BLACKWELL FAMILY         Anna Blackwell           "Early Life of the Blackwells"
                                                                              (type script)ANNA BLACKWELL
The material in this notebook was copied by Alice Stone Blackwell
from the original in the possession of Howard L. Blackwell, of
4 Riedesel Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Later a request came
for her copy and she had a typescript made, which is also in this 
box.
The notebook contains "The Early Life of the Blackwells" in
letters to Henry B. Blackwell from his sister Anna is Paris,
January 1880, in response to his request for her reminiscences.
Miss Kitty Barry (;after called Katherine Barry Blackwell) came to
live with Miss Blackwell in 1921 or thereabouts. She was the
adopted daughter of Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell. There are pencil
notations in Alice Blackwell's handwriting of suggestions made by
Kitty.
Editor, June 1961ANNA BLACKWELL
Letter to Henry B. Blackwell
Jan. 27, 1880
with
REMINISCENCES OF "THE OLD TIMES
BEFORE"Paris, January 27th., 1880.

Dear old Harry:
     In jotting down for your edification
my reminiscences of "the old times before" the
flood which washed us off from our native land and 
set us loose from all our moorings, to say nothing
of putting us all more or less in the position of
the "rolling stones" that "gather no moss", (or 
very little!), I naturally begin with St. James 
Parade, popularly called Kingsdown, at No. 11
of which I came poking into this troubled world
a month before I was due, Mamma having foolishly 
fatigued herself in defiance of prudence, in putting
up curtains when she ought to have let all such physical 
effort alone for the time being. 
     My remembrance of my birthplace is,
of course, due to frequent peepings through the little 
" judas" in the garden door, whenever the tiny
shutter happened to be open on our passing that way 
in our daily rambles, in after years. For, as
Marian following, and improving upon, a bad example,
made her appearance, at Counterslip, just two months 
before the proper time, two years and one month after 
my escapade, it is evident that our occupation 
of the rather pretty little red brick house, at the 
end of a long narrow garden, in which our parents
set up their Penates on marrying, on the twenty second 
of September, 1815, could scarcely have extended 
to a couple of years. 

2
     Our little house was a few 
doors further from Mother Pugsley's Field than 
the larger and handsomer house, in the same 
row, occupied (and, I think, owned,) by Uncle 
and Aunt Browne. I fancy vaguely, that this
larger house had a plastered front, painted 
gray. There was a set of steps leading up from 
the garden to the drawing-room floor. I only 
remember two rooms of this house, in which,
however, I must have spent a good deal of time, 
as Aunt Browne was very fond of me, and I was 
very often there. One of these remembered 
rooms was one of a pair of drawing-rooms looking
upon the garden, and used as the dining-room.
I can see a carpet, white ground with red pattern
of branches and flowers, a handsome japanned 
plate-warmer, and a large, old folding-screen,
which seems to me to have been artistic and handsome. 
I see Aunt Browne in a handsome black velvet 
gown ( a much rarer thing in those days than
now) and I have a general recollection of an atmosphere 
of handsome and hospitable substantiality,
a sort of superior sphere, with a faint 
odour of custards, jellies, fruit, and nice 
things floating out of a large china-pantry at 
the hither end of the room. I see vine-leaves 
and jessamine that must have covered much of the 
front of the house, and looked in at the windows.
They must have lived there many years until they 
moved to Bourton (Flax - Bourton it was called 
in those days ); for handsome, affected, utterly 
unprincipled Cousin Elizabeth is distinctly 
visible to my mind's eye, flirting with Charles 
Short, with whom she went, I think, the length 
of an engagement, which she subsequently broke off
treating 

NB Cousin Elizabeth - Elizabeth Lane, a daughter 
of Hanna (Lane) Blackwell's brother William, who was 
a Dissenting minister. (K.B.B.)2
the tall fair-haired youth very heartlessly, so that he had
the folly to break his heart for her, and either killed himself or
died of grief.  I forget which.  I see him lounging on the sofa
under one of the leaf fringed windows, with a book in his hand;
and Cousin Elizabeth sitting by, doing airs and graces; I think he
must have been reading to her.  Aunt Browne was an Irishwoman,
Miss Short; and her brother, "Old Dr. Short" as he was called
was eminent in his profession and a remarkable surgeon.  He was
popularly believed to have taken a man's eye out of its socket,
cut off something from the back of the eye that was going wrong,
and put his eye back into its place, making a perfect cure.
He was, of course, our doctor until he died, which I think he must
have done shortly after my birth, at which he presided, Aunt
Browne being the first person into whose arms the little squalling
brat was taken.  After him came Dr. Henderson, followed (or
partnered) by Dr. Huxtable, of King's Square, who t ok his practice
our family included.  I rather think he was on duty at Marian's (?)
arrival, and possibly at that of Elizabeth.  At his death we all
passed into the medical hands of Mr. Mortimer, of whom I had a
perfect horror, as he insisted on cutting a membrane which tied
my upper lip to the middle of the gum, and which, if not severed,
would have caused a deformity and impeded speech; at least he said
so, and gave it a snip with a horrid pair of scissors, after which
I lay and howled in the great easy chair beside Mamma's bed, in the
Counterslip house, terrified to death of the blood I had spit out
for an hour or so.  After Mr.Mortimer, who deserted Bristol for
some other post, we had Mr. Chandler, who must have been chief
cook and bottle washer at the birth of all the children after curley
pated Harry.  But to return to AuntBrowne's pleasant house,
the only other room of which I can remember was a small one, down
stairs, called "the house-keeper's Parlour,"; I see a gray
carpet, an old fashioned sofa, a high mantlepiece of carved wood
painted white, with old fashioned white and blue china jars and v
vases upon it;  I think a long, narrow, horizontal looking-glass;
and two splendid peacock feathers crossing one another before the
glass and behind these jars and vases.  In a former life of mine
there must have been peacocks, privet, and polished oak floors,
for from my earliest years, those things have always caused me
strange sensations, a half awakening of dormant memories and
impressions, and a sense of their having been intimately associated
with me in some far-off, dreamy, dim life of long ago.  The prim ,
thin housekeeper, a pattern of neatness and very kind to me,
giving me cake and sweetmeats and letting me see the wonderful,
mysterious (to me) peacock feathers, was called Sarah; she and a
sister were fixtures in the family;  servants of a race now extinct.
When they went to Bourton, she and the coachman married, but continued
to live with them until the downfall of poor Uncle Browne's prosperity.
They then set up a "fly", a better sort of hackney-carriage
in the little street, Orange Street, which runs parallel to Wilson
Street,at the bottom of our garden.  Of course, we should no
more have dreamed of having any other fly than theirs than of flying.
It is curious to me to look back on the persistence and strength
of the social ties, even the most subordinate ones, in those
days.  Relatives, old friends, old acquaintances, old servants
and dependents, the old creatures to whom alms and help were always
given as a matter of course, old ways, places, and habits,
all were taken for granted, and held onto as a matter of course.
Sarah's sister also married someone in Uncle Browne's employ,
and these 

3

and these "old servants", after their downfall, established
themselves on the floor above the modest chamber in which they
(Aunt and Uncle B) had established themselves, above the goldsmith's
shop in front of the Exchange, and served them devotedly
until Aunt Browne died and poor Uncle Browne  divided himself
between our house and some other , I forget whose (I now remember
that he took lodgings in Northumberland Street) until
we took all the interest out of his life, as out of that of so
many others, by crossing the Atlantic.
   I think all the Kingsdown houses on our side
looked out behind, directly on the fields leading to Redland.
There were still the remains of extensive walls, formerly
an Abbey, I think, that looked picturesque;  a sort of ruined
archway spanned the path where it turned down the slope under
the magnificent double row of elms leading down to Redland
Court, with the noble old fir-tree to the right, which is now
little more than a blackened stump.  How lovely all those
fields were in those days!  Mother Pugsley's Field had been
immemorially the racing-ground of schools and scattered groups
of children, who were always  there by scores on Saturday
afternoons and on Thursdays also, two half-hollidays; scampering
over the grass, flying kites, trundling hoops, running
races, playing ball, and so on; consequently, the great green
expanse, sloping down to the Gloucester Road and the beautiful
open country beyond (now densely built over), never got up
more than an occasional scrubby daisy.  But the fields out
Redland-way were enamelled with wild flowers of all kinds; the
lanes and hedges were alive with flowers and birds and blackberries;
- a beautiful region, redolent of perfume, and lively
with the songs of blackbirds and thrushes.  As we were always
turned out for a walk, twice a day, no matter what the weather,
and as we usually went toward Redland, or took the Horfield,
Gloucester, or Willington road, getting out to the fields at
that side of the town, to Ashley Barn, to"the "Brook", or to
the neighborhood of the Duke of Beaufort's Woods.  I remember
those lovely fields more vividly than many other of the scenes
of our childhood.  When we were at Counterslip, we used to go
to "Sea-banks", or down Redcliffe or Temple Streets to Brislington
(Brusseslton it was called then); but during the Wilson and
Nelson St. periods we never went in those directions, much too
far off and across the dirty parts of the town.  We went sometimes
to Brandon Hill,then very wild and lonely; to Hotwells,
to Durdham and Clifton Downes,  then without a house upon them.
But those were the exceptions, the excursion-days, when a whole
afternoon was given up to walking and Mamma, aunts, Cousin
Elizabeth, or anybody who happened to be visiting us, were of the
party, and at least a couple of nurse maids for the little ones
who were always lugged along, and had to be frequently carried.
Then we usually had baskets of prog, or bought cakes, milk,
ginger-beer, etc. on the way.  Papa went with us on the rare 
occasions when he took a holliday, and he greatly enjoyed these
rambles.  A favorite one was to Redland Court, and then one
of the two roads that branch out from that charming spot; the
road to the right leading to Durdham Down past the old Chapel,
being bordered with hedges that were wonderful for the mass of
violets to be found there.  How we used to load ourselves with
flowers!  And if we could get into a hayfield, and toss up the
hay with our little wooden hay-rakes (of which we each had one
of appropriate sizes), how delighted we were!  And if either4

found a rare flower, how desperately the others ransacked every 
bank and hedge to find the same, or some other novelty; Especially
in the Spring, when the may, the dog-roses, lilac, laburnums,
and gueldre-roses, were in full flower, we used to come back 
laden with blossoms.
   I cannot remember any meal at Uncle Browne's, 
though I must have often dined there; but I know that it was a 
most liberally hospitable house, and my feeling is that it was 
altogether the pleasantest dwelling with which my childhood 
had anything to do.
   A few doors off was the house of "old Mr.
Lowell," for half a century the minister of Bridge St. Chapel.  
The two families were extremely intimate.  Aunt Sarah, very
pretty and charming, was often at Uncle Browne's whether,like 
Mamma, she lived with them after the death of Grandma Lane, or 
was only an occasional guest,  I never heard.  She died, I 
think, before Mamma's marriage.  She was very intimate with the 
Lowell family, and married the eldest son, who was an importer 
of foreign fruit in London.  The younger son, Joseph, was an 
importer of foreign books, in London.  He married a very pretty, 
elegant Portuguese lady, and brought her to Bristol, where we 
had them to dinner in the Nelson St. house.  She was covered 
with rich lace and jewels; we greatly admired her, but were 
rather awe-struck at her elegance and the easy and fashionable 
air that contrasted so curiously with the "commonness" of most 
of the people we used to see, because they went to Bridge St. 
Chapel or some conventicle of even less social culture.  There 
were sisters, but I don't remember them.  I think that the
father of Lowell, the American poet, who was a Bristol man,
must have been another son of "old Mr. Lowell."
   On the opposite side of Kingsdown, very near 
the favorite field, was Mr. Howell's boarding-school for boys; 
I can see the large brass plate on the door.  The Howells family 
were always very intimate at our house; to my great disgust, as
I abhorred the whole lot.  They used to say "Mr.B.", "Mrs. B.",
and were responded to as "Mr. H.", "Mrs. H.", which I instinctively 
detested as "vulgar". After Mrs. Howells's death, the school 
was removed to the other side of Cotham, in the direction of 
Tyndall's Park; and Mr. Howells was always getting into scrapes 
with some lady or other whom he was to marry, but did not.  
There was a charming Miss Somebody, a Moravian, who looked like 
a flower and always wore snow boots, who was governess 
and deputy- mamma after the death of"Mrs. H." Mamma desperately wanted 
her to be our governess; "Mr. H." desperately wanted to marry 
her.  But Moravians always marry by lot; basing the custom on
the proverb of Solomon, "The lot is cast into the Cap, but the
disposing of it is of the Lord." So, at the annual lot-drawing 
she drew a missionary, married him, and went with him to some 
Cannibal Island (Ithink New Zealand) and, with her husband, 
was cooked and eated a few days after getting there, to the 
great regret of all who had known her. (I have since recalled 
her name, Miss Stronach).
   Down the steep streets landing up to Kingsdown 
lived Aunt Browne's brother, "old Dr. Short." in Dighton 
# Grandma Blackwell's sister. 

5

St., just out of King's Square.  I have no remembrance of him, 
and very little of "old Dr. Huxtable", who lived in King's 
Square.  Mrs. Short, his widow, much respected, continued to 
live in the same house until we left Bristol.  She was very
tall and straight, and the very stiffest and primmest person 
I ever beheld.  Her face was as white as a candle, with a most 
enormous projecting nose of the same color.  She always wore t 
the same hideous widow's weeds, with the unspeakably frightful 
widow's white muslin cap of that age, and a muslin collar and
cuffs to match.  In the china-pantry, opening out of the back 
parlour, she always kept, through the summer, along with nice 
home-made cake, a great stone jar with a "cooling drink", composed 
of cream-of-tartar, sugar, and a little lemon juice; 
she regarded this "drink" as a panacea for all troubles in 
summer and was generous in dispensing it, together with the
cake.  Whenever I went there, to see her and her daughter 
Honoria, who went at one time to a poor Aunt Ann's miserable 
"Young Ladies' Boarding and Day School",No. 11 Duke St. (the 
next street on the hill, above Dighton St.) I always drank a 
glass of it and had some cake, with great satisfaction.  The 
prim old woman was fond of me, and often kept me to dinner, 
unbending with the lively little girl as with few others.  
She had five sons; Francis, a lawyer of high standing, who 
had married a dashing widow with one very beautiful daughter 
by her first husband; of this daughter, Philippa Sydney, 
they were extremely proud; - Richard, who married Miss Henderson, 
an orphan heiress, and died soon afterwards: - Alfred, 
who thought himself very handsome, affected to be a fine 
gentleman, and was assistant and small partner in Uncle Browne's 
flourishing Goldsmith and Jeweller business, in which the dear 
old man made "a plum," (L 100,000), which he lost in the bank he 
was unwisely persuaded into setting up, by his unprincipled nephew, 
brother of Sam Browne, of Cincinnati memory.  We children 
were afraid of Alfred Short, with his airs of a exquisite; but 
he was kind to us, setting musical boxes going for our delectation, 
in a small "boudoir", full of specially exquisite things, novelties 
for sale, at the end of the L-shaped upper show-room, to which 
you ascended by a few broad, richly carpeted steps, from the smaller 
room below.  There was a large and very fine oil painting of a 
grand old cathedral of Abbey-Church in the foreground, a lovely 
stretch of fields and woods in the middle distance, and a little 
village church far away in the remote background.  The grand old 
Cathedral Church had a clock with fine chimes, that played various 
airs before the hours; those before 12 o'clock being the longest 
and finest; after which, the clock in the church-tower tolled out 
the hour in deep rich tones that used to make me shiver with a 
sense of the wonderful unknown about us.  Then you waited silent 
to catch the sounds of the striking of the clock of in the tower of
the little church across the fields; I can feel my heart beating
as I listened for the sweet little faint sounds of the clock of the
village church, that seemed to float, like an echo, across the 
pleasant fields, just as many moments afterwards as the sound 
would have taken to travel across the distance in reality.  There 
were other pictures with clocks, but this was the finest, and 
was sold for several thousands of pounds to some nobleman.  Musical 
boxes were a novelty; and I always pestered Mamma to take 
me in to hear them, and, above all, the great clock-picture, 
whenever we passed near Uncle Browne's.  The shop, as I remember 
it must have been very handsome; richly carpeted from end to 
end, and with splendid displays of gold and silver plate, pearls6
diamonds, coral, etc.  I was never tired of gazing down into the 
glazed cases, upon the rings and trinkets; trying to imagine the 
fine drawing-rooms and fine ladies, in which, and by whom, these 
beautiful things were to be sported, and scornfully contrasting 
them, in my mind fancy with the realities and real people about
me, the absolute commonplaceness of our four aunts and of Uncle 
James, and the affectation of the same by Grandpapa Balckwell.  
The utter contempt and disgust I felt for all our relatives on 
the "B" side of the house, with the sole exception of Aunt Mary, 
and this from my earliest consciousness, was like a ball and 
chain at my heels, all through my childhood. Aunt Mary always
looked and seemed "a lady"; the others, just the reverse.  She 
conversed agreeably, and never seemed to disappear into nothingness 
in the presence of visitors, as did the other aunts.  As 
for Uncle James, who was short, looked like a clerk, talked and 
laughed noisily, ate great chunks of butter with his bread and 
talked of "junkets", I disliked him particularly, though he was 
kind to me in manner, and more than once took my part in the 
systematic persecution I underwent in the miserable years in 
which Aunt Barbara, as our governess, tyrannized over and tormented 
the whole household, with the exception of Marian and 
curley-pated Harry, whose hair she curled every morning with 
water and a tail comb, so that the little fellow, her pet, was 
the admiration of all who passed him when out for a walk; ladies 
constantly stopping his nurse, petting him, and telling him he 
was "a beauty"; all of which when reported to Mamma, used to 
draw from her the philosophic remark:" Yes, Mamma's babies are 
always pretty; but unfortunately they are like pig's babies, 
that grow uglier every day! " which was intended to take down
any disposition to vanity that might be developed in our elder 
minds.  "The pretty baby makes the ugliest person!" was a remark 
she often used to let drop in our hearing, to the same end.
Aunt Browne was always dressed in black ve
velvet with lace; she was ugly, and her head shook from side 
to side.  She was a thorough Irishwoman, "a warm friend and a 
bitter enemy"; tall, large, rather "loud" and fond of making 
little jokes, innocent enough, but somewhat vulgar; saying 
"Moll Collins" for melancholy, and so on. I sometimes ventured on 
an echo of her jokes, but got into trouble by so doing, and 
contented myself thenceforth with laughing over them privately.  
The wives of our two maternal uncles, who prided themselves on 
their gentility, had her in horror, and quite overlooked her 
goodness and kindness in their contempt for what they considered 
to be her "ill-breeding".
Uncle Browne was a very gentlemanly man; 
he was one of the last in Bristol to give up the pig-tail, and 
wore breeches, black silk stockings, and silver buckled shoes, 
almost until Aunt Browne's death.  After their downfall she spent 
her whole time darning his silk stockings.  I think it was Mr. 
Leifchild's leaving off breeches and taking to trousers that 
decided him, at last, to do likewise, to my regret, as I admired 
his appearance.  He had exactly the astonishingly high-arched 
eyebrows of Henry VIII ; and wore gold spectacles, as did Aunt 
Browne.  Grandpapa Blackwell wore breeches to the last, with 
bluish gray worsted stockings, and ugly common shoes with only 
black buckles or shoestrings: he affected to dress like a common 
carpenter, carpentring being his passion, and Mamma, to humour him, 
always buying any furniture he made.  We children were 
always ashamed of his dirty appearance, covered with bits of 
shavings, his white hair full of dust, and his vulgar corduroy 
breeches


7
breeches; but we were excessively shocked and grieved when 
he upset a pot of boiling lead over his legs, and the despised 
woolen stockings, in being got off took all the skin off his 
legs with it.  He wore his hair short and brushed up all round; 
Uncle Brown wore his, which was but slightly gray, brushed 
back, just as Mamma used to brush back hers.
Uncle Browne had eight sons, and every 
one died of convulsions in teething. Then they had a daughter, 
Eliza (Mrs. Goddard) whose life was saved by the application 
of slices of the root of the white peony, bound on to the soles 
of the feet, like a plaister, or poultice, the moment the
dreaded convulsions came on.  It was a new remedy, and they 
had white peonys planted in the Kingsdowne garden, so as to 
have them ready, and juicy, when needed.  I have no remembrance 
of Eliza Goddard in that house; she was married, and settled 
in a house on St. Michael's Hill, before I was born.  My first 
distinct remembrance of her is of a morning cal she made when 
we were at Counterslip.  I see her coming into the upstairs 
parlour that was called the drawing room, in a handsome crimson 
velvet dress, with bonnet to match, with a long feather, 
and handsome accompaniments; she sits talking with Mamma, and 
the two gossip on, taking chocolate and rich cake, such as
it was then the universal custom to hand to visitors on a tray.  She 
was remarkably fair, with flaxen hair, blue eyes, and lips 
the color of coral; clever, ingenious, very good, worshiping 
her husband, who was her cousin (but whether on father's or 
mother's side, I never knew), Ensign Goddard, a tall, high-b
boned, long-whiskered, red-haired man, with a reddish face, 
loud voice, long, high Roman nose, and swaggering manner; 
We detested him and he used to frighten us out of our wits 
in the Wilson St. house, when he came, in his vast roquelaure 
cloak, with a red lining (we called it a "rocky-low"), to 
escort her home, when she stayed to dine with us, as she often 
did after giving a music lesson to Marian and me, after Uncle 
Browne's misfortune.  Hed had to pass through St. James's 
Churchyard and the Barton, to reach our house; and he invented 
the most frightful stories of the ghosts and devils 
he had seen in the Churchyard and flying over the church-steeple; 
we did not exactly believe him, but it curdled our 
blood, and made us dreadfully afraid to go to bed.
Uncle Browne's elder brother, William, 
was a little, pale, shrunken, withered, and semi-idiotic 
creature, whose wife, much younger than himself, was devoted 
to him, her second husband.  There was a standing feud between 
"Aunt William Browne" and "Aunt Browne"; It grew, I 
believe, out of the fact that, when this brother failed as 
a book-seller, Uncle Browne pledged himself to give him 
enough to live upon and this, when he had lost everything, 
was a heavy burthen to them, and kept Aunt Browne in a chronic 
irritation.  Aunt William Browne was a pleasant, lively, 
lady-like little body, somewhat "prim" end "old fashioned"; 
she dined at the Wilson St. house regularly once a fortnight; 
she brought with her a neat lunch-basket, and when we sat 
down to dinner, the old man's meal was generously and carefully 
stowed in this basket, and sent to him by one of the 
maids.  I see the prim little woman, profuse of thanks, 
suggesting "a little salt", or a "little more sauce", or 
perhaps "a little more fat", or not quite so much of this, or 
a trifle of that; and when her husband's dinner was placed 
to her mind and the servant started on [t]her errand, our dinner 
went on8

went on. I can hear scraps of the talk, Charles X's flight, and 
the comments thereon, Aunt W.B. being a staunch Tory, groaning 
over "Poor Polinac!" (the g om[m]itted) and Papa, a Liberal Whig, 
indignantly declaring the whole lot to have only had what they 
deserved and less than their demerits.  Or Queen Caroline's 
wrongs came in for consideration and pity, the King being 
universally blamed for his infamous treatment of his wife.  When 
Lieut. Goddard ( he left the army on getting that rank, w[h]ent 
on half pay and lived on the allowance made him by Uncle Browne) 
was one of the party, as he was a bigoted Tory, he loudly proclaimed 
the most slavish sentiments, declared that nothing 
could justify a people's rising against the Sovereign, whose 
right was from God and not from men, and that as "a King could 
do no wrong, and was the fountain of honour, and so on, he, for 
his part, should feel honoured by the King's spitting on him," 
etc.  As we were all Whigs, and stood up for Oliver Cromwell, 
William and Mary, and the French Revolution, knowing precious 
little about these people and events, but believing them to have 
been for the popular benefit, we detested this noisy votary 
of loyalty, who made hideous faces to add to the horror of his 
ghost stories.

