted an invitation from Sir Hyde Parker to yacht and fish with him in Norway. He was a famed fisherman, and had landed in Norway the largest salmon on record with a fly, 66 lb. in weight, authoritatively confirmed. Several of his yachting friends were to have sailed at the same time; but their plans were affected by the electioneering then going on; consequently, after the loss of some precious days, we were accompanied only by the yachts of Mr. Bentinck and Mr. Milner Gibson.

The former told us interesting anecdotes of Lord Brougham’s early rise at the Bar, how eagerly his help was sought by the smart men of those days when they got into scrapes, as being more likely to get them out of their difficulties than any one else. The extraordinary versatility and energy of Lord Brougham had made a great impression on me at that time and long previously, and I listened eagerly to anecdotes of him. A timid and rather elderly lady had told me that Lord Brougham was once a guest at her brother’s house, where his appearance was awaited with awe. The great man arrived, talked incessantly and wonderfully well during dinner, but retired early on account of business letters. Later on, while she was preparing for bed, an awful yell or scream, which she could only describe in the negative terms of unearthly and totally unlike anything she had ever heard before, rang through the corridor. She tremblingly snatched up whatever dress was at hand, and issued in terror to learn what had happened. She met Lord Brougham’s valet with a candle in his hand, walking leisurely, and cried to him, “What is it? What is it?” He answered unconcernedly, “It is only his Lordship calling for me; that is his usual way.”

There is a remarkably good wax effigy of Lord Brougham as a young man in Madame Tussaud’s collection, perhaps the most real-looking of any there. Later on I was taken to see him in his house at Cannes, a few years before his death. Doubts had recently been expressed in the newspapers about his version of the circumstances attending the dissolution of Parliament by William iv., which made Lord Brougham exceedingly wroth. It was fine but sad to witness the unmeasured indignation of the old hero, punctuating his remarks as he sat, by heavy digs into the sand with the point of his umbrella, held in both hands like a dagger.

Notwithstanding the Norway cruise, my health remained out of sorts, and a little later in the year, while some of my old fever was on me, I could not resist a dangerous exposure in order to witness the funeral of the Duke of Wellington. This made me seriously ill; I could hardly stand, but somehow made my way to my mother’s house at Claverdon, where she and my sister Emma nursed me tenderly, and then, as I got better, it was agreed that we should all go together to Dover for a complete change.

There I recovered completely, and became engaged to my future wife, the daughter of the Very Rev. George Butler, Dean of Peterborough, who had been Headmaster of Harrow during many years. My wife had three sisters and four brothers, the latter all highly distinguished for scholastic and administrative ability.

I shrink, yet cannot wholly refrain from speaking of the affection I freely received from them, their relatives and their friends, all owing to that happy marriage, which lasted forty-four years, and ended at Royat in 1897, followed by a grave in the cemetery at Clermont Ferrand.

I shall say little about my purely domestic life, which, however full of interest to myself, would be uninteresting to strangers, so I attempt no more than to give brief accounts of the friendships and events that followed my marriage in 1853 up to about 1866. This interval of thirteen years occupies a fairly well defined part of my life owing to two reasons, namely, that my scientific interests during its latter half became concentrated on heredity, and because it was in 1866 that my health suffered a more serious breakdown than had happened to it before. During the whole of this interval I find from old diaries that I frequently suffered from giddiness and other maladies prejudicial to mental effort, but that I invariably became well again on completely changing my habits, as by touring abroad and taking plenty of out-of-door exercise. The warning I received in 1866 was more emphatic and alarming than previously, and made a revision of my mode of life a matter of primary importance. Those who have not suffered from mental breakdown can hardly realise the incapacity it causes, or, when the worst is past, the closeness of analogy between a sprained brain and a sprained joint. In both cases, after recovery seems to others to be complete, there remains for a long time an impossibility of performing certain minor actions without pain and serious mischief, mental in the one and bodily in the other. This was a frequent experience with me respecting small problems, which successively obsessed me day and night, as I tried in vain to think them out. These affected mere twigs, so to speak, rather than large boughs of the mental processes, but for all that most painfully.

My own family became dispersed in four groups. My mother and my sister Emma lived together in Leamington, and their house became a second home to my wife and myself. My mother always showed the greatest affection to me throughout her long life, which closed in 1874. After her death, the house and garden devolved upon my sister Emma. She cared for the interests of the family as a whole, and for each of us severally. She was invaluable to my wife and myself, and became my regular correspondent, whose weekly letters were awaited and read by us both with eagerness.

My eldest sister lived during the time with which I am now concerned, with her husband and her two growing children, in the country, about seven miles from Leamington.

My sister Adele lost her husband not long after her marriage, and settled successively in various places at home and abroad, devoting herself, as already said, to the education of her little girl. She died in 1883.

My second brother, Erasmus, lived for a while on his property at Loxton, in Somersetshire, five miles from Weston-super-Mare, but joined the 2nd Warwickshire Militia during many years, of which he became Major. He is now the only survivor of my six brothers and sisters, and is ninety-three years of age.

