THE JOURNEY TO Beaulieu was interrupted in a rather tragical manner, as the following letter explains. Cyril’s health had been very uncertain.
To Mr. Blackwood.
Paris,
10th January.
I have a chronicle of misfortune to give you: in the first place, to explain why my article is late. I had hoped by this time to have been sending it to you from Beaulieu. We were all at the station on Wednesday night ready to start, our luggage all in the train, and ourselves eating something in the restaurant before setting out, when Cyril became suddenly and violently ill. This was about half an hour before the train started. I had no thoughts for anything but the sufferer, but Cecco saw the rest of our party off and then came and joined me....I have now sent for an English doctor, who will, I hope, remove him to his own house; and if this gentleman gives a good account of him, as I hope, I will leave him in his hands and go on to Beaulieu to-morrow night. You may imagine what a dreadful business this has been — the horrible shock and alarm....
The article on Laurence Oliphant is nearly finished, and leaving here to-morrow night, as I must do, if nothing very bad occurs, I hope to be able to send it off to you on Tuesday at latest. Cecco’s proofs are in the same state, but the proof of course is not so urgent as the MS. I am sure you will be sorry for us. Cyril is very weak and exhausted, but quite himself, and I trust will now go on well. We are in a dreadful French house, where there is not even a chambermaid; and our luggage is all gone, so that a clean collar seems to me the greatest luxury.
I will write with the article, I hope, on Tuesday.
Villa de Foresta, Beaulieu,
15th January.
I sent you my article in a great hurry to-day with no time to say anything. I hope you will like it. It is more a reminiscence than anything else, and it is rather remarkable, having really seen so little of Laurence Oliphant as I did, how completely my personal recollections follow the course of, and more or less elucidate the most interesting portion of, his life.
To Dr A. K. H. Boyd.
[Jan. or Feb.]
I have just been reading your paper about “Taking in Sail.” I think I have told you before how much I feel with and sympathise in your afternoon musings — the subdued thoughts that come to us with the decline of the day. It is only this sympathy which makes me write now. I wish I could take in sail, but it is not easy. I almost think sometimes that to know the limit of years to which one had to reach, and so be able to regulate one’s work to get as much done as possible without the vague horror as to years that may come after all ought to be over, would be a comfort; for at the end of all things the work is almost the only thing — is it not? — in which there is satisfaction. Our children grow as old as ourselves, and friendship has its limitations, and the soul, even when most surrounded with apparent company, must live so much alone. Your suggestion that something very good should happen to us as we get old, once in every three years is delightful, but almost ironical; this does not seem to me at least the end of life at which to expect anything good, but I hope that perhaps my experience is not that of others. The one good thing that I am conscious of is the increased tolerance — nay, enjoyment — of the loneliness which is inevitable, and the great, calm, all-sustaining sense of a divine Unseen, a silent companion, God walking in the cool of the garden, which, after all, is the best.
Forgive me this return for your musings. I don’t myself at all dislike the sensation and sentiment of getting old, and in many things I enter very fully into what you say on these subjects.
I have been here with all my belongings for the greater part of the winter, with January like June, and beds of violets and roses all through the dark weather, but the spring a little uncertain and trying even here.
To Mr. Blackwood.
Beaulieu,
4th March.
...It has occurred to me that it might be worth while to publish the article on L. Oliphant a little enlarged as a small volume. What do you think of this?...I should add a greater detail of facts, and some criticism of his literary work, if you approved of the idea..., I heard a new piece of information about him on Saturday from Baron de Billing, a man high up in the French diplomatic service, and of whom people speak as future ambassador to St. James’s. He told me that it was M. Thiers who was really the cause of L. O.’s removal from Paris as ‘Times’ correspondent. Do you know if there is any truth in this? M. de Billing asserted it most positively, and said I might quote him to that effect. Mr. Hamilton Aidé, who happened to sit on my other side, contradicted the statement, but only on his own authority. Perhaps you know which is to be believed. This took place at a magnificent luncheon at Monte Carlo given us by Mr. Somerset Beaumont, at which Christine Nilsson was one of the guests. Thus we get glimpses of the world from time to time.