   When Aunt W.B. did not dine with us, dinner 
was sent to her lodgings (I think in Queen's Square) by Aunt 
Browne, excepting on market-days, when she marketed for the 
"W.B.s" as well as for herself, sending the provisions to "Mrs. 
William," who, she said, "was never satisfied and always found 
fault with what was sent to her".  Aunt W.B. was an exquisite 
cutter-out of landscapes in fine shiny black paper, which she 
always brought in her reticule, with fine, sharp-pointed scissors; 
and, after dinner, she always cut out pictures for us 
all through the evening.  These were really little works of 
art; I am sorry we lost them, for they were well worth keeping.  
One or other of the Blackwell aunts frequently came in of an 
evening; but only Aunt Mary ever came out of her shell sufficiently 
to join in the conversation.

   To go back to the Shorts.  Next to lobster 
faced Alfred (I always thought of that fish when I saw him) 
came Caesar, short, stumpy, pious, with a sleek, shiny, fair 
face,shiny  yellow hair, short sight and gold spectacles; a 
member of Bridge St., and great in "Sunday School work", 
prayer-meetings (at which"Brother Short" was frequently called 
upon"to address the Throne of Grace"), and religious doings in 
general.  I think he was a clerk in some house; I abhorred 
him.  The youngest son was Charles, reading for the law, I think 
in his brother Francis's office; a fine, clever, excellent young 
fellow, feeling his way as a speaker, and probably ambitious.  
Elizabeth Lane's behaviour to him was heartless in the extreme.  
Francis Short always acted for Papa, if he had any legal work 
to be done.  I remember, in the Counterslip days, the horror 
awakened by the fact that dashing "Mrs. Francis" had issued 
cards for a ball in honour of the "comming out" of the beautiful 
Philippa Sydney, three weeks before date.  All Bridge St. (to 
which they did not belong, having gone over to the Church as 
more genteel) considered this length of invitation to be 
such a presumptious pretension to be above any dependence on 
Providential over-ruling that no words could express the indignant 
disapproval roused by the deed; so that, when the fair 
Philippa fell ill, died and was buried just before the night 
fixed for the party, everybody considered her decease to have 
resulted from the anger of Heaven at the guilty presumption of


                                       9

"the Francis Shorts".  Honoria Short was Elizabeth Lane's age, 
had a trick of making grimaces, and was a worthless sort of 
creature, but very kind to me , whom she looked on as belonging 
to a younger generation.  What a figure Mrs. Short used to 
cut ,as she sailed into Chapel in those hideous "weeds!" Papa 
used to say to Mamma, whenever she had been visible in our 
vicinity.  "Remember, my dear, if you should become a widow, 
that if you should dare to insult my memory by putting on such 
horrid things, I shall come and shake your bed curtains every 
night of your life!"

   Grandpapa Blackwell was of middle height; 
a handsome face, well-cut features, grayish blue eyes; snowy 
hair; he took the best rooms of the house wherever he was, 
for carpentering.  He was excessively bitter with Radical 
tendencies, but very proud, an utter tyrant to his family, 
letting them struggle up as they could.  I don't think he 
ever paid a day's schooling for any of them.  I have often 
wondered how they ever learned to read.  He looked on wives as 
slaves,and on the paternal relation as giving the father 
an absolute and exclusive right over the child; his children 
were his creatures, his chattels, bound to obey him in all 
things, to work for him but not having the shadow of a right 
to any consideration on his part.  His talents were such 
as should have placed him in a high and independent position; 
his atrocious, cantankerous temper, his enormous pride,only 
half hidden by his assumption of the humblest exterior, made 
him quarrel[l] with everybody, so that he never could retain 
any of the posts or employments which Mamma was always getting 
hold of for him, but quarrelled with everybody and was a dead 
weight on Papa's pocket, as were the 4 aunts and Uncle James.  
Uncle Blackwell living in Worcester, and one of the stingiest 
and least giving of mortals, took good care to leave this heavy 
burden on poor Papa's shoulders; I think I remember his giving 
a gown,once,to Grandmamma, and also  a shawl; but I don't believe 
he ever gave them anything else.  He had a linen-draper's shop
in Worcester; and used to bring us little patterns of packets 
of patterns, which we delightedly made up into patchwork.  He 
never dreamed of giving us anything else, although he always 
stayed at our house whenever he came to Bristol; we disliked 
him for his stinginess, his pipe, and his snuff; it was only 
the little bundles of patterns (of chintzes and printed cottons) 
that induced us to tolerate him.  As Kenyon and Sam grew up, he 
put them into shops, to learn the business.  I forget where 
Kenyon was put; Sam was put with a wealthy grocer, a relative 
of Aunt Blackwell's, Mr. Evans, whom he was very fond of; but 
both the boys despised shop-work, and loudly proclaimed their 
determination to get into some higher stratum of employment.  
Just then Uncle Blackwell fell in with an enterprising man 
who had invented a machine for making net; he sold off his 
linen-draper's business, went into partnership with the inventor, 
and they set up a manufactury of net and machine-lace in 
Nottingham, and made a handsome fortune.  It was thus that 
Nottingham became the pioneer (it is still the great center) 
of the net and machine-lace making trade.  In an evil  hour, 
Uncle B., over-persuaded by his ambitious sons, retired from his 
lucrative lace-factory, and set up as Iron-master in the Black 
District; he prospered for some years,with a partner, and was 
supposed to have made a very large fortune; there came "hard 
times", and depression and he lost all he had made and his 
courage to boot10

courage to boot, and sank into a mere dependent on his sons, 
who had managed to get hold of the Russell's Hall Ironworks, 
in Dudley, and prospered finely for several years.  (But all 
this was after we had left England).

   Grandmamma Blackwell was Elizabeth Stokes, 
or Gay, or Powell; I cannot remember which, for she had 
relatives of all those names.  There was, in Worcester, an old 
"Uncle James Stokes", our great uncle, and an Aunt Powell, his 
widowed sister; or,rather, it must have been "Uncle James *1 Stokes" 
so that I think Grandmamma must have been a Miss Stokes.  In fact, 
on thinking it over, she must have been a Stokes.  "Uncle James 
Stokes", very old when I knew him,in 1832, was very small; not 
a tooth in his head; a few long gray hairs; but the kindest, 
liveliest, merriest old fellow alive.  His passion was hops; 
his insanity, a fixed belief that he would ultimately make a 
large fortune by speculating in hops, though he was perpetually 
losing by the small investments which were all he could make, 
he having really made,in former days, one or two large fortunes 
thus, only to lose them the next hop season.  Samples of hops 
were then spoken of as "pockets"; and you could not be in his 
company a minute, without his pulling [out] a little canvas-bag 
out of his trouser-pocket, and calling on you to see and admire 
this "pocket of hops".   I never remember him in Bristol,and 
only saw him in Worcester.  Aunt Powell, however, came occasionally; 
I think she must have been a nice-looking, kindly 
old lady; she was tall and straight and well dressed.  The two 
must have had a small income, which they clubbed together; I 
fancy they lived in lodgings on Rainbow Hill, Worcester.  Grandmamma 
Blackwell must have been very lovely as a girl; very small; 
I only remember her much bent, with thin gray hair; a most extraordinary 
gait, a sort of peculiarly heavy stump, owing to her 
feet being utterly deformed by bunions, which made it very difficult 
and painful for her to walk.  She was very pretty to the 
last: I remember, one day, as we went up Stokes' Croft, just as 
we came to the Almshouse, we met her coming into the town.  I 
can't imagine where she could have been going, for she visited 
no one, being always the domestic slave and drudge of her husband; 
we all ran up to her and kissed her, exclaiming, "Oh, 
Grandmamma, how pretty you are!"  She had on a light colo_red 
gown, chintz, or perhaps silk, with a pattern;a straw bonnet 
with white satin riband; and a handsome pale fawn-coloured 
shawl that papa had given her.  She laughed and said, "Nonsense! " 
but she knew, no doubt, that she did look very pretty.  She 
was very kind, very gentle, always working as a servant or gardening, 
which was her passion, and the plants seemed to love her, 
for everything she touched prospered.  I don't think she had an 
atom of mind; she could read, and count, but I never heard of her 
writing,or putting forth an opinion any subject beyond house-work 
and meals.  Aunt Mary lived with them for some years; then Aunt 
Lucy; and they helped in the house.  I never remember their having 
a servant, except occasionally; Grandpapa would have rendered 
the place too hot for any girl to stay with them.  He had so 
completely crushed all life out of his wife that she would never 
have dreamed of having a will or a thought of her own; but not 
long before her death, she was staying at Olveston, and slept 
with me, as we were short of room; and the dear old soul used 
to tell me confidentially how she hated him for his tyranny, how 
careful girls ought to be before they listened to the flatteries 
of a man, seeing that all that ceases when they'd got a woman to 
marry them, and then the poor girl found what a dreadful master 
marriage had given her
[**[Powell] in Ms.*]


                 11
master marriage had given her, what a slave she was, and what 
a world of care and labour and worry she had got into; adding 
that those were wise who did not marry, and that if it were to 
do over again, most certainly she would not marry "Grandpapa".  
Papa was very fond of her; had she not died just when she did, 
we should never have left England.  They very often dined with 
us; the presence of Grandpapa being always felt to be a trial, 
which we were obliged to put up with for Grandmamma 's sake.  
After dinner, the handsome silver stand, with gin, whisky,and 
brandy in cut glass decanters, and sugar-basin to match, was 
always placed on the table, with hot water, tumblers, and spoons; 
and a glass-full prepared for each of the two.  I think Grandpapa 
used to take whisky and water; Grandmamma, gin and water.  
Conversation usually languished on these occasions; Mamma would 
do her best feeding them plentifully, giving them the best 
seats by the fire,and making cheery remarks to the best of her 
ability.  Poor Grandmamma had nothing whatever to say, unless 
we children plied her with questions about her flowers, or made 
her promise to make for us the little cakes ( a sort of minute 
roll of pie-crust) of which we were never tired, tho' Mamma did 
not like our eating "the little unwholesome things".  If Grandpapa 
opened his lips, it was always to say something or other 
which he judged would be disagreeable to Papa; snarling at Mr. 
Leifchild's last sermon, or running foul of something which he 
knew his son to approve of.   Papa must have had to exercise 
immense self-control (Controul) not to hace come out upon him; 
there would be something of a retort,now and then, but very 
rarely, and never very severe.  But the incessent stroking and 
scratching of his son's back the wrong way, in which Grandpapa 
delighted, was undoubtedly one of the causes which decided 
Papa to leave England.  All his children were afraid of him; 
I have heard several of them say that he never said a kind or 
affectionate word to either of them in his life, never dreamed 
of kissing or caressing them when little, or of doing anything 
whatever for them as they grew up.  But he was, in his way, 
kind to his grandchildren; it would not have seemed "kind" on 
the part of any one else; but from him, his not plaguing us, 
and making us an occasional scoop or chest of drawers for dolls, 
were wonderful manifestations of kindness.  Sam and Kenyon, (we 
saw much more of Sam, and so always spoke of them so), were as 
fond of scoops as we were, and equally delighted when he consented 
to make one for them.  The scoop was the knuckle bone of 
a leg of mutton, which he cut into shape, about three inches 
and a half long, smoothly polished, for eating apples.  You 
insert the scoop into the apple and turn it round and round, 
and it comes out full of apple in a state of pulp, greatly enhancing 
the flavour and delicacy of the fruit.  Two doll's chests-
of-drawers, mine and Marian's, went down from child to child; 
beautifully made in mahogany; none were made for the others.  
It was he who made our dining table, with a lot of leaves; 
also the pretty child's chair used by us all, one after the 
other, solid mahogany and horsehair seat, with a bar underneath, 
which was fastened with a brass screw upon a large square stool, 
when its little occupant had to be perched up to a level with 
the table, at meal times; and unscrewed again when the chair 
was to be used down on the ground.  I can see curley-pated Harry, 
bursting with dinner, at the corner of the table, at Papa's 
left hand, pushing with his little hands against the table12

and with his little feet against the chair, trying to push 
himself back from the table,and ejaculating with a sort of 
stuffy sigh, "Had enough! had enough!"  Much of our furniture 
was made by Grandpapa, who was never happy except when carpentering; 
he used nothing but solid mahogany or oak; no 
veneer, no shams, for him!  And it was all beautifully made; 
every part of a table was as smoth-fitting as though the whole [h] 
had grown together into form; the drawers worked in and out 
like a charm.  To please him Mamma bought everything he made 
that could possibly be turned into use.  The supper-tray and 
tray-stand, the knife-box, clothes- horses, and lots of things, 
were made by him.  When I began to take music lessons, he began 
to [bu] make an organ, and declared that whichever of his 
grandchildren, girl or boy, should be first able to play on it 
should have it.  It ought therefore to have been mine, and I 
regarded it as my property; but though it was built and nearly 
completed years before we left, it remained in an infinished 
state, and it was only after our exodus that he, at last, 
finished it, and sold it to some church or chapel.  All his 
grandchildren, though despising his taste for carpentering and 
the dirty appearance he prided himself on presenting in order 
to vex Papa, - going out, often in his carpenter's apron, and 
his hands covered with dirt and glue - were delighted to play 
in his workshop, getting behind the planks of wood set up 
against the walls to dry, glueing bits of wood together, picking 
out the handsomest "ribands" among the shavings, and so on; 
I think he must have had other customers besides Mamma, for he 
worked as hard as though he were dependent on his tools for 
bread.  Our clothes-horses, kitchen tables and dressers,and 
quantities of things about the house were made by him; the tea-caddy, 
and various boxes, etc., loom up to my mind's eye, as 
of his work.  What a figure he used to be on week-days!  On 
Sundays he would wash, shave and dress properly, and go to 
Bridge St. Chapel, where he had hired a pew, the very first, 
fronting the pulpit, to the left of the preacher, at the corner 
of the middle aisle; so that he could throw himself back, with 
his keen, spiteful gray eyes turned up and staring right into 
Mr. Leifchild's face, with the most sardonic expressions of face, 
making a succession of inaudible snorts, and looking the very 
incarnation of hostile and bitter criticism, from one end of the 
service to the other.  What on earth made him go there I can't 
imagine; it must have been to vex Papa.  He had a delightful 
time of carpentering with his pew, which he had no sooner rented 
than he pulled it to pieces and built it up again to his mind, 
doing it all himself, as he always did, and never having any 
helper, not even for lifting and carrying heavy blocks of wood 
or planks.  Our pew was the one nearest to the central entrance, 
to the left,as you went in; large, handsomely fitted up by Papa, 
entirely lined, quite up the wall, the book-ledge, door, etc. 
with green baize put on with brass nails; about the handsomest 
in the chapel.  It was a step or two higher than those in front,
so that, although quite at the back, it commanded a full view 
of all that went on.  Papa always sat next the door; then Mamma; 
then the row of children according to size, the little one being 
next to her.  Whoever was governess for the time being sat at 
the farther end.  There were seats for the servants in another 
pew; Ithink the one next in front, or up in the gallery, I 
forget which.  We had a row of straw hassocks in the pew, the 
tallest for the least child, and so on; it was by no means easy 
to make one's way along the pew, as one stumbled over these
hassocks, 


                                                            13

hassocks, bought at the little shop I showed Harry in St. 
James' Churchyard, just below the entrance to Barton Alley, 
where we bought baskets, mats, and pattens, of which every 
body, big and little, had a pair, until these excellent adjuncts 
were superseded ( more's the pity!) by"spring- clogs," 
which suddenly appeared and became "[the] a rage" immediately, 
taking the place of the pattens, until dethroned by india-rubbres.
 
Grandpapa hated black gowns in the pulpit, 
regarding them as unscriptural, a relic of"the Scarlet Woman,"
and an imitation of church doings, which he abhorred with an 
intensity worthy of a roundhead or a Covenanter.  As Mr. 
Leifchild, a large, portly, distingué-looking man, with what 
Mamma used to tell him was "his dear ugly face", deeply pitted 
with small-pox, used to emerge from the vestry in a sweeping 
black silk gown, with snowy band, his whole person and bearing 
being that of one well able to "magnify his office", and ascended 
the pulpit stairs with the air of an Ambassador, Grandpapa 
would follow every movement with a sort of gloating of 
hatred, throw himself back in his corner of his pew, settling 
himself for a resolute stare of a couple of hours, one gray-stockinged 
leg crossed square over the other and his hand on 
his knee, his great-coat usually buttoned up and his head 
sinking into his collar.  His presence was a perpetual torture 
to Mr. Leifchild and did much to cause him to accept the 
invitation of the people of Craven Chapel, in London.  Poor 
little gentle Grandmamma, no doubt regretting this strange 
persecution, just showed the top of her bonnet above the aisle-end 
of the pew, which opened in front.   Aunt and Uncle Browne's 
pew, was the second, [to the left, of the pulpit,] under the 
great window, to the left of the pulpit, looking at it sideways.  
Mrs. Short's was next to theirs.  The Ashes', Talbots', 
and Newell's were against the left hand wall,under the gallery; 
The Rumseys, Hensleys, and Go[o]dwins, were in the body of the 
Chapel.  We knew almost everybody who went there, the Ingrams, 
Prices, Howells, Palmers, etc.  "Mrs. Ben Palmer" was a daughter 
of "old Mr. Lowell",and they were looked on as pillars of the 
Chapel.  There were christenings (all our brats were baptized 
there, at a movable font, placed, when needed, in front of the 
Sexton's desk, under the pulpit); and we were always agog to 
see the babies in white, with white satin bows in their caps, 
caried down the aisle with their parents and nurses.  One of 
our babies, I think it must have been Sam, was very angry at 
the water, roared, and struck out his little fist in Mr. 
Leifchild's face.  The babies often objected strongly to the 
sprinkling and cross strokes of the wet finger on the forehead, 
roared, howled, kicked, or cried as the case might be.