I turn from my own family to that of my wife. Her father was Dean of Peterborough, previously Headmaster of Harrow during many years, and before his appointment the Senior Wrangler at Cambridge, in the year in which Copley, the future Lord Lyndhurst, was second. There was no Classical class list in existence in Cambridge in those days, but the fact of Dr. Butler’s election to the Headmastership of Harrow at a very early age testifies to his reputation as a classical scholar as well as a mathematician. He had been noted for athletic powers, and he much prized a medal awarded to him by the Humane Society for having saved the life of a drowning woman when long past his middle age. He afterwards overtaxed his heart by exertion to catch a train, which, among other effects, brought on a considerable degree of blindness, and made him in many respects invalided before the age of eighty. But his mind was apparently in full vigour, and his interests were most keen. Few persons had a more courtly demeanour. I was fated never to know him as a father-in-law. When I reached the Deanery from London, in order to be formally accepted into the family, I found the blinds drawn, and learnt that the Dean had died suddenly at luncheon. There had been some discussion in the morning about Cathedral matters in the Chapter House, and the excitement told fatally upon him, as it was always feared that any exceptional emotion might do. I was taken upstairs to look upon his dead face.

The Dean was father of an exceptionally gifted family. All of his four sons distinguished themselves highly at the Universities. The youngest was the Senior Classic of his year, subsequently Headmaster of Harrow, as his father had been before him, then for a brief time Dean of Gloucester, now and for many past years Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.

The same gifts of nature have descended in large measure to the grandchildren. Out of the eighteen grandsons of Dr. George Butler, Dean of Peterborough, a full half have already shown exceptional ability. Five have won a University Scholarship or prize, two others have given promise of high administrative power in India, one of whom now occupies the important post of Foreign Secretary to the Indian Government. Out of the five granddaughters, one has obtained a First Class in History at Oxford. This by no means exhausts the achievements of the grandchildren. The Butler family well deserve study as an instance of hereditary gifts, but this is hardly the place for it.

Neither can I enlarge as I could have done on the far greater importance of being married into a family that is good in character, in health, and in ability, than into one that is either very wealthy or very noble, but lacks these primary qualifications. The enlargement afforded to the previous family interests through marriage is so great that much must be lost when first cousins marry one another.

I protest against the opinions of those sentimental people who think that marriage concerns only the two principals; it has in reality the wider effect of an alliance between each of them and a new family. Moreover, the interests of the unborn should be taken far more seriously into account than they now are. Enough is already known of the laws of heredity to make it certain that the marriage of one class of persons will lead on the whole to good results, and that of another class to evil ones, however doubtful the result may be in particular cases. Of this I shall speak more fully in the final chapter.

As regards the earlier domestic life of my wife and myself, we lived in a flat in Victoria Street for three years; then I bought the long lease of 42 Rutland Gate, which has been my home ever since. We followed the usual routine of social life of persons of our class, making tours every year, usually abroad. The doctors sometimes sent one or both of us to undergo a cure at some watering-place. In this way we visited and, some of them more than once, Spa, Vichy, Contréxéville, Wildbad, Baden, Royat, and Mont Dore les Bains. We also often went to the Riviera and elsewhere. My finances had at this time to be considered rather carefully, as an income which was sure to arrive eventually was long delayed, and the property that was to yield it entailed a cost that almost swallowed up its profits. But there was no real stint; we had quite sufficient fortune for an unpretending establishment, with abundant leisure besides.

Certainly we led a life that many in our social rank might envy. Among our friends were not a few notable persons, a full half of whom were first known to me through the connections of my wife. Then I was blessed with an abundance of animal spirits and hopefulness, though they were dashed temporarily over and over again by the great readiness with which my brain became overtaxed; however, I always recuperated quickly. Once I had a bad reminder of my old Syrian ague, but, thanks to quinine (which the ancients would have deified had they known of its virtues), the malady passed away so far out of sight as to have since recurred only at long intervals.

One of the pleasantest description of events in those days were the long walks I took, especially at Easter-time, with one or other of my brothers-in-law, or with their or my own friends. Let me venture to describe my own views as to provisions suitable for a day’s walk during a homely tramp. They are such as can be procured at any town however small, are tasty, easy to carry, exempt from butter, which is apt to leak out of paper parcels, and are highly nutritious. They are two slices of bread half an inch thick, a slice of cheese of nearly the same thickness, and a handful of sultana raisins. The raisins supply what bread and cheese lack; they play the same part that cranberries do in pemmican, that nasty, and otherwise scarcely eatable food of Arctic travellers. The luncheon rations that I advocate are compact, and require nothing besides water to afford a satisfactory and sustaining midday meal. If sultanas cannot be got, common raisins will do; lumps of sugar make a substitute, but a very imperfect one.

We frequently enjoyed the hospitality of the Headmaster of Harrow and his wife. One delightful way of spending Sunday in those days was to walk to Harrow along what was then a comparatively countrified road, to take afternoon tea at the house of my wife’s mother, Mrs. Butler, who resided on the outskirts of Harrow, to go to the evening service at the School Chapel, to have a good square tea-supper at the Headmaster’s, presided over by his attractive wife (née Elliot), where interesting people were nearly always present; afterwards to walk or rail home in the evening, usually with a companion.