The following note from Cyril Oliphant to Mr. Blackwood refers to his volume on De Musset for the Foreign Classics series. The book was very long in hand, and was only published a week or two before Cyril’s death in 1890.
Cyril F. Oliphant to Mr. Blackwood.
Beaulieu,
April 1.
I send you the first three chapters, rather more than half, of the long-considered book on De Musset. The first chapter was written in one of my moods for writing small, and I found I had carried the fancy so far that I thought it best to have it copied by a type-writer. Of course this should have been sent to you long ago, but our changes of place, as well as the recent weakness of my health, have put grave obstacles in the way of my settling down to anything. I am still a little uncertain about the amount of what I have written and am going to write. I do not propose to add more than two chapters — one on the lighter plays and one on the prose works — to the three I send you, and I should very much like to have a proof of these as soon as possible, so as to be able to judge whether I am writing too little or too much, and guide my future efforts accordingly.
F. R. Oliphant to Mr. Blackwood.
Windsor,
June 1.
May I ask if you have yet had time to look at the article on James I. which I sent you some time ago? I am very anxious to know whether you think it would be suitable for the Magazine. If so, I hoped it might form the first of a kind of series of articles on early Scottish history and literature, which would take the place of the series of volumes which I suggested to you, but which you did not think could have any success in that longer form. As Magazine articles they would more easily command attention, and I think could not fail to be interesting. Those articles of Mr. Masson’s from the ‘Scotsman’ which you sent my mother expressed the want of such a series, and it is obvious that if any one can take it up, it can only be the Magazine. In the hope that this idea may find favour with you, I have already written the greater part of an article on the poet Henryson, a subject of great interest and very little known. I am consequently rather anxious to know what you think about the James I., on which by itself I spent a great deal of time and trouble, and whether you think it would be suitable for the Magazine.
We are having lovely weather here, and should have a fine fourth of June, which, of course, is always our great day. Nothing has been heard in these parts for some time but controversy as to whether the Queen was or was not to be present. It seems finally that she is, spite of reports to the contrary. We simple people of Windsor are easily interested.
The article on Henryson the poet appeared in ‘Blackwood’ in the following year.
Mrs. Oliphant to Mr. Blackwood.
Windsor,
4th June.
...After a conversation with Mrs. Wynne Finch I put aside the idea of enlarging the article as quite inadequate, but hesitated a good deal about undertaking a larger work, feeling that it would cost me an amount of time and trouble which I could not afford to give except for a quite different remuneration. It of course remains to be seen whether Mrs. Rosamund Oliphant will allow me to use the letters and papers of which Mrs. Waller tells me there is a very large collection. Even without this I should be able to produce a romance of biography which ought, I think, to interest the public in a very high degree, but it would be the work of months....
I shall have to see all sorts of people on account of the book, and take a great deal of trouble, and my impression is that a real account of such a remarkable life would be very interesting to the public....My own ideas are rather vague as to what size the book would come to, also now disturbed by some doubt as to what Mrs. Wynne Finch’s intervention will come to,...There is, however, no hurry about a decision. I should like to know definitely what is to be had of the letters at Haifa, and to see what comes from different quarters, and then perhaps we may be able to come to some mutual agreement on the subject.
Windsor,
28th June.
I don’t at all know the books you refer to — I have not seen any of them. Mr. Barrie’s ‘Auld Licht Idylls,’ &c., I think exceedingly clever. Indeed there seems to me genius in them, though the Scotch is, as you say, much too provincial. If you will send me the other books, I will carry out your wishes, if my opinion agrees with yours; but Barrie I must applaud, for I think his faculty is great....He came here to see me one day. I have been rather nervous ever since, lest I should see myself in a newspaper, but he has been merciful.