There were two evening prayer-meetings in the 
week; we went occasionally, and Papa was sure to be called 
upon to pray, which he did very well.  Mr. Godwin (woolen-draper 
cousin and partner of Mr. Hensley) whenrver he was asked to pray, invariably brought in - " and when we are laid - in the cold 
and silent grave", all run into one word, which I always listened 
for with malicious glee.  I detested these prayer meetings, but 
rather liked to go occasionally, because I was allowed to come 
to supper, instead of being packed off to bed supper-less,with 
the "little ones".  Strange to say, I don't think there could 
have been any Sunday-school, or we should have been sent to it, 
instead of being sent, on Sunday afternoons, to the Sunday-school 
in the gallery of the beastly " little Bethel" called 
Gideon Chapel14

Gideon Chapel, at the foot of the terrace of little houses 
( then very pretty, with charming little gardens full of flowers) 
opening out of the bottom of Wilson St.  What a shame it was to 
send us there, among a dirty, stinking lot of children scarcely 
above beggars, who hated us and constantly made faces at us, 
because we were "little Ladies", better dressed than they were, 
poor little souls!  They used to call us "stuck ups! " which we 
were not.  The mere thought of that odious Chapel, with its 
pervading smell of unwashed humanity, makes me sick, like a 
puff of stench from a ships hold, full of bilge-water.  How 
utterly we abhorred it; but our aunts had taken up with the 
bachelor minister, Mr. Wooldredge, and went there; and as it 
was so near, we were often packed off there to our great disgust.  
Every unmarried woman in the congregation flattered herself 
she would carry off the prize; but one fine day he went off to 
Circencester, pronounced Cissester, so people fancied he had 
gone somewhere to see his sister, for a short visit, and came 
back with a wife, daughter of a rich butcher, a buxom female 
in a glaring red gown.  Great was the general disappointment;
but there was nothing for it.  Wooldredge never regained his 
popularity, and went away, and was succeeded by a couple of 
Missionary-spirits, "Miller and Craig", pronounced Craik; thoroughly 
in earnest and bent on evangelising the miserable 
neighborhood of"Gideon Chapel" or "Newfoundland St. Chapel," 
as it was alternately called.  Craig died; having inflicted a 
fresh disappointment on many female hearts by marrying a very 
pious servant-girl.  Muller took root and founded the famous 
Muller Orphanage (now one of the lions of Bristol) which he 
began without a penny, his creed and system being"to trust to 
the daily providing of the Lord".  I suppose they were "Plymouth 
Brethren".  The Orphanage is out at Ashley Barn; an immense 
affair with a wonderful history.  Aunt Lucy, after her return 
from America, devoted herself to it until she unhappily married 
her ridiculous husband, Mr. Isaac, who was, I think, also an 
active man in the Orphanage.  I remember a great gathering of 
the children of the dissenting congregations of Bristol, in 
Gideon Chapel, to be preached to by Mr. Leifchild, whose sermon 
was mostly made up of anecdotes.  I think the poorer children 
were treated afterwards to cakes and tea in the vestry.  This 
must have been in the Wooldredge period.  Of course, on such 
an occasion, we were trotted off to the Chapel.  I remember that 
the sermon was made up, not only of anecdotes(one was of a lame 
boy, a model of youthful piety, whose father, hating his piety, 
jumped upon him in his little trundle bed and broke all his ribs 
and most of his other bones, which made us all feel sore for a 
month), but [of] also of warnings against the wicked wiles of the 
Devil "who went about like a roaring lion,seeking whom he might 
devour", which so horrified me that I never went to bed, for long 
after, without peeping in agony under the bed, to see if a hairy 
Satonic paw was there, and never wakened up at night, if alone, 
without rousing the house (Aunt Ann's) with my screams, expecting 
the Devil to pounce upon [me] and devour me.  Any slapping I got for screaming was amply repaid by the sight and presence of a human 
creature with a candle.  How monstrous to put such ideas into 
children's heads!

   "The Sunday-school movement" had been invented 
and set going,a few years before my birth, by Mr. Raikes, 
I think a Bristol man; it went like wild-fire over the whole


                            15

country, so that Sunday-schools were everywhere by the time that 
I can begin remembering.  Papa was one of Raike's earliest and most zealous disciples in "the work"; and it was through teaching in 
the same Sunday-school, in Mr. Lowell's days, that our two parents 
met and lost their hearts to one another.

   Uncle Lane, who lived at the village of Theale, 
near Wells, where he was minister of a chapel, had married a 
daughter of a Dissenting Dr. Davis, of Wells, I think.  She had 
a good income of her own.  They had one son, James, and one daughter, Elizabeth.  They quarrelled,constantly; she was believed to 
have had an affair with somebody, and ,in order to get rid of her 
husband, she arranged everything for having him carried off surreptitiously, and lodged, as a madman, in the then famous Lunatic 
Asylum of Dr. Bumpas.  Happily for him he found out the plot 
just in the nick of time, and so escaped incarceration for the 
rest of his days.  Thereupon they separated; he keeping the 
daughter, she keeping the son, whom she subsequently shut up in 
a madhouse and kept him there until a short time before her death, 
when he, who was not insane at all, came out and took charge of 
her in her old age, as she gradually sank from softening of the 
brain; which all, who knew the circumstances, of course, set 
down as an evident "judgment".  When they separated, Uncle Lane 
kept her money, only giving her a small allowance.  People's 
ideas of the rights of women were patriarchal in the extreme; 
he never dreamed, nor did anybody else, of its being a mean or 
unjust thing in a husband to live on his wife's money and leave 
her but a pittance of her property.  In the eye of the law, and 
in the conviction of society, the man was regarded as the owner 
both of his wife and of everything belonging to her.  I fancy 
her income must have been £ 600, and that he kept £400, a year 
and left her L 200; which he no doubt considered as very liberal 
and handsome on his part.  He was anything than an agreeable man; 
I don't wonder she found him an unsatisfactory husband.  I never 
saw her; I once caught sight of James; he seems to me to have 
been rather tall, with sandy hair and whiskers,in no way remarkable.
Uncle Lane was rather stingy, but could spend when needful.  
When he, or Elizabeth, spent any time at our house, as they 
generally did two or three times a year, he insisted on paying 
Mamma £ 1 a week for board, though neither she nor Papa liked 
his doing so.  After Elizabeth left school, he brought her to 
Bristol every Spring for an outfit, which used to take Mamma 
out a good deal, as Elizabeth was bent on having everything of 
the newest fashion; L 20 (a handsome sum in those days! ) used 
always to be spent at this work; and Elizabeth,in her new finery, 
going out with Mamma to make morning calls, and going with Papa 
and Mamma to parties in the evening, was the object of great 
admiration to us.  It was during one of her stays in Wilson St. 
that her mother and brother came to lodgings in Bristol; and 
after a good deal of negotiation, she was allowed, against Mamma's 
wish, to spend a week with them.  I think James must have come 
to fetch her.  They took her to theaters, and other gay places; 
and led her, it was supposed in our camp, some steps on the 
general road to perdition.

   A very old friend of Mamma 's was Miss Caroline 
Lax, a tall,gaunt, large-nosed,black-eyed, scraggy,dashing person,
grandly dressed and with long coral earrings.  She lived at 
on the road to Wells, with her married sister, Mrs. 
Uniacke; a very nice motherly woman, whose arm had been broken 
and badly set, so that it was doubled up and stiff; and it was16

painful to see her pour out the tea, as she always would do.  
Mr. Uniacke was a handsome, hearty country squire; a huntsman, 
fond of dogs, free and off-hand in manner.  I was rather 
afraid of him.  There was a younger sister, Susan,gay,dashing, 
spirited, I liked her better than the others.  They were great 
cronies of Uncle Lane's; he always stopped the night there on his 
way between Theale and Bristol, which he invariably "did" in his 
gig.  They often kept Elizabeth for several days.  Caroline Lax 
had set her heart on marrying Uncle Lane, and constantly urged 
him to sue for a divorce, telling him she would give every penny 
of her fortune for this suit, if he would but take the step and 
marry her as soon as he found himself free.  But he never would 
do so; he used to say to Mamma, "She's all very well as a friend; 
but nothing would induce me to have her for a wife."  She had a 
handsome fortune; and at length, finding Uncle William unconquerable, 
she was foolish enough, [to] in a fit of despite, to marry 
her coachman.  No sooner had she done so than the fellow took 
to drinking, and soon drank himself to death, leaving her with 
one son.  In 1870, in London, who should I meet with but Mr. 
Lawler, the artist, whom I found to be a nephew of the Lax ladies, 
and from whom I heard all about them.

   Uncle Charles was the favorite and scapegrace 
of the family.  He was possessed from his cradle with an 
intense desire to be aristocratic, to get into aristocratic and 
fashionable circles.  He worried Uncle Browne into buying him a 
commission, went out to India, was at a ball at the residence 
of Sir Edward West, Governor of Bombay, fell in love with Miss 
Fanny West, whose mother was a daughter of the Duke of Buckingham; 
a high and very proud family, cousins of the Earl De La 
Warr family.  They fell in love at first sight, a "first love" 
on both sides; she eloped with him, to the enormous indignation 
of her people, who, instead of saying "The deed is done; we must 
use our influence to bring Fanny's husband on in the army, so 
that the marriage may cease to be a blot on our grandeur", as 
sensible people would have done, did everything in their power 
to keep him down, so that he was an eternity in getting beyond 
his lieutenancy; and they did their utmost to disgust his wife 
with the step she had taken.  Only one of her grand relations 
ever paid him any attention; the Hon. Mr. Way, who invited him 
once or twice to his country seat, where, however, as he had 
neither valet nor horse, like the other guests, and could not 
spend as freely as they did, he found it rather mortifying than 
gratifying and declined( unwisely) other invitations from that 
gentleman.  Though extremely ugly and almost without education, 
he was a natural "gentleman", extremely agreeable, an amusing companion 
and a favorite everywhere.  But his weakness for playing 
fine gentleman was his bane; he was always getting into debt, 
and it was always good, generous (much too generous!)  Papa who 
paid off his tailors' and other bills, and set him up again.  
His wife's friends got her to separate from him, giving her an 
income on condition of her not living with him; so she resided, 
with their two children, Edward and Fanny, for many years, at 
Dawlish or elsewhere on the South Coast, he being absent with 
his regiment and spending a few weeks or days with them, by invitation, 
as a guest, whenever he came to England.  He probably 
only had himself to thank for the estrangement; she stuck to 
him for some years, in spite of her family; but one time, when 
he was staying with her at Dawlish, he got into a silly altercation 
with her concerning a tea-pot, angry words ensued, then 
a quarrel, then an estrangement, and he, listening to his foolish 


                                            17

pride, (for he had no earthly reason for pride) stood on his 
dignity instead of sueing for peace, and so they parted and she 
only saw him occasionally, as just stated.  He was extremely fond 
of his children,who adored him; but he never had anything to do 
with them; in fact, his whole course, as I look back upon it, 
appears so utterly ill-advised as to border on insanity.  She 
She never came to Bristol excepting just after her marriage; 
she took poor Aunt Browne in horror.   She was very small, not 
pretty, but a beautiful figure, thoroughly the lady, elegant, 
refined, an exquisite singer, though singing so quietly that 
you had to listen if you wanted to hear her.  Mrs. William 
Lane was visiting Bristol at the same time, after her marriage, 
the two brothers having married about the same time.  Elizabeth 
was a very little girl when she used to sit by and hear the 
two ladies (I don't remember where they again met) bemoaning 
their sad fate in having made a matrimonial mistake; she used 
to recount how, having given vent to their regrets, they would 
say to her, "Elizabeth, whatever you do, never marry beneath 
your station! " which, she used to declare confidentially, 
"she never would do;" but which did not prevent her making 
about the most absurd marriage a girl could make; her and our 
cousin, Sam Lowell, being just as incapable of making a good 
husband as of flying.  Uncle Charles's visits were few and far 
between, as he was always with his regiment, (I think the 42nd 
Infantry) in India, in Canada, all the world over.  Wherever 
he came from, he brought us curiosities of all kinds; his first 
act, on arriving at our house, always was to order "a fly",  
pack the whole lot into it, and drive to Lucas's the pastry-cook, 
in Wine St., and tell us to eat whatever we liked; raspberry 
tarts and cheese cakes were our favorites, but we did not despise 
other things, and our devourings were considerable.  Calves' 
foot jellies,among other things, were not contemned by us or 
forgotten.  All our pastry for parties came from Lucas's as 
a matter of course; and Lucas bought all the best of the fruit 
at Olveston, which to our disgust, papa used to take into town, 
carefully packed in vine-leaves, every morning, in the seats of 
the little yellow carriage that he drove in and out of town .  
What wonderful peaches!  enormous, lovely, and of a flavour!  
and the apricots, trained over the front of the addition to the 
main part of the house, which then belonged to it, but is now 
let apart.  Those apricots will glow in my memory as long as I 
live; very large, golden, and exquisite.  I remember Mamma's 
preserving them; I helped her; most lovely they were!  It was 
on one of his visits to England that Uncle Charley saw Miss 
Major, who had just come to us(from Frome or Devizes) as nursery-governess; 
he took a fancy to her at first sight, though she was 
the last person in the world one would have thought likely to 
attract him.  From the moment "Uncle Charley" appeared in our 
house, everything was turned topsy-turvy.  He begged for holidays 
and half holidays, and took us out in all directions, going 
off to the Hotwells, to Clifton, along the river, or up over the 
downs; incessently romping with us, rattling, laughing, telling 
wonderful stories of his adventures by land and sea, insisting 
on his ear having been shot through and a bit carried away ,at 
the battle of Lundy's Lane, tho' Mamma privately assured us that 
there was not a word of truth in this story, he having been born 
with the odd little slit in his ear, as though a bit had been 
torn out of it.  She used to "sit down" on some of his stories, 
and remind him how, when they were children, their Mother giving18

them a penny for every hymn of Dr. Watts' that they repeated to 
her on Sunday afternoons, Uncle Charley used to say the same 
hymn so often that at last she was obliged to make a cross and 
write "pd" under every  hymn he repeated, to keep him from palming 
it off again upon her as a new acquisition.  Both he and 
Mamma had the greatest affection for her memory and always 
spoke of her as "my dear Mother".  Mamma had a very beautiful 
miniature of her in a handsome gold setting; Uncle Charley tormented 
her so resolutely to lend it to him that she at length did so, 
and he carried it about with him for many years; when, in returning 
from India, he was wrecked in the Persian Gulf, and lost 
everything except this miniature,which he contrived to keep about 
him as he swam to the shore; but it was injured by the sea-water 
and mouldied.  There was also a good miniature of mamma; I wonder 
what has become of it; and also a little black profile-likeness 
of her and of papa; lost also, probably.  There were no other likenesses 
of either of them taken in England; of papa, no other 
was ever taken,anywhere.  Uncle Charles, when with us, went to 
whatever parties went on among the Bridge St. people, with whom 
alone we consorted; he went to them for the sake of going with 
papa and mamma, and made himself a prime favorite wherever he 
went, all the unmarried ladies and young widows setting their 
caps for him, as, his wife never being spoken of, he usually 
passed for a bachelor.  But he despised Bristol and our set; and 
did all he could to persuade us how very vulgar was our social 
surrounding, how badly we were dressed, and what a very different 
thing was polite and aristocratic life, if we only knew it.  He 
liked Mr. Leifchild, however, declaring that he was "a gentleman," 
and that he "had no nonsense about him."  He used to talk to us 
children of his children, wishing that we could be together, and 
hoping that his son,Edward, would enter the army, and telling me 
what "a nice sweetheart" he would be for me by and by, and how 
much he would like me to marry him, and similar nonsense which 
he ought not to have put into a little girl's head.  He fancied 
that, if Aunt Browne had been out of the way, his wife and children 
might possibly have had some intercourse with us; as I look 
back on that time, it seems curious that we could have got up 
such a romantic interest in them as his allusions, and the fact 
that "Aunt Fanny" was of a high family and were supposed to look 
down upon us, created in our minds, especially in mine, as better 
able to understand the circumstances of the case.  To have so 
few relatives, and not to see anything of them, seemed at once 
regrettable and mysterious.  Of"Mrs. William Lane" (we never 
thought of her as "aunt") and her son James we had a vague horror, 
as of something very wicked and dreadful; but the desire to see, 
and be friends with,"Aunt Fanny," and our two cousins on that 
side, was a pervading longing all through my girlhood.  I remember, 
on one of his visits, making a little reticule, of card-board 
and blue silk, such as were in vogue at the time, as a present 
for Fanny;  I expended all my skill in painting flowers on the 
bits of cardboard, and wrote my little letter with a beating 
heart.  I forget what I made,or bought,as a present for Edward; 
and I committed the two presents and the two letters to Uncle 
Charles, who was going to make them a visit at Dawlish, and who 
promised to deliver them.  When he came back, he brought me a 
handsome silver and mother-of-pearl pocket knife, from Fanny, 
and something, (forgotten) from Edward, with two prettily turned 
little notes from the two children.  The letters were written in 
immense, round hand; which he explained by saying that "Aunt Fanny"


                                                                19

only allowed them to write thus, being determined not to let 
their writing become cramped by writing small too soon.  I was 
delighted to have the letters and treasured thm for years; but 
I felt humiliated at having such handsome bought things in return 
for the modest presents I had sent, which I had made expressly 
for these invisible young cousins, and which, it seems 
to me, ought to have been responded to by some-thing equally 
simple and made by themselves.  The truth of the case probably 
was that Uncle Charley, not considering my advances as likely 
to find favour in "Aunt Fanny's " eyes, burned my gifts and 
letters,and good-temperedly bought the two return-presents and 
himself concocted the two little letters in that wonderful 
handwriting.  At all events nothing came of my attempt.  Poor 
Uncle Charles, without fortune or influential friends, remained 
so long a lieutenant, that his becoming "Captain" seemed hopeless: 
it was not until after our exodus that his promotion took 
place; and he never got any higher, though his foolish vanity 
prompted him, after he had gone on half-pay, to pass himself off 
as "Major Lane."  I believe he had what is called a "brevet-majority"; 
that is to say, he would have been a Major if he had remained in 
the service.  Instead of doing that, and thus making sure  of his 
promotion (which must have come with time) he idiotically left 
the army just when his long, weary waiting was about to bear its 
fruit and would have ensured him the rank and pay of General 
with a little more patience, came to America, and ,on the mere 
report that his wife was dead, married Miss Major, supposing 
that his wife's relations had probably taken charge of his children.  
How he could have taken so criminal a step, how he could ha 
haven neglected to look up his children, and how Papa and Mamma 
could have been so insensate as to encourage him in such an utterly 
ill-judged proceeding, I cannot imagine.  Not long before 
his death, having had full leisure to judge and regret this 
aberration, he remarked to me, "My poor dear sister was much to 
blame in the business.  She first put my unfortunate second 
marriage into my head by remarking to me "what a nice wife Eliza 
Major would make me," and by encouraging me to the step, by expressing 
her belief that, in the sight of God, I was free to 
marry, as my wife had practically divorced herself from me."  
After my return to England, I felt so strongly the horrible 
disgrace that would be the consequence of his bigamy becoming 
known at the Horse Guards, if it proved, as he feared, that his 
first wife was still living, and I felt so much pity for his misery 
at living on , year after year, with this sword of Damocles 
over his head ( for he would have been expelled from the army,and 
imprisoned for years with hard labour) that I determined to find 
out the truth, a most difficult and delicate enquiry, as I could 
not let it be known why I was enquiring.  I wrote to the three 
witnesses of his marriage; all of them had forgotten the incident; 
I went to the Army-tailors, who knew nothing of any "Mrs. Lane;" 
I set inquiries on foot in every direction, and I ascertained (I 
forget through what channel) that his daughter had married a Mr. 
Druitt of Arundel, that the mother had lived with her since her 
marriage and had recently died; That Mrs. Druitt had several 
children; that Edward, having no one to buy a commission for him, 
had been forced to renounce his hope of going into the army, had 
gone out to Australia to seek his fortune, and had died there, 
after having been for some years employed as a shepherd in the 
bush.  When I had succeeded in getting these particulars, the 
longing to see his daughter ( for,strange to say, he never ceased 
to adore his children, and,as I know from Aunt Eliza, he would20

sit and cry by the hour together, wondering what had become 
of them and intensely longing for them) was so overpowering 
that nothing could prevent his risking a visit to Arundel.  
He had remarried Eliza Major immediately on receiving the 
news of his first wife's decease, so that he was no longer 
obliged to hide himself in France, where he spent so many 
years in St. Malo, and then in Dinan, hardly venturing out 
of doors for fear of meeting some old brother-officer who 
would have seen that he was living with a lady who passed 
for his wife, and through whom trouble might have sprung 
up at the War-office in London.  As soon, therefore, as his 
mind was set at rest on this point, he sold off his furniture, 
Aunt Eliza gave away her parrot and her pet green canaries, 
and the unlucky pair came back to England.  Uncle Charles 
went down alone to Arundel,and learned all he could, at the 
inn, about his daughter, and at last managed to have an interview, 
I think, with her husband, and the fact of his presence 
was broken to his daughter.  Unhappily, she was near 
her confinement, and the shock brought on a miscarriage, so 
that he had to leave Arundel without seeing her.  On her recovery, 
I wrote,for him, such a chef d'oeuvre of a paternal 
letter, speaking of his constant affection for her and Edward, 
of all he had suffered away from them, of the cruel effects 
of the opposition of her mother's family to what had been a 
"first love" on both sides, that the daughter and her husband 
were quite toughed, and the breach seemed to be on the point 
of healing, and Fanny came up to London, with her husband,as 
(all who knew her having shared her and her mother's belief 
that he was dead) she refused to receive him at Arundel on 
account of the endless gossip and wonderment his resuscitation 
would have roused; her uncle, Earl de la Warr, having his 
castle near by, and the tablet to her mother's memory, in the 
village church, being to "lady Fanny Lane["], relict of Capt. 
Charles Lane" etc.  The interview was satisfactory, and they 
promised to contrive some way of sending the children for 
him to see, and sent him a hamper of delicacies from their 
place; an attention which his vanity had longed for, to be 
able to show it to the people at his boarding-house, with 
a perfectly childish intensity: - there was clotted cream, 
butter, eggs, poultry, sea-kale, game, cream-cheese, etc., 
and poor Uncle Charley almost cried with delight on getting 
it.  But with the wrong-headedness which ruins so many lives, 
he soon began to turn over in his mind all the incidents of 
his unsatisfactory marriage,to the reviving of his old bitterness 
against his wife's family and herself; and then sat down 
and wrote a most ill-judged and unjust letter to his daughter, 
abusing her mother and her mother's people, raking up all the 
old griefs over whicg my chef d'oeuver letter had thrown a 
veil of flowers; and actually claiming as his by right, the 
little property (I think about L 140 a year) which she had 
inherited from some relative some years before her death.  
You may imagine the amazement and indignation stirred up by 
this astounding letter!  Fanny and her husband were equally 
angry, and the former then wrote him a terrible letter, taking 
her mother's part and bitterly reproaching him for his utter 
neglect of them, and his contracting a second marriage without 
taking the trouble to ascertain whether her mother were alive 
or dead.  "And if she had been dead" she continued, "ought not 
our being left alone in the world to have brought you to us?


