Lady John Russell: A Memoir with Selections from Her Diaries and Correspondence. Various
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Название: Lady John Russell: A Memoir with Selections from Her Diaries and Correspondence
Автор: Various
Издательство: Bookwire
Жанр: Языкознание
isbn: 4064066213176
isbn:
A few days later he reached Minto himself. Lady Fanny, writing to her sister Mary, describes their days together, and adds: "They are all except Gibby so much too respectful to Lord John. Not to me, for they take their revenge upon me, and I am unsparingly laughed at, which is a great comfort. I shall write once before it happens. I dare not think what I shall be when you receive this."
Page 47.
MINTO, July 19, 1841 My last day as a child of Minto. How fast it flew. How quickly good-night came--that sad, that dreaded good-night. But sadness may be of such a kind as to give rise to the happiest, the purest feelings--and such was this. … He and I sat in the Moss house. Never saw the glen more beautiful; the birch glittering in the sun and waving its feathery boughs; the burn murmuring more gently than usual; the wood-pigeons answering one another from tree to tree. Had not courage to be much with Mama.
They were married on July 20th in the drawing-room at Minto, and set off for Bowhill, which had been lent them for the honeymoon by the Duke of Buccleuch. Never did statesman on his wedding-day take away a bride more whole-heartedly resolved to be all a wife can be to him in his career. Her mother was now perfectly happy about the marriage, though the disparity of age, and fears about the great responsibility her daughter was undertaking in the care of a young family--one boy and five girls--had undoubtedly made her anxious. Lady Minto felt very deeply the parting with her dearly-loved child, and after the wedding she sent her the following little ballad:
A BORDER BALLAD
AIR: "Saw ye my father"
Oh saw ye the robber
That cam' o'er the border
To steal bonny Fanny away?
She's gane awa' frae me
And the bonny North Countrie
And has left me for ever and for aye.
He cam' na wi' horses,
He cam' na wi' men,
Like the bauld English knights langsyne;
But he thought that he could fleech
Wi' his bonny Southron speech
And wile awa' this lassie o' mine.
"Gae hame, gae hame
To your ain countrie,
Nor come o'er the March for me."
But sairly did she rue
When he thought that she spak' true
And the tear-drop it blinded her e'e.
Page 48.
His heart it was sair
And he lo'ed her mair and mair,
For her spirit was noble and free;
"Oh lassie dear, relent,
Nor let a heart be rent
That lives but for its country and thee."
And did she say him nay?
Oh no, he won the day,
Could an Elliot a Russell disdain?
And he's ta'en awa' his bride
Frae the bonnie Teviot-side,
And has left me sae eerie alane.
Oh where's now the smile
Used to cheer me ilk morn,
Like a blink o' the sun's ain light;
And where the voice sae sweet
That aye gar'd my bosom beat
When sae saftly she bade me gude-night.
Now lang, lang are the nights
And dowie are the days
That sae cheerie were ance for me.
And oh the thought is sair
That she'll mine be never mair,
I'm alane in the North Countrie.
MARY MINTO, July, 1841
But before following the future, it will be well to look back. Lord John himself must play so large a part in a biography of his wife that a sketch of his life up to this point, and some reminders of the kind of man he was, may interest the reader; not a review of his political achievements, but an outline of the events which had left him at his second marriage a leader among his countrymen.
Page 49.
Lord John Russell, born in 1792, was the third son of John, sixth Duke of Bedford. He was only nine years old when he lost his mother, whom he remembered to the end of his life with tender affection. He always spoke gratefully of the invariable kindness and affection of his father, who married again in 1803, and of his stepmother, but he felt that the shyness and reserve which often caused him to be misunderstood and thought cold were largely due to the loss of his mother in his childhood. He was educated at Westminster, but he was not robust enough to stand a rough life, and it was decidedly rough. His education was continued at Woburn under a tutor. He was a book-loving boy, and the earliest exercise of his powers was in verses, prologues, and plays. Going to the play was one of the chief enjoyments of his childhood, and he never lost his liking for the drama. Travelling was also a great delight to him, either by coach in England or in foreign countries, and this enjoyment, with a wonderfully keen observation of all that he saw of different places and peoples, lasted to old age.
In 1835 Lord John married Lady Ribblesdale, widow of the second Lord Ribblesdale.
She had by her first husband four children; one son and three daughters.21 After her marriage with Lord John Russell she had two daughters, Georgiana Adelaide, born in 1836, and Victoria, born in 1838. The marriage had been a СКАЧАТЬ