                 21

Your place was with us,your children, and not elsewhere."  
She then went on to the little income, exclaiming against 
his selfishness in wishing to take from her "this pittance 
the only money that I can call my own, the only source from 
which I can ever make a little gift to my husband, so good 
and so generous, who took me without fortune, befriended 
my poor brother, and gave a home to my dear and unfortunate 
mother until she died."  Poor Uncle Charles's blunder became 
sadly apparent to him when he found how completely he 
had alienated his daughter's feelings by his astounding 
letter, which completely undid all that I had so successfully 
built up.  "Your beautiful letter did everything for me!" he 
mournfully admitted, "and my miserable letter, that I can't 
conceive how I ever could have been such a fool as to write, 
has knocked everything on the head."   After some correspondences 
it was settled that Fanny should retain the little property 
she inherited from her mother, but that she should let her 
Father have L 20 a year from it as long as he lived; - after 
his death, Mr. Druitt wrote Eliza that she should have the L20 
for two years, but that after that lapse of time, she must look 
for help solely from her own friends.  Just after my letter had 
done its work, Uncle Charles had begged them to let him introduce 
Eliza to them, as having been entirely devoted to him 
for so many years; and they consented, came to London, and met 
her very kindly.  She told me that Fanny is not at all pretty, 
but pleasing, and extremely refined and lady-like.  She thought 
Mr. Druitt rather prosy; both are very pious church-people; 
Fanny said to her, "We are the only gentle folk in the village, 
and I have consequently to do a great deal of work among the 
poor; in fact I am quite the lady bountiful of the village."  
Their residence is a gentleman's place, handsome and agreeable; 
they are in easy circumstances without being rich; Mr. D. is 
the son of a banker and has his money from his father.  The 
wound caused by the miserable letter, which I would have prevented 
his sending if I had had the least inkling of it beforehand, 
was never entirely got over.   They never let him come to 
their place nor see their children, nor did they repeat either 
the visit or the hamper; and, when he died at Ramsgate, they 
declined to be at the funeral, though they paid the expenses of 
his last illness and burial.  Since then I have had no news of t 
them.  Poor, foolish, kind-hearted, void-of-principle, Uncle 
Charley!  His great torment.  in dying, was the fear lest his 
tombstone should  bear "Captain": and not "Major"!!  He made 
Eliza write to an old brother-officer of his, at Walmer Castle, 
and beg him to come and see him before he died; saying, in his 
letter, that he had unfortunately supposed himself to have 
been gazetted "Major" and had taken the title; that it had been 
impossible for him, having once done so, to leave it off, and 
that he earnestly besought him, if he came to ask for him,and 
address him as "Major Lane"!  The friend came, and did as requested, 
but being a pious and strict man, he read poor Uncle 
Charley a lecture on his wickedness that made him cry, as he 
lay in his bed, but could not shake his determination about the 
tombstone, which is as he wanted it to be, although the friend 
expatiated fully on the horror and danger of "his going into 
the presence of his Maker with a lie in his mouth."   Curiously 
enough, Marian, who knew nothing of all this, and was unaware 
of Uncle C's want of truthfulness, when sitting by me one day, 
trying to get spirit-messages, suddenly exclaimed "Here's a22

spirit signing 'Charles Lane', and says, 'I shall come back 
to learn not to tell fibs'."  I then gave her an insight into 
the case, and she was very glad to have this evidence of identity.  
After Uncle C's death, Eliza offered to send Fanny 
various things he had prized highly, among others,a large 
handsome cup and saucer in which he always had his tea for 
breakfast and which (I think) I had given him years ago; but 
she would accept nothing but the bible Edward had had with 
him in the bush, and which she had given her father as a memento 
of the son he had through his own dereliction of paternal 
duty, never seen since he was a very little fellow.  This 
Bible (as, in spite of appearances to the contrary, he was 
really excessively fond of his children) he prized very highly, 
and would read in it, and keep it by him, talking, with tears 
in his eyes, of"my poor boy."  Poor Uncle Charley!  Peace to his 
ashes!  He was very affectionate; always cherished Papa's memory, 
regarding him, (and rightly) as the best and kindest friend he 
had ever had; - he kept, in his waistcoat pocket, until he died 
the little gold toothpick that I had bought at Uncle Browne's 
and given him as a keepsake, when very little, once when he was 
going out to India.  He deeply regretted his shortsighted 
folly in leaving the army, as, had he remained,he would have 
been a General years before he died, by force of seniority.  
He had served under Lord Raglan, with whom he had always been a 
favorite; and tried his utmost to get back into the army at the 
time of the Crimean War; but he had been too long on half pay, 
and Lord Raglan was unable to get him replaced on the list of 
officers on active service.  His death occurred not long after 
the conclusion of the campaign.

Of the relatives on the Blackwell side,
there is not much to be said.  Aunt Ann was very well meaning,
obstinate, ignorant, and ugly.  Aunt Barbara was one of the most
disagreeable, ill-tempered,strict, narrow-minded creatures
alive; a dreadful tyrant, always quarrelling with poor mamma,
who put up with insolence and spite that she ought not to have
tolerated for an instant.  She was very clever, and education
might have had its full course of usefulness in her case; but
she straggled up,like the rest of the family, ignorant as a
broomstick, except what she may have picked up in forcing
Pinnock's Catechisms and Mangnall's Questions down the throats
of her unlucky little pupils.  She had a decided talent for
drawing and managed to take lessons of Danby; that great
artist, as he was subsequently recognized to be, being a Bristol
man, and having begun his career by giving lessons.  Papa no
doubt, paid for these lessons.  Had she been taken in hand,
and properly pushed forward as an artist, she would no doubt
have achieved fame and fortune.  Danby always said she was his
"best pupil", and was annoyed at her not devoting herself to an
artist's career.  Her pencil drawings were admirable.  She was
about the neatest, most orderly, most methodical creature that 
ever lived; sewed beautifully, adored Kenyon, Marian, and Harry, 
and detested and persecuted the others, especially me.  Uncle 
Blackwell had her with them when his children were young, but 
her temper was unbearable and he was obliged to get rid of her 
at last, and Mamma had the weakness to take her for our governess.  
What wretched years those were for us!!  Marian and I had 
previously been sacrificed to Aunt Ann's horrid school, in which 
Aunts Barbara and Lucy took part at one time; we were taken 
home when Aunt Barbara was set up in authority, her reign coinciding 
with the Wilson St. life.  After she had made herself

                                                               
23

utterly unbearable, Papa sent her to Dublin, to keep house 
for Uncle James, whom he had established there as head of the 
branch-house he had founded there.  But Uncle James was no 
doubt already lapsing into the sort of insanity which gradually 
took possession of him, so that he had at length to be placed 
in a private asylum.  He mismanaged the business most horribly, 
inflicting  heavy loss on his brother; and, as his insanity 
was not then suspected, papa supposed he had intentionally 
ruined the interests confided to him,  resented it deeply, and 
broke with him; Uncle James, on his side, falling into a state 
of hatred against him which became more and more violent every 
year, and included all of us, whom he always designated as "
"that Devil's brood."  Happily, I was able to change this feeling 
shortly before he died; by a letter and the present of a L 5 
note sent to him in Jersey, where he lived for many years,and 
where he died.  I have had messages from him thanking me for 
having broken up his bitterness before he went; and saying 
that papa has forgiven him.  He was not without talent, and 
wrote several large books about, I believe, controverted doctrinal 
Pauline points; how he managed to get them published I don't 
know; one was called "A Cry in the Wilderness," another "A Howl 
in the Desert".  After we left, he hung about on Uncle Blackwell 
and Sam and Kenyon, who maintained him so far as to keep him from 
starving.  But he took it into his head that he was constantly 
tracked by assassins who were lying in wait to kill him, employed 
by Uncle Blackwell; he would cry out suddenly, "Ihear them plotting!  
They are downstairs( or "upstairs" or "behind the door", or 
outside the window", as the fancy took him) they are describing 
how they are to do their hellish work! "  He would work himself 
up into frenzy, listening to the plans of his murderers; and 
that to such a degree that he twice attacked Uncle Blackwell 
and came very near killing him,as he said, "in self defense." 
So they were forced, at last, to place him in a private lunatic-
asylum.  He was let out, after some years, as harmless, his mind 
showing no other derangement than that of intense hatered of Papa 
and of us, most of whom he had never even seen, but all of whom 
he fancied to be constantly plotting to kill him.  From what
cousin Sam has told me of him, I rather suppose him to have been
an undeveloped auditive medium.  He probably really heard and was
persecuted by,a horde of invisible enemies, spirits whom he had
wronged in some previous existence, and who took this method of
wreaking their vengeance upon him.  He never forgave Sam for
putting him into the asylum; and as Uncle B. after his failure,
became dependent on his sons, and, at length, on Sam( as Kenyon,
after his marriage, shirked all family-obligations, allowing
himself to be absorbed and fleeced by his wife and her beggarly
relatives, to the utter exclusion of his own relations); and as
Sam was careless and soon got into difficulties, this unfortunate
member of the B. family was often without a half-penny for months
together, and used to send a stream of violently abusive letters
to Sam, blowing him up for his neglect, and telling him that, as
he had "ruined his career" by"falsely proclaiming him to be a
madman, it was doubly incumbent on him to send him his allowance
always in arrears," etc.  He had been released from the asylum
on his engaging to reside constantly in Jersey, where he lived
with plain, poor, but decent people, in a little cottage; and it
must have been very trying to him to have been almost always as
he was, in debt to these poor people ( who seem to have been very
kind to him), to his washerwoman, and to a doctor who looked24

after his health, which was long failing.  He died in 1866; a few 
months after the death of our beloved Howy.  It was in Howy's 
name that I sent him the L5 note, telling him all the good and 
noble qualities of the brother whose loss had taken all the sunshine 
out of my life, and who had always intended, as soon as his 
own affairs had enabled him to do so, to make the poor old fellow 
a comfortable income.  Knowing how strongly bitter was Uncle James's 
feeling toward all our branch, and anxious to help him to a better 
state of mind before returning to the spirit-world, where this 
bitterness would have been sadly injurious to him, I had been 
meditating the letter and the little present, but I had not a  
L 5 note at hand, and I let the weeks pass without hurrying myself 
about it.  Being in London, and spending the evening with 
Mrs. Milner Gibson (with whom I was then very intimate and who 
liked Howard and sympathized with me deeply in the terrible bereavement.) 
I was seated on a little couch near the window, reading, 
and Sydney, the daughter, was on another little couch at a 
distance, reading also, while Mrs. M.G. and a friend, who was 
staying with her, sat at a little table in the middle of the
room ( a very large drawing room), getting spirit-messages.  I 
was neither listening, nor in anyway attending to what they were 
doing.  All of a sudden, Mrs. M.G. turned her head towards me, 
exclaiming, "My dear, here's a spirit has just given his name as 
'James Blackwell;' have you any relative of that name?  I never 
heard you speak of any 'James Blackwell!" I replied, "I have an 
uncle of that name, my father's brother; but I have not seen him 
since I was a girl.  Unhappy family dissensions have severed him 
from our branch; and we never mention his name.  But I have no 
reason to suppose him to be in the spirit world.  Ask him if he 
is in that world." The two ladies inquired, several times, but 
could not obtain any reply.  It was evident that a spirit had 
given his name in passing and then gone his way.  It struck me 
that it was meant as a hint to me that what I intended to do should 
be done quickly, and accordingly, next day I procured a L 5 note, 
wrote my letter and sent it off; I had at once a most pleased 
and grateful reply from the poor old soul, showing no trace of 
the old bitterness.  He died, rather suddenly, a very short time 
afterwards; so that had I not been induced to send when I did, it 
would have been too late (I will copy his letter and also his 
spirit-message after his death, in an appendix that I see will 
be necessary; I have not got them with me).

Aunt Mary, as already remarked, was the 
natural lady of the set.  Everybody liked her; she and Mamma had been great friends, and it was, I fancy, through her that the 
acquaintance with Papa was made.  She was rather pretty, extremely 
amiable and kindly; we were all very fond of her, and always 
rejoiced when she came to the house.  She was at one time engaged 
to Mr. John Harwood, son of the old sugar-refining firm in which 
Papa began his career.  He was the only one of the Harwoods who 
ever visited us, the old people, who had come to regard Papa as 
one of themselves, and wished to give him a share in the business, 
were so deeply hurt by his leaving them and setting up for himself, 
thus becoming a rival instead of a support, that they never 
forgave it, and ceased all intercourse from that time.  They 
lived in St.Paul's square, close to the Wilson St. house; but 
we never met.  They were rich, highly respected, and with a social 
position altogether above ours, which was absurdly limited to the 
Bridge St. Chapel set; they were pillars of the Baptist Chapel 
in Broadmead, of which the renowned Robert Hall was the minister 
for so many years before his death, he having succeeded "Old Dr. 
Ryland," who lived in Stokes Croft, which was crowded the day of


25

his funeral. The match would have been a wonderfully fortunate 
one for Aunt Mary, and would have been an immense social lift 
for all her connexion.  Unluckily, they quarreled over baptism, 
and the match was broken off.  But John Harwood is one 
of the earliest friends I can remember, and was intimate with 
us until we left Bristol.  He must have been spirited, lively 
and agreeable, as I remember him; a gentleman, man of the world, contrasting with the "commonness" of our Blackwell relations, 
who were only not vulgar because entirely without pretension.  
Nature made Papa a gentleman and Aunt Mary a lady; they had 
nothing but their name in common with the rest of the family.  
Aunt Mary was the only one of the sisters who was ever engaged.  
Aunt Barbara, strange to say, had an intense admirer in Mr. 
Bancroft, a rich grocer in College Green, a man greatly respected; 
but, as he used to tell Mamma privately, she was so 
grim and unbending in manner that he never could find the 
courage to pop the question.  I fancy poor Aunt Barbara liked 
him; and I don't understand how Mamma should have failed to 
bring them together; for though Papa's position ought to have 
been such as to give his sisters access to people of higher 
social condition, she would have been in clover had she married 
him, and as he was much respected in the Broadmead connexion," 
she would have been vastly more happy and prosperous 
than she ever was.  During her stay with us, whenever our daily 
walk took us through College Green, she used to call in upon 
him as he was in the shop, and he used to give us a paper of 
raisins and currants which occupied us while he vainly tried 
to get up a thaw in the icy manner of his unpropitious lady-love.  
After wasting ten or a dozen years in this way, the 
rich grocer married somebody else; I remember Mrs. Bancroft 
being very handsomely dressed and looking altogether a person 
of a superior order to our poor starveling aunts.  I fancy 
this marriage was one of the determining causes of Aunt Barbara's 
going to Dublin, where she kept house for Uncle James,

Aunt Lucy was very small, kindly and 
null.  Mamma let her make nearly everything she wore, sacrificing 
us utterly (as she had not an atom of taste and knew 
no more of dressmaking than of Greek) for the sake of putting 
a little money into her pocket.  The miserably ugly (and often 
shabby) things we were made to wear, from a mistaken notion 
that dressing us badly would keep us free from vanity and love 
of finery, were a constant source of annoyance and mauvaise-honte 
to us, through all our childhood.  We knew we were sad 
little figures and felt ashamed and mortified every day of 
our lives; had we been properly arrayed, we should probably 
never have troubled our heads about the matter, as we were 
not naturally vain.  I have never forgotten the torture caused 
me by certain odious garments, hats, frocks, and pelisses, we
were forced to wear; and many of these were "creations" of 
poor Aunt Lucy's industrious but uneducated fingers.  I remember 
the wonderment of Eliza Goddard, and the contemptuous comments 
of "Cousin Elizabeth" when examining some frightful frock 
or pelisse in which I was forced to "make a fright" of myself.  
Aunt Lucy was more lively than her sisters: she was very 
small and scarcely looked more than a nice sort of upper servant.  
I never could understand why Uncle Charles should call 
her "pretty Lucy."  She took a fancy to learn French on "the 
Hamiltonian system," just then out and consisting of the Gospel 
of St.John in the tongue you were to learn, without a master, 
the English words being printed under the foreign ones.26

(It was thus that I began Latin; - how well I remember the 
book with its cover of blue paper, and my learning the Latin 
by heart:- "In principo erat Verbum, et Verbum apud Deum, et 
Verbum erat Deum (s?)" and so on.  The beauty of this precious 
system" was that the pupil was to teach himself, without the. 
need of a teacher!  Aunt Lucy got a copy of the French book, 
viz., the Gospel aforesaid, and went at it diligently, pronouncing 
the words as though the letters had the same sounds a 
as in English.  I can see her hammering away at it in the 
Wilson St. back parlour, Uncle James coming in and teasing 
her, as she was debating aloud whether the word "etoit" (était 
was then spelled étoit) in the first verse, should be eto-it 
or e-to-it.  "It must be one or the other", argued the puzzled 
student; "but how am I to know which?"  To which query Uncle 
James replied laughingly "As it is French, you may be very 
sure it can only be e-to-it; for what does a Frenchman do all 
his life but toe it?"  Just as he had delivered this triumphant 
decision, in came Mrs. Goddard; and to her Aunt Lucy, knowing 
that she spoke French, amused but rather embarrassed at having 
to convict poor Aunt Lucy  of such utter ignorance, she explained 
that the word was neither "eto-it" nor "e-to-it", the French 
letters having different values from the English ones.  She 
then spelled the words, showing the sound[s] of the letters, and 
finished by reading the text in French:  "Au commencement était 
le Verbe," etc. an exposition which, showing the impossibility 
of learning French without a teacher, so thoroughly disconcerted 
poor Aunt Lucy that she then and there relinquished the attempt 
as hopeless.

My two earliest remembrances are of a 
wonderful diorama which I was taken to see when I must have 
been three or four years old.  It was at the Princes' St. Assembly 
Rooms; and we must have been living at Counterslip.  
Papa and Mamma, Aunt Mary, Aunt and Uncle Browne, and perhaps 
others of the family, all were together.  The lights went out, 
to my great terror, audibly expressed, no doubt, as people [ar-] 
round us laughed and I was assured there was no danger, and 
that something pretty was coming.  Then there appeared on the 
stage a great ship, tossing on the sea; everything was lit up 
and moving and I was dumb with amazement and rather frightened.  
Then it grew dark again and there appeared a beautiful wood, 
and a road, and along this road drove a carriage and horse[s], 
and in the carriage a gentleman who was driving and a lady 
with a parasol.  There was a handsome entrance to a park.  The 
audience, or, rather, spectators, were delighted and aplauded 
enthusiastically, frightening me almost out of my wits.  I was 
seated on Papa's knee,or on Aunt Mary's lap; and clutched hold 
of them in terror when  the ship in the storm let off guns, and 
when the people clapped and applauded.  There must have been 
many other scenes, but I only remember these.  In 1870, when 
in London, I happened to speak of this childish remembrance, 
and a Dr. Perfitt (a very learned man who preaches in an individual conventicle and drinks) said that he distinctly remembered 
it, the diorama being a very fine and famousone, that 
made the tour of England somewhere about 1819.  My other remembrance 
is of the Proclamation of King George [the] IV. in 
1820,when I was in my 4th.year.  I was sent to see the show, 
in care of a man, a servant, and saw it, perched on his shoulder 
and holding him tight round the neck, our standpoint being 
in Nelson St., where there was then a sort of open space between 
Bridewell Lane and the steps leading up into Clare St.


27

A herald, clothed in armour, sat on a great white horse covered 
with gilded trappings; having proclaimed the advent of 
a new king to the throne, he dared the right of the world to 
dispute the right of the new Sovereign and threw down a 
great glove of buff leather, covered with gold embroidery, 
and fringed with the same, as a defiance to all gainsayers.  
There must have been a grand procession accompanying the 
herald, who repeated the proclamation and ceremony on various 
points of the town; but I remember only the herald and 
his steed and my being seated aloft on the shoulder of a 
man who held me fast and took good care of me.

My next remembrances are of Counterslip.  
Our house was an extremely old one with a gable on 
the street; at each storey an immense window, occupying nearly 
the whole of the front.  The door was to the right of the 
window and a long passage ran tha whole length of the house, 
which had a ground floor and two storeys, with perhaps servants 
rooms above, but this I don't remember.  There was an 
inner court and also a second court beyond the back of the 
house, which must have abbutted on the filthy little Frome, 
which flows through the town to the back of Counterslip, 
emptying its black water into the Avon, which flows into the 
Severn estuary down to the Bristol Channel.  Here's a plan of
the queer old place: -

[*Counterslip
Parlour   window   fire place   Door
Dining Parlour   folding doors   fire place   Door
Court   window   window
Kitchen   window    old clock   range   warming pan   tables   shelves
Sloping kind of cellar used for beer, coal etc.   
Court   pagoda
long passage   Stairs   pantry   Dresser   passage*]

house door on Counterslip with brass plate,  "Mr. S. Blackwell."  
The same arrangement of rooms in the upper storeys, 
ending with the kitchen.  Mamma's bedroom over the kitchen; 
a light closet over the pantry; then the stairs, then Papa's 
dressing room, and the long passage leading from Mamma's room 
to the drawing room over the two small folding door rooms 
below; - same again upstairs; the room over the drawing room 
being the nursery, the one over Papa's dressing room being 
called "Uncle James's Room"; and a servant's room over Mamma's bedroom.  There was a closet full of old books in Papa's 
dressing-room; a cupboard with jam, manna, honey etc. in one 
corner of the drawing-room; a large light closet in the passage 
to Mamma's room and ditto on ground-floor; a closet in 
Uncle James's room(which he had ceased to occupy before my 
memory begins) of which we had an insurmountable horror.  
Every servant we ever had believed it, and the pantry on the 
ground-floor, to be haunted.  All declared that a shadowy 
white figure used to be seen gliding into that pantry; not 
one would have gone past the door to the stairs,alone,at night 
on any consideration.  There was no ingress into the court in 
the middle of the house.  The great windows were of little 28

tiny panes of greenish glass in leadenframes, only a 
square bit opening for air.  The floors were so rotten 
from age that our feet were constantly going through the 
bare boards of the nursery, the only uncarpeted part of the 
house.  We used to amuse ourselves with hiding small objects, 
thimbles, balls of cotton, spoons, snuffers, etc., 
in the hollows under the boards; when things were missed, 
the maids had to ferret in these hollows.  There was a 
large cupboard to the left of the chimney, and another in 
the opposite corner; the same two cupboards in the 
drawing-room.  When Mamma took possession of the Kingsdown 
house, on com[m]ing back from her wedding tour, she was astounded 
at finding all the closets and cupboards in the 
house securely nailed up; she found, on enquiry, that Grandpapa 
had persuaded Papa to let him do it, telling him that 
"cupboards were slut-holes"; a definition very uncomplimentary 
to poor Grandmamma (and I think unjust), who, as far 
as I ever saw, was a neat and careful housekeeper.  Mamma 
was a considerable time in persuading Papa to let her have 
the cupboards opened.  I have often heard her describe her 
dismay on finding that Grandpapa had influence enough with 
his son to persuade him to so inconvenient a piece of absurdity,
and wondering what would be his next infliction 
on the new household; -and how vexed she was when John Harwood 
came in to pay his first visit to the little house, 
to see is amazement and hear his merry denunciations of 
the folly that had nailed up the indidpensable repositories 
that quadruple the value of a home.  The cupboards of the 
Counterslip [h]ome abode were, of course, not interfered with, 
Mamma having gained the point previously to going there.

   Among my earliest remembrances 
are the beautiful roaring coal-fires we always had.  Papa 
had his coal by contract, direct from (I think) Swansea; 
a barge came to the sugar-house wharf every week, discharging 
its contents; and we had our coal brought in regularly, 
in a large quantity, burning it without regard to 
cost, Papa having it, of splendid quality, at a very low 
price.  The beer was equally allowed without stint.  Every
body drank beer like water, which nobody ever dreamed of 
drinking, unless as toast-water, which was in constant use 
in all houses, for the children, being made fresh, every 
morning, in great jugs with covers and strainers in the 
spout, called "toast-and-water jugs."  Ours was white with 
a blue pattern.  Our breakfast china was white, with bunches 
of thyme; the every-day dinner-set was the old willow-china 
earthenware.  The best dinnerset was also of earthenware, of  
a newer pattern.  Our silver was handsome from the beginning, 
being mostly presents from Uncle Browne and others of Mamma's 
friends.  The little silver saucepan, in which the pap of 
each child was made in succession, is one of my earliest 
remembrances; and the silver "sauce-boat", the beautiful 
epergne, with its trifle-dish and accompanying little dishes 
of splendid cut-glass for jellies and preserves, as also the 
silver-wire cake-basket, were among my earliest friends.  
There were green blinds at the bottom of all the windows; 
and a brass plate (Mr. S. Blackwell) on the door.

     I cannot remember a single meal 
at Counterslip; though I well remember the intense longing 
with which I used to see Mamma taking rich cake and chocolate

29

with visitors; and I can well recall the guilty 
delight with which I used to make away with the baby's 
food, pap, arrowroot, or buscuit-food, whenever I got the 
chance of doing so.  Uncle James used to dine there as he 
was in and out all day long, having some post in the sugar-
house.  Aunt Mary was there a great deal; I can see her 
making a new cover of black and red chintz for the old red 
sofa we took to America; a very odd covering, as the carpet 
was pale gray.  I remember the intense, curdling horror with 
which, when recovering from the whooping-cough, I listened 
to the elders discussing the hideous murders of Burke and 
his band; Papa had brought in a long piece of paper that 
folded up, like a book, each fold having a picture of some 
scene of the murders.  The frightful sense of the wickedness 
of the world which could render such things possible, that 
sank into my mind as I heard all this, has never left me; I 
was driven wild with terror, also, lest some dreadful man 
should murder me.  Some other horrible murders, about the 
same time, being much discussed by the elders, filled me with 
never-forgotten horror, and set me wondering, with the feeling 
of having a bottomless abyss at my feet, what God could 
be about to let such things be!

     In the court at the bottom of 
our premises, abuttin on the river, but closed in with high 
walls, was a ricket[t]y wooden staircase leading up to a lot 
of rooms that had no connexion with the inside of the house.  
I never went up ther, having a superstitious horror of them; 
but Papa and Uncle James spent much time up there making experiments on new ways of purifying and clarifying sugar.  
They had a sort of chemical labratory there; I often saw 
crooked, long-necked glass bottles going up, for their experiments.  Bullocks' blood was then the substance used for 
clarifying; we thought this shocking and refused to believe 
it, when the servants told us so; then they took lumps of 
sugar and held them in the flame of the candle, and the drop 
of red liquor that was thus produced was declarde to be blood 
and disgusted us accordingly.  I think that, even then, Papa 
had a hankering after beet-sugar-making.
      
My memory runs not back of the 
miserable years when Marian and I were exiled to Aunt Ann's 
horrid school, except for a few detached remembrances.  I remember 
being scolded both by Uncle James and by John Harwood 
for lying on my back on the horsehair sofa that stood between 
the windows in the front parlour downstairs, and kicking up 
my heels at right angles to my body, an amusement I was fond 
of until it had been sufficiently dinned into me that "It was 
not pretty for little girls to kick up their legs in that 
style!"  I remember the bright windows and brass plate, with 
the name of Tozer, on the door, of a house nearly opposite 
ours; and how much I used to speculate, peeping over the 
green blinds, on the existence of "old Mr. Tozer", wondering 
what the house was like inside, what he would have for dinner, 
and so on.  I was never tired of speculating about "old Mr. 
Tozer".  Aunt Mary was often with us, and she and Mamma used 
often to gossip about "old Mr. Tozer", whom I think they must 
have slightly known, and who had, I think, some small government 
or city post.  I remember the cherries as they used to30

make their first appearance, stuck into split sticks, and the enormous baskets of fragrant, lovely strawberries, and how our mouths used to water at the sight of them.  I remember being once (only) whipped by Papa, but so slightly that I didn't much care, though I screamed and roared by way of protest; and I remember sleeping with him in the great bed in the nursery, Mamma, it seems to me, being absent and the others being absent, I can't imagine where, and being wakened in the middle of the night by the singing of the Waits, which shows that it must have been a few days before Christmas; and I remember the cries of the watchman on his rounds, crying the hours, with some stereotyped addition of a religious character, and a heavy thump of his cudgel on the pavement, to strike terror into the hearts of malefactors, by showing that he had wherewithal to pound them if they came in his way.  I remember my little white frilled pants and my white diaper pinafores; I remember wearing little frocks with embroidered fronts, little sleeves tied with blue ribands, and our coral necklaces, also blue ones, given by Aunt Browne; I remember the tall silver candlesticks and handsome silver snuffers, all given by her and that were always on duty, lamps being unknown.  I remember learning to strike a light with flint and steel and helping to make tinder for the same; and I remember the elaborate chemical contrivances that heralded the invention of the modern allumette; Papa having one day brought home a handsome red morocco case, the lid of which lifted up, disclosing two small bottles and a little stand of small matches; you dipped a match first into one bottle and then into the other,and it took fire.  This was considered a most interesting and valuable invention; the case stood on the night table at the head of the bed, on Mamma's side.  I remember her elaborate night-caps, of fine corded muslin, and my longing to have caps like them; and I remember sitting on the corner of her pillow (some new little brother or sister, probably Elizabeth, having come to town) and kissing her, telling her I loved her so much that if wicked people came to kill her I should tell them to kill me instead of her, and her sleepily replying from under the bed-clothes, "No,no; you'd say 'Take Mamma! Take Mamma!" at which I was grieved and scandalized.  I remember my little red shoes, which I was extremely fond of; and how, when I had outgrown them, they were passed on to Marian, who had long coveted them, and who nearly broke my heart by the insolent triumph with which she used to sit in the little chair which, also, had been passed on from me to her (though I used to squeeze myself into it whenever I found it empty, when she would claim it, making a row that forced me to give it up to her) and stuck out her two feet at me, displaying the dear little shoes on her aggressive little feet, till I was bursting with grief and indignation.  Just after the red shoes had thus been torn from me, Mrs. Ben Palmer (Redcliffe St., grocer, opposite Cathedral, daughter of "Old Mr. Lowell") gave a child's party for her little boy, name forgotten ("Ben, I think).  We were asked and went.  I, in a new pair of little black shoes that I hated, wrapped up in shawls, was carried to the house by a servant and deposited in a little chair in the drawing room, beside fat Mrs. Palmer, who had helped to unroll me from the wraps.  The


31

sight of my black shoes brought up all my trouble, and I burst into a choking fit of crying, sobbing out the story of my wrongs.  "They've taken away my little red shoes! and they've given them to Mary Ann! (as we stupidly called her in those days) and she's got them on to come here!  and I hate these black shoes!"  I was in the middle of my tale of wrong and sorrow, when another servant came in, bringing Miss "Mary Ann" in her arms, wrapped up into a bundle, but sticking out her legs at a right angle, to display the little red shoes.  She was speedily extricated from her wraps, and was ensconced in a little high chair, where she displayed the little red shoes all through our visit, with pertinacious glorying over me.  I have never forgotten the heart-ache of that evening!  Tea, cake, jam-tarts, custards, nothing  could comfort me! And to this day, I am conscious of a sense of unrequited wrong, whenever, on looking back into the past, I remember the cruel loss of my little red shoes!
   Vivid, among those very early memories, is the terror I used to feel whenever the Cattle Market was held; as Bristol Bridge, and the adjoining streets were the scene of this great gathering of horned beasts; a perfect pandemonium!  On Saturday afternoons, Marian and I were brought home from Aunt Ann's utterly horrid school; and it was impossible to reach Counterslip without crossing the Bridge.  The sidewalks were partially protected by the chains between the low stone pillars on the Bridge, but the cattle would get over the chains and the streets at either end were crammed with cattle, and with drovers in white smocks, and the agonies of terror I underwent at being conveyed under the heads of the beasts, among the lowing and shouting, and swearing and quarreling, are something I have never forgotten. And the mud! the black, pasty, sticky mud of Bristol is something I have never seen elsewhere.
     I do not remember anything like a party  at Counterslip; I don't think any could have been given while we were there.  An old hand in the sugar-house, William White, used always to come to clean the knives and shoes; no one wore boots.  He was the kindest, most faithful, and devoted old soul, - we were very fond of him, stooping, broken, hard working, worshiping Papa somewhat after the manner of a dog.  He and his wife lived in miserable little rooms, at the bottom of Counterslip; their little windows looked out on the river, and you could hear the water running under the floor; it must have been a sort of old shanty, in wood, built partly over the river.  I often went down there with Mamma, or with a servant, to carry the old woman some little present, tea, sugar, or what not.  Poor old
William White continued to clean shoes for us until our exodus; he cried like an infant when we left, and he died soon afterwards.
      While we lived in Counterslip, Papa, who always wore black, with a white cravat (a square of fine muslin, one yard and a half square, the ironing of which must have been an affair for Mrs.  (G) Yandall ( think32

of Nailsea), our perfection of a washerwoman, whom we 
had until we left, to her great disgust and sorrow,- 
which was put on clean every day; so that he had quite 
the look of a minister.  I don't think he affected it; 
it came natural; he had probably been a clergyman in 
some previous life.  He and his injurious crony, Mr. 
Howells, (how I detested him and his!) persuaded him to 
join him in setting up a little Bethel of their own, 
for he had just the same hankering as Papa for playing 
the minister.  They hired a long room that you went up 
a flight of 19 steps to the door of, fitted it up with 
wooden benches, and set up a kind of square low platform 
at the upper end, with a desk and two chairs as a pulpit.  
The two sat together, occupying the two chairs, and divided 
the preaching and praying between them.  They administered 
"the Lord's Supper" every Sunday, and I think, 
took up a collection also, which as the congregation 
was a collection of the very humblest folk, must have 
been mostly in half-pence and farthings.  I think the 
collections were for charity.  I only remember two incidents 
of this affair, the scene of which, I fancy, was 
in some dirty lane opening out of Broadmead.  One is my 
persuading Mamma to let me taste the little squares of 
bread, and the wine used at "the Sacrament," and which I 
thought very nice, though I wondered how people could 
bear to drink after one another, especially such people, 
and thought it wise in Mamma to take the first sip, as 
she always did:- and the other is seeing the "ministers" 
hold a sort of trial on a miserable old couple who always 
sat on the front bench, exactly in front of "the 
pulpit."  The old man was accused of some dishonesty; 
possibly connected with the collections; the "ministers, 
especially "Brother Howells", were terribly severe on 
the wretched old culprit, who was shaking with shame and 
terror and did not seem to have anything to say for himself; 
but the poor old wife, in her little round black 
beaver "milk-bowl" hat, which all the women of her class 
wore in those days,tied down over her cap, and a little s 
short black cloak, kept repeating,pitifully, through her 
sobs and tears.  "Daunt-ee be too hard upon 'im!  Daunt-ee 
be too hard upon 'im!"  I forget how it ended: but I fancy 
they were expelled from"Little Bethel".

     Papa had a wonderful fancy 
for going about and holding services in"desolate places".  
It was thus that we made acquaintance with Clevedon; where 
Howells persuaded him to take his turn in holding forth, 
in a Lion Chapel that zealous dissenters had built to 
counteract the deadly teachings of the established Church, 
which we were brought up th hold in holy horror only a 
degree more mild that that instilled into us for the "Scarlet 
Lady" and her doings.  He and the other "preachers" 
used to be driven down to Clevedon in a  little yellow 
double seated carriage with a gray pony, bu a carriage 
builder, name forgotten, who had a lovely tenor voice,and 
patronized the affair for the sake of listening to his own 
voice, as he led the singing; and a good old woman, name 
also forgotten, but whom they called "A Mother in Israel", 
used to have tea for them after the holding forth.  (I suppose


33

suppose she was paid, for she was very poor; but her welcome 
was genuine, and also her devotion to "the cause".  
Mamma went down occas[s]ionally, on a fine Sunday, when 
Papa's turn came; and I was taken down once, with Cousin 
Elizabeth, (on the back seat), whose proclivities were 
strongly for the Church, as more genteel, and who made 
great mocking,privately,of "Uncle Sam's wasting time and 
trouble on a lot of clod-hoppers," and of the profit probably 
made out of her hospitalities by "the Mother in 
Israel."

A Mrs. Powell, a vulgar ignoramus, 
had a Young Ladies' Boarding-School in the place; 
and she used to come to the Chapel with the Dissenting 
children, while sending the Church children to the Church 
with the other partner.  Papa knew nothing of this temporizing 
with an "idolatrous worship"; and remarked to Mamma 
that "he had often thought, on looking down on the row of 
little girls, that he should like to see his little girls 
among them".  So, in an evil hour, the idea struck them 
that it would be good for Marian's health,and for mine, 
to send us there for a twelve-month; and without any 
enquiry as to the character of the school, the meals, 
teaching, companionship, etc., we two children were sent 
there; a most miserable mistake and waste of time and 
money.  The teaching was an illusion, we were half starved, 
and the scholars were a vulgar and corrupt lot.  Cousin 
Maria was sent also and was as miserable as we were.  I 
contrived to get myself takenaway, poor Elizabeth being 
sent down "to take out" the rest of the quarter paid in 
advance; and all were taken away at the end of the year.  
All our pocket money went in cakes and gingerbread; we 
never had a quarter enough to eat.  I've a perfect horror 
of the school.  Our butcher's daughter was one of the 
pupils; and as her mother dressed her beautifully for 
the flare-up before the Christmas holidays, while Marian 
and Elizabeth had only ugly little frocks without ornaments, 
the butcher's wife entertained our servants with 
a quantity of insulting criticisms about the shabbiness 
of Mr. Blackwell's daughters,interlarded with descriptions 
of the admiration excited by her girl (who was 
extremely pretty) with her satin ribands, and lace, and 
a"real pearl necklace" given her by her Godmother!   This 
absurd episode of our mismanaged education was just at 
the beginning of the Nelson St. days.

To return to Counterslip.  I 
often see the enormous baskets, like washing-baskets, in 
which the country-women brought fruit into the town for 
sale, setting them down on the edge of the pavement and 
selling them in quarts.  Two-pence a quart for strawberries 
of those days!  Fragrant, luscious, reddish-pink 
on one side, pinkish white on the other; the old 
fashioned strawberry before the new fangled failures 
that pass for strawberries now!  How wel I remember when 
first the great,coarse, new kinds came in!  People thought 
them handsome but inferior in flavour, and felt sure they 
would not be adopted.  And now, where do we find the 
true old strawberry flavour?  First-rate butter came in34

the same great open baskets; each 1/2 lb. in its own 
dock leaves; 8 d a pound in those days.  And so on.  
Bristol had excellent markets; dirty, slatternly, ugly, 
but capital supplies.  The general market was behind 
the Exchange; the First Market, in Union St.  But immense 
quantities of things were brought in by the country-people, 
and sold in the streets.
 
   I remember nothing of our moving 
into the Wilson St. house; though I well remember the 
putting up of the black beading instead of the paper 
border, in the back parlour, and the long affair of the 
making up of the chintz hangings in the front parlour, 
in the Best Bedroom over it, and in Mamma's room.  We 
had an upholsteress and two or three aids stitching 
away at it for many weeks.  The chairs and sofa in the 
drawingroom (which was the front parlour) were of rose 
wood (the real) not the dyed wood that is called so 
now, but a beautifully veined and costly wood, that 
sent out a sweetish smell when rubbed.  It was avery 
handsome set, the seats beautifully made (springs 
unknown) covered with chintx; a beautiful sofa-table, 
of a rare ornamental wood, inlaid with a band of another 
rare wood, stood before the sofa with a very handsome 
oilcloth cover, that fitted it and lifted on and off.  
In the shallow recess, before the fire place (opposite) 
another handsome piece of rosewood furniture, I think 
it must have been a chiffonniere.  A pretty  penny those 
rooms cost; more than it could have been wise to lay 
out at that time.  I remember Mamma's planting creepers 
in the court; I helped her in the planting and watering; 
a Passion-flower against the back building; a white 
jessamine over the back-front; a virginia-creeper opposite 
the back building,to climb up into the railings 
of the steps that led down into the back garden.  These 
plants throve wonderfully,.  The back building was 
covered with the flowers and the great yellow egg-shaped 
fruit of the passion-flower, the jessamine hung hung 
in masses about the back parlour window, the virginia 
creeper was up in the railings long before we left.  
Mamma had also had some bushes of arbor vitae planted 
at the foot of the steps and they also throve fast.  The 
garden was agrove; magnificent lilace, the largest and 
finest red may-tree I ever saw, as tall as the elm, and 
the admiration of the neighborhood; a fine plantain, 
that Marian patronized, and masses of ivy;a beautiful 
variegated holly bush.  No flowers would grow there, the 
shade was too dense.  So Papa had it gravelled.  I fancy 
there was a swing at one time.

     The large square garden in front was 
a delight.  A broad bed round the whole, under the four 
walls; the one next the street, a garden in itself, devoted 
to raspberry bushes.  One morning, Kenyon, being on 
a visit, got up with the light, contrived to get the 
key, and when he came in to breakfast, boasted that he had 
put the raspberry bed"into perfect order, having cut out 
all the young stragglers"; as these were the fruit bearers 
for the following year, he had just annihilated all hope of 
fruit for that year.  Papa, who never liked Kenyon was 
naturally vexed.  The two cousins had walked all the way


35

from Worcester in a day; 60 miles; and were very proud of 
the feat,though their feet were blistered.  Their Mother's 
brother, Mr. Holden, lived in the next house; we children 
used to visit their children,and a great lending of books 
went on constantly between the two houses.  Maria Holden 
was a charming little girl; Joanna was peevish and selfish 
like Cousin Maria; Adam was a pale boy wonderfully freckled; 
he has become,I learned years ago, a furiously pious Baptist 
book-seller.

   The walls of the front garden were 
covered with splendid espaliers; a green-gage over the door, 
pears, plums, and red currants, with bunches nearly the 
length of a hand.  A grass-plat,filling the greater part of 
the garden; a gravelled walk all around it, and a broad box b 
bordered bed, full of plants and flowers at the four walls 
foot of the four walls.  A very fine young apple tree of our 
planting on the edge of the grass-plat; a very large old 
apple tree on the other side, with apples quite as large as 
a baby's head.  A fine bay-tree in one corner, behind which 
having explored one day, I discovered a magnificent, rose-tree, 
laden with great roses that set us wild with delight, no one 
having known of its existence, hidden by the tall [tree] bay 
that filled the corner and shut it in.  The bed at foot of wall 
nearest the house was filled with raspberries.

     Kenyon and Sam having walked the 60 
miles from Worcester to Bristol, to make us a visit, Kenyon 
got up early one morning, possessed himself of the key of the 
front garden, and worked so diligently without leave, at the 
raspberry bushes that he managed to cut out every one of the 
young shoots, (the hope of the com[m]ing year ) before breakfast, 
to which he came in great exultation, to boast of what he had do 
done.  Papa's vexation on learning the havoc the wrought, was 
natural enough.  The bed was in fine bearing, and the fruit 
splendid; and the unlucky busybody had simply ruined it.

    Someone gave Papa some peas that had 
been found in an Egyptian mummy; he divided them amongst us and 
we sowed them in our gardens.  Impatient to see what would come 
of them we used to dig them up every day to see if they had 
sprouted, putting them carefully back into the earth.  They 
came up all right despite this peculiar treatment; wonderfully 
thick, stout, sturdy stems, and large thick leaves: but I cannot 
remember what came of them.  Probably we went to Weston 
as usual, about the time they would have flowered; and being 
neglected, may have dried up or been devoured by snails;- 
for I cannot recall any peas being had from them.

     (So many months have passed since I 
wrote here, that I have forgotten what I had previously written.  
I see that I had already narrated Kenyon's famous, but not 
successful attempt in the raspberry bed.)

     To return from this digression.  It 
must have been mainly during the Counterslip period that 
Uncle and Aunt Browne were at Burton; what a paradise it seemed 
to me!  A flagged path, from the top of the steps by which you 
came in from the road up to the door; a bed of flowers on 
each side of the path; a pair of grass plats; then a bed of 
flowers under the windows and all round.  The kitchen garden36

on one side, with such quantities of fruit and vegetables of 
splendid quality; lovely green fields beyond and behind, belonging 
to the house, with cows, poultry,etc.  Uncle Browne 
made a carriage entrance to the house left of the house as 
you looked from the house into the garden; threw up the earth 
to form grass banks, planted shrubbery, and built various additions, 
of offices, carriage house, stables, etc.;  making a 
handsome place of it.  As I look back upon it,  I see masses 
of lilac, white and purple, laburnums, laurustinas, laurels, 
and various shrubbery: - the garden beds gay with peonies, 
tulips, carnations, etc; nothing rare, but masses of the usual 
English flowers; the grass plat like velvet, and Aunt Browne 
delighted when I, with a little knife cut out any stray root 
of daisieswhich that developed itself in the turf, which 
daisies were considered as spoiling.  There was a dairy and 
a good establishment of servants.  The table was of a far 
more artistic and recherché style than ours; soup, made dishes, 
trifle, jellies, etc. all of which seemed to me like glimpses 
of a higher world than ours.  It was a most hospitable, enjoyable 
place.  I must have been there a great deal.  I remember 
being there with Mamma,and getting up in the gray of dawn to 
look out on the garded and the fields across the road in the 
lovely ante-sunrise light, everything covered with dew, and 
creeping back, shivering,into the vast curtained bed, in 
which Mamma was sound asleep.  At that time Sam was the baby; 
and he was almost brought up there.  Aunt Browne, superstitious, 
was horrified when Papa and Mamma, having lost the first 
Samuel Charles, determined to give the same name to the second 
boy,as it is popularly (or was) believed that to give a second 
child the name of one who is dead is fatal to it.  "The second 
dies, the third lives, was a saying she looked on as Gospel. 
The second boy, named Samuel Charles, despite the entreaties 
of many,having died as predicted, the arrival of a third boy 
was regarded with great interest; the three elder children 
being girls, it was considered very desirable that the 3rd 
S.C. should be kept alive if possible; and as he was a very 
delicate child, Aunt Browne insisted on having him out there 
with his nurse, to benefit by the country air and the beautiful 
milk.  Marian and Elizabeth must have been there often; but I 
only remember their presence on two occasions, when Cousin 
Elizabeth and Uncle Charley and a large party of us were 
there.  One of these occasions was our going in a body, through 
fields and woods, to visit the famous "Bleeding Rock",that 
Hannah More had written about; we had been made to read this 
composition (Ithink a poem) before we set out.  We found,for 
the first time in our lives, wild strawberries, during this 
expedition, and went wild with delight over them.  Elizabeth 
could just toddle along; Sam was in arms.  The other remembrance 
of the same visit,is our all being in the lovely meadows of the 
house, gathering masses of cowslips for the cow-slip wine 
which Aunt Browne had made every year, and which was greatly 
renowned.  What fun we had!  We had a couple of nurse-maids 
there with us, of whom Harriet Bryan was one; I don't remember 
whether Jane Bryan was there.  I remember being there alone 
and making myself ill with eating too much fruit, and good 
Uncle Browne, alarmed at the violent stomach-ache I had incurred, 
coming to the little room I occupied behind theirs 
(looking out upon the  new carriage-drive) and bringing me a 
dose of magnesia in a china cup.  I can see the dear old man 


37

arrayed in a flannel dressing gown and slippers, coaxing 
me to swallow the dose, and how I sat up in bed(with white 
dimity curtains) making a terrible fuss over it, but swallowing 
it at last.  The argument that had at length prevailed 
over my disgust, was the assurance that, if I took the physic, 
I should soon be well again and be able to eat more 
fruit, which I should not be able to do if I did not take 
it.

     Aunt and Uncle Browne, though pillars 
of Bridge St. Chapel, were too liberal and genial to be 
over-strict socially; and as there was no chapel at Bourton 
they went to the village church, had the rector to 
dinner and went to dinners at his house.  In spite of habitual 
narrowness, Mamma did the same when visiting them.  
I remember, when the blackberries were ripe, begging Aunt 
Browne to have a blackberry-pudding,to which she amiably 
consented, though declaring that it would not be eatable.  
So I gathered a mass of blackberries and the pudding came 
in at dinner (3 o'clock, the fashionable hour then), the 
Rector being there.  When it came in, flanked with a jug 
of cream so thick that the spoon almost stood up in it.  
Aunt Browne announced that it was "Anna's pudding," so 
that I felt shy and awkward; the pudding being voted a 
success, my health was drunk, much to my confusion.  The 
Rector was a youngish man, polite, lively, and agreeable; 
they were all invited to dine at the Rectory a few days 
afterwards,  and I should have liked to go too, but, of 
course, as "little girls" do not go to dinner-parties.  
I was left at the house.  On Sunday we all went to church.  
We were up in the gallery; I listened to the services, and 
watched the movements with great wonderment; when they 
came to the Creed, I was dreadfully shocked at hearing 
"I believe in the Holy Catholic Church," and anxiously 
whispered "Mamma! isn't that very wicked?"  To which she 
replied in a whisper " It doesn't mean Catholics; Catholic 
means universal, and only means that all good people are 
the servants of God."  So I continued to listen and marvel.

Visitors,handsomely dressed, used to 
call and be received by Aunt Browne and Mamma in the 
drawing-room, to the right hand as you enter the house.  
The polished oak-stairs always oppressed me(as belonging in) 
with an undefinable feeling of belonging in some way to my 
past, to some past which I could not recall, but which I 
felt to have been.  I slipped one day in coming down, 
battered my elbow and knee, and was done up in brown paper 
and vinegar for several days.

Poor Aunt Browne!  She was so happy in 
that pleasant place!  When Uncle Browne,then worth £100,000, 
was unhappily induced to turn banker, she strenuously opposed 
his doing so, saying "I am perfectly satisfied to be 
the wife of plain Harry Browne, the goldsmith; I have not 
the slightest ambition to be the banker's lady!"  Well had 
it been for kindly genial Uncle Browne had he listened to 
her objections!38

   I never remember seeing any of the Goddards 
at Bourton, though they must often have been there; no doubt, 
as there were not many bed-rooms, they came by themselves as 
we did.

   I remember vaguely, the run on the bank that 
shattered Uncle B's prosperity in a few hours.  There was plenty 
in the vault to have met the call and restored confidence; 
but they lost presence of mind,and this was their ruin.  But it 
was so entirely the result of bad management, notably on the 
part of a brother of Sam Browne's, of Cincinnati memory, that 
many suspected him to have been the paid tool of a rival establishment, 
and to have purposely brought about the smash, 
though Uncle B. had been a most generous friend, protector 
and employer to him.  I think he disappeared in the catastrophe, 
having hastened to go to one of the Colonies (Australia).  
After the smash, Uncle and Aunt B. lived in two rooms on the 
second floor of the house in Corn St., over the shop with 
which Uncle B. was still connected.  They furnished these rooms 
with dark,heavy old oaken furniture, black with age; they still 
had handsome linen, silver,etc., but had sacrificed everything 
else to their creditors.  They were immensely pitied, and much 
respected; I do not think they were ever blamed.  Uncle B. 
went on with the jewelry business, Aunt B. spent her time 
mostly in darning Uncle B's fine black silk stockings, indispensable 
with his knee breeches and silver buckles, and shoes 
idem.  Aunt B. had a great dread of draughts; and an immense 
folding screen, of India lacca, black ground covered with 
gorgeous foliage, flowers and beasts, always stood before the 
door of the sitting room, enclosing the fire place and two 
thirds of the room.  How fond I was of going there!  I was a 
great favorite with them both and they made much of me.  
Their old servants from the Bourton days lived in the rooms 
above them,and waited on them, cooked,and acted as their 
servants.  My latest recollection of the place is a dinner they 
gave on the anniversary of their wedding day.  It must have 
been the last before Aunt B's death.  We were all there, Cousin 
Elizabeth and (I think) Uncle Charles; also the Shorts, 
in great force.  There were toasts and speeches.  Cesar Short 
made a speech that rather hung fire, but Charles, his young 
lawyer brother,created great enthusiasm by his following 
eloquence, and the admirable style in which he wound up by 
calling for "Three cheers for the Honiton Sprig and the Sprig 
of Shillelah!" which was drunk standing amidst tremendous 
applause, poor Aunt B's handkerchief being in demand.  To 
understand this oratorical and affectional triumph, you must 
know, dear old Harry, that Honiton, Uncle B's native town, is 
famous for its lace, the patterns of which are produced without 
any ground, and then sewn on to a ground; this lace is very 
rich, elegant and costly; the elements of the patterns are 
called "Honiton Sprigs".  Aunt B. was an Irishwoman; and the 
shillelah (the sticks and clubs with which her countrymen belabour 
one another) was oratorically supposed to be a tree, 
and Aunt B. to be a sprig of that supposititious piece of 
vegetation.  I think the Goddards were present on the occasion.  
Kind Aunt B. must have died not very long afterwards; so that 
this dinner could not have been later than 1829; for she was 
frequently with us at Olston, which must have been about that 
time going on into 1830 or 31.   After her death Uncle B. was 


                     39

partly with us, partly I think, with the Goddards, until 
they left Bristol and went to live in Swansea.

But Uncle and Aunt B. were 
very often at our house in Nelson St.  Uncle B. had a 
few good stories and was fond of telling them after dinner, 
and we were never tired of hearing them.  One was 
of Grimaldi, the famous actor, who was taken to show 
off  his powers of gesture for the amusement of George 
III.  He went through his posturings with great effect; 
and some one, I think a Bishop, was called on by the 
King to explain what the pantomime was intended to convey; 
or rather, I think it must have been Grimaldi who 
proceeded, in the character of a Bishop, to explain the 
meaning of his own pantomime, as something very pious, 
poetic, exalted and refined; and then changing his tone 
and countenance to those of a rude peasant, preceded to 
give his,  (the peasant's) interpretation of the gestures, 
so ludicrously unlike the interpretation of the Bishop, 
but fitting the gestures equally well and tending, I 
think, to the glorification of a "pot of beer" with allusions 
to domestic passages between himself and his 
" dame ", that people used to go off into fits of laughter.

After a time, Uncle B., who 
was never so happy as with us, took up his abode with 
us in Nelson St., and remained there until, to his great 
sorrow (he said our going would shorten his life) we left 
on our " fool's errand" across the ocean.  When he and 
Aunt B. dined with us, Papa used often to read aloud one 
of Mrs. Sherwood's stories, which were then at the height 
of their reputation; and we used all to listen with the 
greatest interest and delight.  Papa read very well and 
liked to read.  Those evenings were a perfect contrast to 
the restraint and gloom of the visits of Grandpapa and 
poor little gentle, affectionate, non-entity Grandmamma.

Having now jotted down a general 
view of the people and places of"the old time before" 
we so unwisely and unfortunately cut from our native moorings, 
I proceed to put down the principle things I remember 
of our Bristol life.

Of Counterslip I have noted 
nearly all that I can remember.  But I have not mentioned 
Conham, an obscure village or perhaps hamlet, a few miles 
from Bristol on the Avon, where Mamma managed to get 
Grandpapa employed as Land Steward (or something of the 
kind) by a wealthy man (I think Mr. Miles, then member of 
Parliament for Bristol or for the county) with a good salary 
and a house and large garden; a comfortable and respectable 
position which Grandpapa must have retained for several 
years, as he planted with young firs a bare hill above 
the house, and the trees were becoming a wood and a 
young snake had been found there, before he left.  Near by 
was the owner's house, with extensive grounds, but I think 
he was rarely there.  I remember going in one day with 
Cousin Sam, and the Gardener's giving us some grapes, which40

were like vinegar and gave us stomach-ache.  It seems 
to me the country must have been pretty.  I thought the 
garden a paradise.  You went up by steps through an iron 
gate.  At the top of the steps were two roots of splendid 
purple double violets, " Russian Violets ", they 
were called, extremely fragrant and great favorites of 
Papa's; the flowers were always kept for him.  There was 
a garden on one side of the house, level with the road; 
on the other side of the house the garden was higher 
than the road; this part was bounded by a sunk shrubbery 
above a wall.  There was a large grass-plat with a gravel 
walk round it; it sloped upwards; across it was a large 
tree, and railings looking down into a disused quarry.  
At the top was a garden seat under a filbert-hedge.  The 
back wall of the house was covered with a fine pear-tree, 
bearing delicious pears, which we all called " Bergamies", 
a corruption doubtless, of " Bergamotte".  There were 
strawberries, currants, gooseberries, raspberries, etc. 
in abundance, all very fine.  Grandmamma was a capital 
gardener.  Some stone steps, the low walls covered with 
yellow stone-crop, at the near end of the filbert-hedge, 
led up to another part of the garden, which must have be 
been large,surrounding the house on all sides.  In the 
lower garden were mint, balm, and all maner of herbs.  
I think they must have had a servant.  Papa often drove 
down there in a gig.  Aunt Mary lived with them.  She 
always wore nankeen, which I hated, but which we were 
all made to wear.  She was in bad health and was attended 
by a Dr. King, considered eminent, but very rough, brutal 
and autocratic.  He made her ride on horse-back, for which 
purpose a great cart horse used to be brought to the gate, 
and mounted by her with the aid of a kitchen chair; I can 
see her cantering off in a nankeen habit and straw bonnet 
armed with a stick:- he forbade her eating fruit or vegatables, 
and when she prayed to be allowed to eat some 
strawberries (they were worth eating) in those days!) 
he told her she might do so if she abstained from eating 
the seeds.  He supposed this would have prevented her 
eating them; but she spent an afternoon in picking out 
the seeds, and triumphantly ate them, being no worse for 
them.  This dreadful Doctor tortured her with a [?eton] 
in the arm, pills in great quantities, and no end of"black 
draughts", bleedings and other horrors, then more in vogue 
than now."

There was a little old woman who 
lived in a little old cottage near by,to whom, for some 
reason now forgotten, Papa always made a visit and a gift 
of a shilling or a half-crown, whenever he drove to Conham.  
I was very fond of her and often went to her cottage, and 
got the little potatoes out of an old three-legged iron 
pot, which seemed to be always full of potatoes, deliciously 
cooked, the pot half buried in the embers of the 
little wood fire on the hearth.


41

One Sunday I was allowed to go with this old 
woman to a meeting held among some hills, some little way 
off.  The day was fine and a great concourse of peasants 
had gathered there to hear some favorite preacher.  All 
squatted in a circle on the grass; the preacher stood in 
a cart; All the women wore little short cloaks round 
black beaver hats (no nap) with loops of black rib[b]and 
around the crown, and narrow rims, almost like men's hats, 
tied down at the ears over their caps.  The men wore smock 
frocks and breeches.  A concourse of carts and carioles 
were drawn up at a little distance.  Nearly all had a 
little posey and I was patted by them all, and had as many 
poseys given me as I could carry, all having southernwood, 
pinks, carnations, gilly flowers,and columbine with roses 
and heart’s ease.

One day, a hot summer sun brooding over everything, 
Aunt Mary, Cousin Sam and I set off for an excursion.  
We went down to the river to a ferry, and were 
ferried across to a wood, where I was amazed to find honeysuckle 
growing wild.  We gathered a quantity of flowers, 
some of them new to us; and came home feeling as though 
we had had a very exciting adventurous time of it.

We went to Weston every summer.  The only 
pleasant remembrances of my most unhappy, uncomfortable, 
unsympathetic childhood are of Weston and Bourton; for 
though I liked the garden and the fruit at Conham, the 
shadow of Grandpapa’s sternness, the dreadful reading of 
chapters of the Bible and praying, morning and evening, 
the horror of the Devil, the perspective of hell fire 
as dangerously near and threatning, poisoned the place 
for me; and Grandpapa, at length, having quarrelled with 
his employer, threw up an excellent post and came back to 
be a burden on poor Papa in Bristol.

How lovely Weston looks to me in the past!  
When the time came for going down, the whole inside of 
the coach and several places on the roof, were engaged a 
day or two beforehand, and off we went with at least a 
couple of servants and a good deal of luggage.  Papa came
down in the gig every Saturday afternoon and stayed til 
Monday morning.  He was a good swimmer, and used to go 
out dangerously far from shore, keeping Mamma in great 
trepidition.  Uncle William sometimes brought Cousin 
Elizabeth to join us, also in a gig.  One summer we had 
two or three of our aunts, Cousin Elizabeth. Sam Lowell, 
Uncle Charley, and Kenyon and Sam, who came for a few 
days only.  We then took the lodgings at Knightstone, 
which were considered very distingues, much more so than 
what we were in the habit of taking; this was to quarter 
Aunt and Uncle Browne, who also came down to join the 
party.  Aunt Browne wished to take warm sea-baths, which 
could only be had there.  I remember being in bed on a 
mattress on the floor, when they arrived in their handsome 
yellow chariot and pair, packed with fruit, vegetables, 
poultry, and various delicacies. and seeing these set out i
in dishes, plates,tureens,  basins, and buckets,to our 42

lively admiration.  The party was very gay; the elders 
were on delightful excursions to neighboring points; 
to Hutton and Locking, to Brean Down, to the Cheddar 
Cliffs and grottoes.  Uncle Charley as usual, was the 
life of all that went on.  Cousin Elizabeth and Sam 
Lowell alternately flirted and quarreled, the latter 
so violently that  they fought more than once.  One day 
they got into such a fight that I, who had rushed into 
the melée to part them, received on my left wrist a 
blow from a flying chair that hurt me severely; I had 
a red mark there for many years.  Uncle Browne was always 
adjusting a telescope on the battlemented wall[s], 
and we were always on tiptoe to look through it.  The 
sands were splendid in those days;the shrimps ditto; the 
shells plentiful and pretty.

 The parsonage at Uphill was our 
special admiration,with a verandah hung with clematis, 
roses, etc.  We admired it and longed to live in such 
a house almost as much as Redland Court, which was our 
ideal of beauty and grandeur, and which looked very 
lovely with the long tails of the peacocks hanging 
over the balustrade of the terrace.  How wonderfully 
delightful, it seemed to us whenever we walked by 
Redland Court, must life be in so grand and beautiful 
a place with such lawns, gardens, hot-houses, dovecots, 
etc.

Knightstone was an island twice a 
day when the tide came in.  One day, on coming back 
from an expedition, we were caught by the tide which 
swept in quicker than we expected.  Happily several 
fishermen's boats were moored near, and we were able 
to get into them in time to escape drowning, and there 
we were, held prisoners until the tide went down.  
Had any of the boats got loose we should have been in 
a very awkward predicament.

There was a raffle one day Mamma 
(who always won) won two pretty work-boxes, which were 
given to Marian and me.  On an earlier sojourn there 
I was stroked on the head by Mrs. Thrale, Dr. Johnson's 
friend, who said, as she played with my frizzy pate 
"Little girl! where did you get  your curls from?" 
parodying Kean's query to "The Wild Irish Girl" (as 
she was then called from her novel) afterwards Lady 
Morgan.  "Now Anna, " said Aunt Mary,as we went homewards, 
"you must never forget that your head has been 
patted by Mrs. Thrale! "

We used to go a good deal on donkeys; 
sometimes we had"a car" and a troop of donkeys as well.  
Uncle Charley made a point of going on a donkey, and 
nearly choked us all with the laughter he provoked on 
that species of steed in "racing."

A favorite excursion was to Lizzie 
Harris' Cottage, at the top of a romantic little ravine 


43

on Whorl Hill, just above the village of Milton, then 
full of pretty cottages and gardens crammed with flowers.  
The whole of the hill was then perfectly bare and perfectly 
open; no trees, no walls, no hedges excepting 
the low hedge round L.H's little garden.  Parties constantly 
went out there to tea; they took all their provisions 
with them, even to bottles of milk; and Lizzie 
Harris furnished tea-things and boiling water.  There 
was a tiny parlour for visitors; but people usually 
had their tea in the garden.  We sometimes dined there; 
I remember some lovely broad beans out of the garden; 
boiled with fat bacon,that we thought perfection.  
I think there were a pair of old yews near the cottage; 
there was an old upright clock in the kitchen that had 
something moving on the face of it.  I can still hear 
it ticking!  We were very fond of L.H. and she was equally 
fond of us.  We always took a present of flannel, 
tea, sugar, etc. with us, for her, when we came down to 
Weston.  Once Mamma bargained with her for a certain 
row of black currant and raspberry bushes, paying her a 
fixed price that we might eat all that was upon them, 
which we did conscientiously.  The air of the hill was 
most pure and exhilarating; and we made a point of going 
down to Kewstoke steps.  Once Mamma and Marian went down 
to Kewstoke beach to a farmhouse there, but I never went 
further than the steps, then in good repair, though very 
ancient.  Lizzie Harris was a widow; a niece lived with 
her and helped her to look after visitors.  I remember 
there were, on one occasion, two other parties besides 
ours, so that the excursion was looked upon by us as a 
failure.

Our favorite walk was past Anchor Head, 
where we generally bathed, over the shoulder of the hill, 
and along the narrow path overlooking [Brimble] Birnbeck 
and the Welch hills.  A dangerous current used to set in, 
when the tide was up, between Birnbeck and the shore; 
Two young sons of Sir Abraham Elton, who had a lovely 
place near Clevedon, were drowned there while bathing; 
which caused great horror all over the countryside.  Birnbeck 
is now a fortification, joined to the mainland by a 
causeway; it was then only resorted to by fishermen, though 
I think we once went there to look for shells.

Mrs. Muggleworth, the enormous red-faced 
and red-legged bathing woman at Anchor Head, in her blue 
cloth bathing [suit] dress, was a prominent figure in our 
Weston life.  We often used the bathing machines also.  
One day a wheel came off one of the machines that were in 
the water when we also were there.  It was necessary and d 
difficult to get it out, and the bather man and his horse 
were occupied in doing so for so long that the water came 
into ours, and was getting higher and higher, until we were 
forced to climb up on the seats, and the clothes and towels 
were all floating about.  We screamed and shouted and thrust 
handkerchiefs through the holes that served as windows; and 
at last the bather man perceived the dangerous plight we 
were in, and came and pulled out our machine.  But we had had 
a terrible fright, and it might have ended in catastrophe.44

"Old Muggleworth," the bathing woman's father-in-law, 
popularly supposed to be over ninety, lived by himself 
in a tiny cabin in an open field near "Mrs. Fry's 
hotel," now " The Royal Hotel" and quite transmogrified.  
The only other hotel was "The Plough Inn"; one 
of my earliest remembrances is of the dancing shadows 
of the leaves of the poplars of the garden across the 
road so distinctly traced (I forget whether in sunlight 
or moonlight) on the pale yellow front of this Inn.  
I have never forgotten those pretty dreamy dancing 
shadows, any more than the peacocks, etc. of Redland 
Hall, the beds of roses and gun-cistus in the lawn of 
Sir Harry Lippincott's, the Dublin "steam-packet", 
Lady Rodney and the East Indiamen coming up from Pill,  
and the glimpses of Bourton and the polished oaken 
floors of Lord de Clifford's seat near Thirlhampton;- 
of all of which more anon.

In the little bay beyond Knightstone 
(now built on) Marian one day, picked up the outer 
case of a gold watch, a wreck, lying on the sand.  The 
jealous excitement that seized on "Bessy" and on me, to 
think Marian should have had such a wonderful incident, 
and we nothing, was deep and intense.  Mamma sold the 
cases and bought with the price paid, several books which 
formed the nucleus of our large children's library that 
became famous in our set.  Marian also became-friends 
with a daughter of Lord and Lady Strange, which also 
aroused our jealousy.   She also was taken in one of the 
numerous "cars" in which the party at Knightstone were 
conveyed to Hutton and Locking, and crowed over us (Eliz. 
and me, who were not taken) with stories of all the 
wonders she had seen, especially the doors of the pews 
in the old church at Locking, on which were ancient carvings 
of the "Devil roasting a pig".  The shells and the 
seaweed were an unending delight to us, but Cousin Elizabeth 
and Uncle Charley rather humiliated us by describing 
the clear water at other bathing places, putting to shame 
the muddy water of the Bristol Channel, so dirty that it 
was needful to wash our heads and hair on getting back 
from our daily bathe.   Whorl Hill was delicious then, 
not a tree upon it, soft springy turf full of thyme, 
lonely, breezy, altogether lovely.  When Mr. Piggott 
build a house above Anchor Head, and planted some hundreds 
of tiny firs about it, people called it "Piggott's 
folly", prophesied that the firs would die of the wind, 
and triumphed each time their prophesy came true.  But 
the owner planted and replanted,year after year, and at 
last succeeded in covering the bare hill with shrubbery, 
now a dense wood, and bought up nearly the whole of the 
hill;  the carriage road he  opened, being now a fashionable 
drive.

I find it impossible to write these 
remembrances methodically and in order of date, and am 
forced to jot them down just as they crop up in my memory.  
Thus I forgot to note the great jug of delicious 
milk and the exquisite home-made brown bread and butter 


     45

which were always brought out for us by the landlady 
of the half-way inn, at Backwell where the coach stopped 
to change horses on the way to Weston.  How we devoured 
it all!  From the time we started we longed voraciously 
for the bread and butter and creamy milk!  Papa 
always brought in the gig on Saturday nights evenings, 
a great supply of home-made cake and baked pears.  The 
Weston of today with its railway stations, theaters, 
gas-works, "avenues", "roads", "crescents," etc., is 
built on a marshy expanse, formerly full of ditches 
that collected the superfluous water and were bordered 
with immensly tall reeds,in flower,that we vainly longed 
to gather but could not without falling in.  The old 
parish church stood far away in wild fields, on a line 
with Anchor Head, but far inland.  All this is now absorbed 
by the Weston of today.

It must have been in the beginning 
of the Weston days, that we were once taken down to Shirehampton, 
near Pill.  We were recovering from whooping-cough; 
and I remember getting out of bed driven desperate 
by the intolerable itching of the "Burgundy-pitch-plaster" 
between my unhappy little shoulders, standing in 
the moonlight and picking it off, feeling that even should 
I die and go to Hell for so daring an[d] act of disobedience, 
I could not bear the dreadful plaster another minute!  
Marian was a mite at that time; being weak, Mamma took her 
out every day, in a boat into the middle of the river (the 
Avon,a tidal stream) and the boatman dipped the poor little 
thing into the muddy river,over the side of the boat, two 
or three times, when the poor child was received by Mamma 
in a little blanket, rubbed and dressed, and brought ashore.  
Even now, when dropping asleep, I sometimes see the boat, 
the group, the poor little white body, the ducking of the 
terrified child, and the thought of the horrible risk so 
unconsciously incurred (for if the boatman had by accident 
lost his [hal] hold of the little slippery body, the poor 
child must have been sucked under the boat and drowned) 
turns me sick with horror and amazement that any mother 
could have incurred so frightful a risk!  I remember one 
day the "Lady Rodney" the Irish packet-boat, coming up 
the river just when poor Marian was being dipped; and 
how the nutshell of a boat danced about in the waves 
ploughed up by the steamer, inflicting extra terror on 
the poor little frightened creature, and on me, who watched 
the scene with horror and dismay from the muddy shore.

I remember the bargaining with a 
fruit woman from whom Mamma bought pretty much all the 
contents of her baskets; gooseberries, cherries, strawberries, 
raspberries, currants black and white and red, 
the stairs being covered with the plates to which the 
fruit was transferred, and my longing eyes and eager 
nose anticipating the delight of devouring the same, 
from my perch on the topmost step of the stair.  I remember 
the tall waving grass nearly ripe, under the 
splendid oaks, as I trotted on beside Mamma, escorted 46

by Mr. Howells, through Lord de Clifford's Park and the 
beautiful private grounds, to the Hall, which people were 
allowed to visit on certain days; I remember the variegated 
laurels in lavish blossom, the privet-hedges and 
the beautiful walks and lawns, and the stately dwelling 
with its stairs and floors, of old oak, black with age, 
polished like a mirror and making me creep with the 
dim echoes of long ago that thrilled and awed me with a 
mysterious wonder that, at that time, I could neither 
explain nor account for.  I see Mamma walking on quietly 
with her big parasol; and myself with a little parasol 
tagging at her side.  We only went once to Shirehampton.  
Aunt Mary was there, and I think Aunt Barbara was 
there for a day or two.  It may have been about that 
time that we went to see the famous picturesque alms-houses 
built,at Henbury near Westbury, by the owner of 
Blaize Castle, name forgotten.  (It was at Westbury that 
Uncle William took a small house, and lived for the last 
dozen years of his life, and where he died, bled to death 
by an ignorant "doctor"; for he never recovered from the 
monstrous mis-treatment of the ignoramus alluded to).  
Dog-roses in the hedges and the ripe grass make my memories 
of Shirehampton fragrant and lovely.

 I think it must have been about 
the Shirehampton period that I was taken to Worcester 
on a visit to Aunt and Uncle Blackwell, who then lived 
in Sansom St.  The visit was not a pleasant one.  Kenyon 
and Sam both tried to tyrannize over me and my seven 
years; they were learning Latin and despised the sampler 
I was finishing, with the record of my age, seven.  They 
had a very fine gooseberry bush, laden with fruit, which 
I should not have thought of touching, if they had not 
peremptorially insulted me a dozen times a day by forbidding 
me to do so.  So I waited til the gooseberries 
were beautifully ripe, and the boys had boastfully declared 
that they should gather them next day; got up very 
early, stole quietly downstairs, and ate up every gooseberry 
on the bush before they came down.  Their rage, on 
finding that I had devoured the whole of their treasure, 
was violent in the extreme; and they so positively declared 
that I deserved to be hung or to have my head cut 
off, that for a short time I felt a little uneasiness of 
remorse.  It is but fair to my childish self to add that 
had they put the gooseberries under the guard of my honor 
I would have died sooner than gather one of them; but 
they bullied me incessantly about the bush, stirred up my 
mettle and had only themselves to thank for the revenge 
to which they drove me.  I remember being perched in a 
high chair and Cousin Sam in a similar one eating an artichoke, 
the first we had ever seen, which had been given to 
us by some one having a fine garden; we each had an egg-cup 
of melted butter, and we dipped our artichokes therein; 
they were yellow and mellow, I cannot imagine of what 
species or due to what treatment, they could have been.  
I remember Sam and myself standing on chairs and looking 
over the green blinds into the street and watching a perfect 
deluge of rain that had turned the street into a river; 


                47

river; Sam informed me that it was evidently the day of 
Judgment that had come, and that we were all going to 
be drowned and washed away, and suggested that we [h]o 
should slip out quietly and have a run in the back 
garden under an umbrella.  Which we did.  Being presently 
missed by Aunt Ann[e] and Aunt Blackwell, they 
hunted for us all over the house, and not finding us, 
they looked into the garden, and found us under our 
umbrella, racing as hard as we could tear about the 
grass-plat, my little white pants soaking up to my 
waist, and Sam like myself, wet to the skin.  We were 
promptly brought in, put to bed and treated to warm 
drinks and abundant sco[a]lding.  One day we went to a 
party at the house of the minister of the Chapel we 
went to, a Mr. Page, who had also a Boy's School; 
a very large handsome place with fine fruit, etc.  I 
got into a scrape and became a pariah among them, 
having spied from the verandah the lair of the boy 
who was hiding, and incontinently divulged the same, 
pointing to the lair and crying"There he is!  there he 
is! " on which the boy thus betrayed came and bullied 
me, and allthe others assured me that I was a good-for-nothing 
little girl, and ought to be sent to bed for 
spoiling their fun.  Crestfallen and indignant, I was 
much relieved when the servant came to take us home.  
As we did not wait for the supper that was to be , Mrs. 
Page brought us an apple and an apricot, and told me to 
take my choice.  I took the apricot and poor Sam was 
put off with the apple.  As we went along, I having devoured 
the apricot in a trice, Sam poured upon me 
the vials of his wrath, informing me that I was the 
greediest and most unconscionable little girl in the 
world, to have taken the apricot and have left him only 
the apple.  He did not reflect that he would have done 
exactly the same, had the choice been given him; and 
that Mrs. Page ought evidently to have given us two 
apricots or two apples.-

Aunt and Uncle Blackwell were intimate 
with a rich grocer, Mr. Evans, I think, a relative of 
Aunt Blackwell's; they had a handsome place in the 
suburbs, with a splendid garden full of fruit.  Sam 
and I went there one day, with Aunt Ann, to breakfast; 
I see a handsome table, well set out, lovely china and 
all sorts of good things.  To me was given such a lovely 
little china mug for my milk and water, that, having 
turned it round and round, admiring the pictures on 
all sides, and wanting to see if there was a picture on 
the bottom, I, absorbed in my admiring examination, 
turned it upside down to look at the bottom.  Of course 
the contents went instantly over the snowy shiny tablecloth, 
and over my little clean white frock.  What a 
stir, a mopping up and a lifting up of the table-cloth 
to wipe underneath;- if ever a poor child felt the agonies 
of amazement, horror and remorse more crushingly that 
I did, all I can say is, she deserves pity!  How ashamed 
I was!  How intensely I longed for the floor to open and 48

swallow me up!  I burst into tears and cried out I didn't 
mean to do it!  I only wanted to see if there was another 
picture on the bottom of the mug! " And you forgot 
all about the milk that was in it!" put in good-natured 
Mr. Evans, who did his best to comfort me under 
my mortification, as did also Mrs. Evans, who assured 
me it did not matter at all; and a servant came with a 
nice napkin,and folded in four, and laid it over the 
wet place so that all the mess was covered up, and the 
meal went on as before.  But I was terribly mortified 
and could not get over my remorse; so Mr. Evans took me 
out into the garden with a little stool, and told me to 
choose a gooseberry bush,and sit under it and eat up 
all the gooseberries.  The bushes were splendid, very 
large, far above my hear, and laden with beautiful 
gooseberries.  I speedily chose a bush, settled my stool 
in the midst of it, and set to work, forgetting my sorrows, 
and clearing the bush with unfailing energy.  How 
delightful it was! sitting there in the fresh air and 
the sunshine, with the flowers and the birds and the 
butterflies, eating my fill of the delicious gooseberries, 
and our genial host, having brought a stool for himself, 
and called to Sam to bring another, gave a bush to Sam, 
took one for himself, and we all cleared our bushes, Mr. 
Evans laughing with us, telling us merry stories, setting 
us prattling, and enjoying the scene, the fun, and the 
fruit as heartily as the two children he made so happy, 
and neither of whom ever forgot the incident and his 
kindness, Sam being very fond of him and remaining always 
greatly attached to him, although, being determined 
to rise above the counter, he remained but a short time 
in the shop, to which he was sent by Uncle Blackwell 
some years afterwards; retaining only from the short 
time he passed there, a particularly neat knack of tying 
up parcels, of which all his life, poor fellow, he was 
always rather proud.

After Grandpapa had so insanely 
thrown up his employment at Conham, he took a large house 
in a large garden, on St. Michael's Hill, or near it; he 
filled it all with planks and shavings, but did not stay 
long there.  I mainly remember a bush of most exquisite 
little pink roses, scarcely bigger than large peas; with 
a French name, "Burgundy roses" they were called, that 
intensely delighted us.  I think it was in that house 
that he began the famous organ, which should have been 
mine, but was not.  After that they were established in 
an old house in Counterslip, that formed part of the 
sugar house premises.  It had once been a handsome 
dwelling but had run down.  A circular corridor upstairs 
went round the hall, which had a skylight; the living-room 
opened out of this corridor; the kitchen was on the 
ground floor, a great ancient-looking room, at the end of 
an immensely long,dark passage.  The best rooms as usual, 
were taken up by Grandpapa for his carpentering.  It was 
there that he so unfortunately upset the pot of boiling 
lead on his legs; a shocking accident, as it was all but 


                            49

impossible to get off his gray worcested stockings, 
with out bringing away the flesh with them.  Probably h 
his health suffered from the shock and the torture; for 
my next remembrance of him is of their being set up in 
a tiny, pretty house with a long narrow garden, in Wellington 
Place, in good air, as the long line of houses and 
gardens ran out into the fields at the back with no other 
houses either before or behind.  Wellington Place turned 
out of the top of Stokes Croft, at the turnpike on the 
Gloucester road; it was pretty, flowery, agreeable and 
countrified; all the neighborhood is now densely built 
over.  It led out to Ashley Barn, the Brook, the Duke 
of Beauford's Woods, etc., our usual "long walks" of 
which few vestiges probably now remain.  I think Grandmamma 
must have died there; but strange to say, I have 
not the slightest remembrance of her death or of that 
of Aunt Browne.  Both of them were frequently at Olveston, 
where we only were for a year or two, and from which 
we started [from] for America.  They must have died soon 
after one another.  The last remembrance of the handsome, 
ill-tempered, clever, strongly Calvinistic old man, who 
made everybody about him unhappy, was his being inthe 
Nelson St. back parlor, dressed in a nice new set of 
black clothes, just after Grandmamma's death, his white 
hair, short, thick, standing up all over his head, and 
literally as white as snow; he had come in with Aunt 
Lucy, who had washed and dressed him, to bid us goodbye 
before starting for Worcester, on a visit to Aunt and 
Uncle Blackwell.  It was on this occasion that he first 
wore trousers, instead of the breeches he had hitherto 
worn.  He, Mr. Leifchild, and Uncle Browne, all wore 
breeches when I first remember them; they were among 
the last to abandon them, which to my disgust and regret, 
they did about the same period.  He remained in Worcester, 
where he managed to rent a very modest little house, and 
married an old widow for the sake of company and to make 
a drudge of her, as he had done with dear, gentle, kind 
old Grandmamma.  But the arrangement did not fulfill his 
expectations;for she became rheumatic and was bed ridden 
until she died.  I remember Cousin Sam's saying it was a 
piteous sight to see the two old things, unable to move 
and slowly dying, as they did after a few years of poverty 
and gloom.  Grandpapa's perpetual worrying of Papa was one 
of his strongest motives for the unfortunate expatriation; 
no doubt the poor old man in his lonely, decaying old age, 
may have often regretted the alienation of his most good 
and generous son,and the consequent absence of our family.  
Uncle Blackwell was an incarnation of stinginess and [and] 
certainly must have kept him on not much more than bread and 
water; and I think he must have moved to Nottingham before 
Grandpapa's death, so that the latter must have been almost 
alone at the last.

The Goddards had a handsome house in a 
sort of lane opening out of St. Michael's Hill; a sort of 
gentleman's place on a small scale, elegantly furnished; 
garden looking down from a railed end, high up in the air, 50

over the Hotwell Road.  I feel pretty sure I spied that old 
railing when Harry and I went on that side of town to 
Brandon Hill.  The garden had a number of horse-chestnut 
trees, and we were horrified to leard that the little 
four year old Agustus, having been given some cockroaches 
in chocolate, took to eating the live ones that infested 
those trees, and which he took for chocolate; his mother 
had a dreadful deal of trouble to break him of it.  There 
were quantities of laurels; not many flowers.  There was 
one daughter, Sarah, named after Mamma's sister; and I 
think, only three sons, Thomas, George and Agustus.  They 
were all very slow little coaches,and spoke with the singular 
drawl which was natural to their Mother, and which 
they had unconscioualy acquired from her.  Thomas became 
an astronomer and was for many years secretary to Lord 
Rosse, and busy with the latter's big telescope, which was 
then the largest known, and one of the wonders of Europe.  
He married, or rather, was married by, a woman with a 
little money, I think a widow,much his senior; his family 
were dreadfully vexed at this marriage, but it turned out 
very well as she was extremely fond of himand took excellent 
care of him, fed,clothed, and guided him in the way 
he should go, he being so immersed in his studies and 
duties that he would have gone all day without thinking 
of eating, and would have put his coat on hind side before, 
or not at all.  He called on me when I was in London in 
1851; even with his wife's care he was one of the most 
extraordinary scarecrows I ever beheld; absolutely 
bald, looking three times his age; with eyes red from 
night work and poring over figures; lank to a degree, in 
a queer old fashioned auit, and bent under the weight of 
a great shiny green bag, full of books and papers, that 
he carried on his back.  He seemed friendly, but with 
nothing to say.  I think that George went out to Australia.

When poor Uncle Browne's crash came, 
Eliza Goddard, a most ingenious, clever, persevering 
woman, devoted to her family, set to work at once 
giving music lessons, composing songs which she got public 
singers to sing at concerts, to make them known; and diligently 
making various fancy articles which she disposed 
of by raffles, that she got all the old friends of the 
family to buy tickets for.  One of her songs (patriotic) 
she got permission to dedicate to the (then) Commander-in-Chief; 
another was sung at a concert by Miss Stephens, 
which was regarded as a great triumph.  She worked quantities 
of velvet bags and bracelets, very pretty, but of 
a style that would not be considered acceptable at the 

N.B.  The Goddards were cousins of Hannah Lane Blackwell, 
Children of her Aunt Sarah...(K.B.B.)


   51

present day.  In these ways she managed to eke out a 
living for her family, as Lieutenant Goddard had nothing 
but his half pay to live upon.  After a time they 
quitted Bristol, and went to live in Swansea, where 
she died, and we, having gone to America, lost the 
track of them.  She spoke French and Italian, and played 
the harp as well as the piano, and had some knowledge 
of thorough-bass.  Very good, simple, charming, thrown 
away on a horrid husband who was incapable of appreciating 
her superior worth.  I think they lived in Swansea 
until she died, when he married one of the two Welch girls, 
sisters, who had lived with them as cook and housemaid 
for many years, and were perfectly devoted to them, and 
nursed poor Eliza Goddard,through the long years of illness 
and suffering that preceded her death, with exemplary 
kindness and fidelity.

Mamma was a member of a Dorcas Society, 
and took her turn receiving the ladies belonging to it.  
They came early in the afternoon, worked hard at making 
up garments for the poor, heard"a report" from the Secretary, 
did a little mild gossiping, and had a most 
lovely tea about six o'clock, after which the gathering 
merged into a party.  How well I remember those teas!  
Such fragrant tea, such ororiferous coffee, such exquisite 
bread and butter (wonderful small bread called "rasp 
rolls", with very shiny, springy, spongy crumb and 
and such extatic crust, not hard, full of holes! ) such 
heavenly cake of two or three kinds, all handed round 
and round on handsome trays, with a profusion of 
thick cream.

 "Anniversary-Week" was an exciting time 
with us; it came in May,all the religious, Missionary, 
and other dissenting Societies, holding their annual pow-wows.  
Our favorite field-day was that of the Missionary 
Society; scene, Ebenezer Chapel, Broad St.  Papa was 
Secretary until we left England, and we listened with 
breathless attention and interest to the report he read, 
very well dressed in Black, and were delighted whenever 
the audience applauded him, as they often did.  On these 
occasions hosts of ministers came from all parts, and 
were hospitably quartered; we always had two or three, 
sometimes very pleasant, sometimes very odd.  I remember 
a little Scotch minister who had never before left his 
native village; and whose nervous shyness and greenness 
were very amusing.  There was a pleasant supper one 
evening, a large party who came straight from some evening 
meeting.  There were oysters, among other things; and the 
poor little man who had never seen one before, and had not 
the courage either to eat them or leave them, surreptitiously 
slipped them under the table, where they were found next 
morning on the carpet.  We had a famous "light", Rev. Mr. 
Unwin, from Dublin, that year; very small, a head taller 

*N.B.  He married the cook (K.B.B.)52

than his green silk umbrella with ivory handle;witty, merry 
full of fun as many of them were.  There was a grand dinner 
party one day;in the evening when [all] some of the guests 
the guests had gone, the remaining ones settled in for 
gossip and stories,and Mr. Unwin, Mr. Leifchild and others, 
but especially those two, poured out anecdote after anecdote , 
story after story, until the laughter was almost too 
much.  I see Papa writhing on his chair as though sitting 
on fire, Mamma laughing till the tears ran down her cheeks, 
Mr. Unwin falling from his seat and dying with laughter as 
he rolled on the floor, Mr. Leifchild "piling up the agony" 
of fun till he started from his seat and rushed up and down 
the room, Aunt Mary splitting and speechless; all present 
nearly choking with the drollery of the narratives.  And 
presently, as it grew late, everybody calming down, the 
servants called in, a Bible brought from the back parlour, 
and prayers gone through with, afterwhich the visitors went 
home and we all went to bed.  I think it was for that party 
that Aunt Mary's "alum-baskets"were filled with artificial 
flowers,scented to nature, that took people in, so natural 
and so fragrant were they.  I remember standing by the 
cheffonnier on which the basket of flowers was placed and 
enjoying the exclamations of the guests, as they came in, 
and their wonderment at our having such lovely flowers in 
the middle of winter.  I made alum-baskets also, and succeeded 
pretty well; I think Grandpapa helped me to get the 
wires into shape.

John Foster, author of the Essays that 
made so much noise 60 years ago,must have liked Papa, for 
he occasionally dropped in of an evening, and sat for a c
couple of hours at the corner of the fire, wrapped up in 
an immense old Scotch plaid cloak, of a rough stuff, red, 
green, brown, faded and odd.  The renowned Robert Hall, 
minister of the Broadmead (Baptist) Chapel, was occasionally 
at our parties; I remember handing him 23 cups of tea,poured 
out by Mamma.  He lived for years on tea and (I think) 
morphine, being a dreadful sufferer and lying for hours on 
the floor in agony.  He was very eloquent, a wonderful 
smooth flow of language coming out of his mouth by the hour 
together.  People of all ranks and denominations used to 
flock to hear him, enchanted with his wonderful delivery.  
Dr. Chalmers,a very great gun in those days, made  a great 
stir, with his rugged Scotch eloquence and fiery out-pourings, 
when he visited Bristol.  I think he was once at 
our house.  And we gave a great party to one of the inventors 
of phrenology, either Gall or Spurzheim, I forget which.  
After tea, we three little girls were let in, and at once 
taken possession of by the great man and Mr. Howells(who 
had brought him) and our bumps were investigated for the 
edification of the company, to our very great disgust.

Election days were exciting in those old 
times; We stuck on ribands of the color of the Liberal candidate, 
and went to see"the Chairing," the triumphal procession 
of the victors.  "Davis and Bright" having won after a 
violent conrest, had a splendid "chairing"; this was, I 
think, John Bright's entry into Parliament.  There was also 
an exciting time with Protheroe, but I forget who was the 
other victor.


53

   We were tremendously enthusiastic about 
the Reform Bill.  John Harwood brought in a tremendous poster 
of his own drawing up and posting all over the town.  We put 
it up with him, over the parlour mantlepiece.  It wound up 
by calling on all lovers of their country for "A long pull!  
And a strong pull!! And a pull altogether!!!"  Each line 
being in larger and larger letters, and the whole very imposing.  
We were in Nelson St. then,and we illuminated so 
splendidly, on the passing of the Reform Bill, that we were 
cheered incessantly through the evening, and our fine show 
was spoken of in the newspapers.  Miss Taylor, our ridiculous 
goose of a governess, being fond of flowers, had bitten us 
all, Mamma included, with her floral mania; all our pocket 
money went in pots of flowers, and the court at the back of 
the dwelling was lined with immense pots and tubs, and converted 
into a garden.  All these flowers were pressed into 
the service, for the illumination; the windows were lined 
with them, all over the house, and the lights looked charming 
among them.  Over the warehouse gates were two enormous 
pans of greese, that were kept in a prodigious flare, with a 
man to each to look after them.  I see good Uncle Browne 
coming in and chuckling over a"skit" that was going the 
rounds of the papers; the King (William Fourth) being represented 
as the master of a stable, whose stable boys would 
not clean out the stables as he wished, so that he was fain 
to threaten them for their obstinacy: - "he swears, if they 
don't mind what they are about, he'll take the broom (Brougham) 
to them! "  This joke had a great success; and the King 
did"take the broom," created a lot of new peers ( the broom's 
measure) and so forced the Bill through the Lords.  On which 
the whole country illuminated, we among them.

It was while we were pestered with that 
odious Miss Taylor (a sad ignoramus) that Papa struck out 
the idea of Domestic contributions of verses, stories, etc. 
which were read on Christmas Eve.  We were much outraged by 
Papa's giving the prize to Miss Taylor,from a generous 
politeness altogether misplaced; as she ought either not to 
have contributed, or been placed as a compliment "hors concours".  
She had written a rambling thing, rhymed, meant to 
be witty; and our evening was spoiled by her getting the 
prize.  I forget what (I remember; it was a large plum cake).  
Papa always sent home on Christmas  Eve, a great chest of 
oranges, a drum of figs, and a box of raisins, all splendid, 
Bristol being the great port for importing foreign fruit, 
and Papa knowing the merchants and having the pick of the 
market.  The oranges were laid out on the floor of a large 
room, on straw, and everyone had three a day as long as they 
lasted.

The first appearance of the Annuals 
caused great excitement all over the land.  I  think it was 
in 1828.  We had several, and went nearly wild with delight 
over them; even Papa was carried away by the beauty and 
romance of this new style of book.

The first novels we ever read were smuggled 
in by Marian, with the aid of one of the nurse-maids, 
who procured from a circulating library "The Bandit's Bride",54

"The Scottish Chiefs, and at length, " Ivanhoe" and others 
of Sir Walter Scott's.  Marian, finding the burden of secret 
doings too heavy to be born alone took me into the secret, and 
we devoured the stories privately, until we got caught.  
There was a dreadful scene and our beloved novels were seized 
and carried off to Papa, and we expected some dreadful punishment.  
But to our immense relief, Papa began to read them, 
to see what we had been reading, and became so much interested 
in them that we not only got off without punishment, but 
were allowed to go on reading them!  Papa read aloud very 
well, and when Aunt and Uncle Browne came to tea, as they 
often did, Papa would read some story aloud, for the gratification 
of the party.  Nearly all Mrs. Sherwood's stories, 
illustrating the Church catechism, were read aloud by him 
in this way.  I remember one of them intended to enforce the 
duty of wives to obey their husbands, that brought out strong 
expressions of sympathy and admiration from Aunt Browne, who 
devoutly believed in that "duty", and who adored Uncle Browne 
to such a degree that she stood up for the "rights" of husbands 
for his sake.  "So good,and so obadient!" she would 
exclaim in her sympathy for the heroine, who was allowing 
herself to be tyrannized over ad nauseam by a scoundrelly[f] 
Lord Somebody, because he was her husband.  But the story 
and the comments made me very indignant, and I gave the assembled 
family my views on the monstrosity and nonsense 
of the supposed "duty" and repudiated St. Paul and his sayings 
on the subject, with so much anger that I got myself 
into disgrace thereby and was ordered off to bed as a punishment 
for my outbreak of rebellion against the assumption 
of marital authority.  I got into trouble many times by my 
expressions of determination never to consent to obey any 
man.

One Christmas Papa brought home a 
little jointed figure of cardboard, a handsome Spanish 
looking little fellow, some half a yard high, with a cap 
and (I think) a feather.  This little figure he made to 
dance between his knees, the figure standing on the floor.  
We never succeeded in finding out how he managed it,which he 
did very cleverly.  We were all made to go out of the room 
when he prepared the exhibition, and we came back when all 
was ready.  The candles were so placed as to favor the illusion, 
and we caould see nothing to account for the movements 
of the figure.  On these occasions Papa sat with his knees 
wide apart, and his hands on his knees.  No movement was 
apparent in hands or knees, but the movement, a dance, was 
played on the piano, the little man began to dance exactly 
as though he were alive.  Cousin Elizabeth was as little able 
to find out the secret as we were; and she fell decidedly in 
love with the handsome little Spa[i]niard.  We supposed the 
figure to be hung on a thread of black silk, and that this 
thread was cleverly worked to give the motion; but we never 
knew how this was, for Papa persisted in keeping the secret.
  
One of the Wilson Street Christmases 
was marked by the stealing of Mamma's black velvet reticule 
stuffed with oranges which she was taking home for the jollification 
in the evening.  A tiny gold watch given me by 
Uncle Charley or by Aunt Browne, my especial pride and delight, 
was in the bottom of the reticule, being brought back from


       55

a visit to a watchmaker's for some repair.  There was at the 
time a gang of boys who robbed ladies reticules.  I trotted 
along beside Mamma when she suddenly exclaimed, "Oh, you 
naughty, wicked boy! " and I saw the young miscreant making 
off (we were in Cumberland St.) toward Stokes Croft as hard as 
he could tear.  The thought of my dear little watch gave wings 
to my feet.  I sprang after him shouting at the top of my voice
"Stop thief! Stop thief! ",  Everybody within hearing took up 
the cry and the young rascal was soon caught but he managed 
to toss the bag to a confederate who got off with the booty.  
The young thief was taken to jail, tried and convicted; but 
Papa exerted himself so generously for the little rascal 
(whose father was a decent laboring man, much distressed at his 
son's evil doings) and the boy himself expressed great repentance 
and determination to amend) that he obtained a lenient 
sentence for him; and Papa afterwards sent him out to Australia 
with good clothes and some money and good advice.  And the 
fellow did really mend, got employment, prospered, and wrote a 
grateful letter of thanks to Papa for all he had done for him.  
But though the boy had tried to get back my watch, he was unable 
to do so; and the loss of this little treasure was a great 
grief to me for many years.  Uncle Charley had also given me 
a garnet ring, which Mamma kept in one of her drawers, and 
only allowed me to see occasionally.  I had dreams and visions 
enough to fill a volume over that ring, which I was to have 
possession of, and be allowed to wear, as soon as I should 
be fifteen.  And how I longed for that time!!!56

 Vol.II

  Dear old Harry!  Will you have patience to 
read all that I have written for your edification and gratification?  
Having noted most of the people we had to do with in 
our childhood, I now proceed to jot down what I remember of 
scenes and doings.  You are at liberty to throw these reminiscences 
into the fire if you don't care to preserve them.

   A certain Miss Henderson was a ward of "Old 
Dr. Short's"; she was a co-heiress, with a fortune; I don't 
remember whether she was a daughter of Dr. Henderson, but I 
think she must have been.  She was the whitest creature imaginable, 
excessively fair, without color, and her eye-brows almost 
white, very amiable but very silly.  Her sister, placed in 
better hands, was married to Sir Frederic Ffolks, Bart.;  but the 
Shorts, instead of finding an equally favorable match for her, 
got her to marry their son Richard,without a penny; they were 
greatly blamed for this sacrificing their ward for their own 
advantage.  I remember the wedding, the fine dresses, the bride's 
white bonnet trimmed with white crocuses, yellow, purple and white, 
and the wedding cake, of which, incited thereto by Cousin Elizabeth, 
we put pieces under our pillows, that we might dream of 
our future husbands.  But we only put the smallest bit that 
could be supposed efficacious; the cake was too delicious to 
sacrifice more.  "Mrs. Richard" had half a dozen bridesmaids, 
all in white with lots of crocuses.  Richard Short died of 
consumption soon after his marriage; I remember being sent to 
the house for news of him,and the bewildered way in which Mrs. 
Richard replied,in the drawing room, and in tears, to my enquiries.  
After his death she soon married a vulgar creature 
named Spilsbury, who ran through her money in no time, so that 
she had barely enough to eat and presented a woefully changed 
appearance.  What became of them I never knew.  We lost all 
trace of them on leaving England.

There was a rich family that of Mr. Richard 
Ashe, whose father had made a large fortune as a brewer; - he 
was one of the pillars of Bridge St.  They had a very handsome 
place, Cotham House, on the outskirts of the town; kept a carriage 
and entertained handsomely.  I remember calling there 
often with Mamma, and the rich cake and chocolate that were 
handed us; also children's parties there.  The place looks 
to me very lovely.  Mrs. Ashe died after forty years of wedded 
life; and the widower scandalized the whole connexion by marrying 
within the twelve-month, a daughter of a Mr. Newell, 
another of the Bridge St. pillars.  Since then,Mr. Ashe 
foolishly "swopped" his beautiful place for a house in a row;  
a stupid wager, or something of the kind, with Mr. Newell, 
that the other had held him to, and he was goose enough to 
carry it out.  Papa and Mamma, and Aunt and Uncle Browne were 
there at a party in the time of the first Mrs. Ashe, when 
Uncle Lane arrived in his gig, from Olveston, with the news 
that Cousin Elizabeth had surreptitiously married Sam Lowell, 
a match that had been on and off a dozen times and that all the 
family wished to see broken off definitively.  Cotham house had 


57

splendid gardens, and almost a park.

Near Cotham was a large boy's school 
kept by an active minded Mr. Pocock, a local celebrity, 
whose inventions made a good deal of noise.  Among other 
things, he contrived a carriage propelled by sails; and 
he and the boys went out with it, taking turns to get in and 
be driven thus.  He was always doing some ingenious thing 
or other, and was much talked about.  We often met the 
school when out walking.  I think he invented the first 
velocipede, that his boys used to the amazement of beholders.

Mr. Howell's Boy's school was also in 
the neighborhood.  How intensely I disliked him and his!

New and splendid nursery grounds had 
been laid out, on that side of the town,by Miller and Sweet; 
the opening of those grounds was a great local event.  We 
were there, Aunt Mary, Aunt and Uncle Browne, and Cousin 
Elizabeth and every one we knew.  There was a band of music, 
and all the fashion and all the elegance of the town promenading 
through the grounds.

The Hot Wells were in high favour.  
The Pump-room was a very fashionable gathering place; and 
the assembly rooms were the scene of bazaars, Raffles, 
Promenades, Concerts, etc.   I see Aunt Browne in a handsome 
black silk cloak, with Uncle Browne in his breeches, pigtail, 
and gold spectacles, heading our party, drinking the 
water, and eating cakes and tarts; there was a dense crush 
of visitors, "Beau Brummel", then in the full swing of his fa 
fame, having come from Bath to honour the place with his 
illustrious presence.  But I don't remember seeing him or 
"Beau Nash" his emulator, who sometimes came there.

St. Vincent's Rocks, and Nightingale 
Valley, were favourite resorts of ours when we went out for 
a whole afternoon.  A murder having taken place in the 
latter, we rather fought shy of it afterwards; we also 
feared snakes and gradually deserted it.  But Aunt Barbara 
took some good sketches of "bits" of the valley, which 
was very lovely.  Her sketches and pencil drawings were 
capital.

 St. Vincent's Rocks, though already 
much spoiled by blasting and quarrying, were very picturesque, 
showing various bright colors and romantic forms.  
There was a"Giant's Hole" on the face of the Rock, under 
the Down; and a family legend credited Uncle Charley with 
having clambered down into it, when a boy, and up again, at 
the imminent risk of [his] limb and life.  We went so often 
to the Durdham and Clifton Downs and Hotwell region, tiring 
ourselves out, and dragging home weary and cross, that we 
ended by disliking them, and looked forward with satisfaction 
as a great prospective gain, when the exodus was mooted, to 
getting rid of it as a walking ground!  And yet how lovely 
that region is!  What exquisite air, and what exquisite views 
in every direction, with beautiful undulating green country58

on either hand, and the river running down into the 
channel, shining in the distance!  How many a time in 
the weary exile across the ocean, have I longed for the 
sight of that charming region, for the lovely air and 
the elastic turf of the glorious open Downs, at that 
time without a house upon them!  What geese we were!!
 
On the road leading down from the Downs 
and Clifton, and all along the road by the river and 
the Docks, were women with little tables or boards, 
selling pretty and curious stones, crystals, spars, 
fossils, etc.,mostly found in the quarries there, but 
with specimens of the famous "potato stones" from the 
Cheddar caves, looking just like potatoes outside,but 
crystallized inside, and extremely pretty; shells, and 
baskets and boxes of shells; things in pith and colored 
straw, and various other little curiosities, which people 
bought as they went by.  We used to lay out our pocket 
money on these things, ranged on boards by the wayside, u 
until the advent of Miss Taylor who fired us with enthusiasm 
for flowers, so that we put our money mostly 
into floral purchases, while she remained with us.  If 
the idiot had only understood something of botany, or 
of drawing,or painting,this floral mania might have been 
made useful; but she knew nothing of either, and we merely 
threw our money on plants we did not know how to take 
care of, and the keeping of which in our bed-rooms must 
have been unwholesome.  But people thought nothing of 
hygiene in those days.

An old tower called " Cook's Folly", a few 
miles off, in the direction, (I think, for we never 
thought of points of the compass, neighborhoods or direction) 
of Westbury, or Pill, was a favourite object in 
the landscape, and we often longed to go thither, without 
having succeeded in doing so.  The story went that a certain 
Mr. Cook, a rich merchant of Bristol, was told by a 
fortune-teller, that he would die by the bite of a snake.  
So to preserve himself from the threatened doom, he bought 
a piece of land, and built himself a tower, without any 
door, and of which the windows were high up above the 
ground.  In this tower he shut himself up alone, having 
food, etc., drawn up from below in baskets, by a crank of 
his contriving; never going out of his tower and letting 
no one in.  He lived thus for several years and supposed 
he had placed himself out of reach of the prophecy; when o 
one day, on drawing up a store of faggots, a snake that 
had got into one of the faggots unperceived, made its entry 
thus into the tower, got out of the faggot, bit  him, and 
he died as had been predicted.  From that time the tower 
was known far and wide as "Cook's Folly."  When we were 
children an old couple lived in it to take care of it.  
A door had been made below, so that people could enter the 
tower and go up to the flat leads on the top; parties went 
out there taking their provisions with them, andthe people 
in the tower furnished hot water and crockery for tea, which 
was generally taken on the roof, the view being very fine.  
After we had vainly longed to go there for years, a party 
was at length made up for going there.  All our lot, with 


  59

the two nursemaids (Harriet and Jane Bryan),a third servant 
to look after the baskets of prog, Aunt and Uncle Browne, all 
the Goddards, Cousin Elizabeth, Aunt Mary and I think, Uncle 
Charles, went out in "flys" (the one in Orange St., kept by 
Uncle Browne's old coachman, being, of course, of the number) 
and stayed there all the afternoon, coming back in the evening.  
I don't remember whether Papa and Uncle William were 
of the party.  The weather was lovely and we had a splendid 
golden sunset; and we watched with immense delight and interest, 
a grand "West (or East) Indiaman" that was coming up 
the river with the tide; a mountain of snowy canvas, with a 
regiment of troops on board,come home from their long foreign 
service.  The children all got up on the battlement round 
the top of the tower; the elders stood behind them; Uncle 
Browne made everybody get out their pocket handkerchiefs and 
fly the same as the noble ship came up with the soldiers 
massed on the deck.  We were all greatly excited with the 
splendour of the scene and shouted "Hurrah! " and "Welcome 
home! "  at the top of our voices (inaudible on board); the 
troops stood stock still as though they did not see us; but 
just as the ship passed under the tower, every cap was lifted 
and waved as though by a single arm, and a ringing shout, 
thrice repeated, sent up a "Hurrah! " that rung in our ears 
long afterwards.  The whole lot of us, old and young, went 
off into a fit of enthusiasm that nearly took us off our feet 
and threatened to send us down headlong into the woods that 
went down to the river.  Didn't we fly the handkerchiefs and 
about our answering "Hurrahs! " with impassioned vigour?!!!  
When this piece of excitement was over, Uncle Browne took 
out a pocket knife that he always had about him, and cut round 
the sole of one foot of every member of the party; cutting 
the initials of the owner of each inside his mark; and I think 
he put the age of each child in its sole.  By the time this 
operation was got through with, evening was coming on, and we 
went home greatly delighted with our excursion.  I think the 
Goddards must have left Bristol soon after this, for I do not 
remember any subsequent events in which they were mixed up.

It would be impossible to imagine any people 
more genial, more ready to enjoy and help others to enjoy, 
than Aunt and Uncle Browne, Mamma, or Uncle Charley.  Aunt 
Mary too came out brightly on all such occasions.  The others 
were dead weights and added nothing to the life and spirit of 
any little jollification.  Papa was very kind and enjoyed an 
"outing" when he could come; but he was usually absorbed in 
business, and only joined occasionally in our doings; but he 
liked to know that we had been enjoying ourselves though he 
seldom took any active part either in planning or in carrying 
out, any little plan of the kind.

After poor Uncle Browne's crash, the Goddards 
sold off all the handsomest of their furniture and whatever 
they could manage to do without.  Among other things 
thus sold off by them as superfluities,was a very large and 
handsome rocking horse the size of a small pony, which Mamma 
bought and installed in the little end room, opening out of 60

the Wilson St. back parlour, which we three elder girls 
had taken possession of as our special play room.  This 
rocking horse was a great delight to us.  I used to get 
on the top, Marian got on to the end of the rockers behind; 
"Bessy's" place was on the rockers in the front; and 
thus seated we worked our wooden steed backwards and forwards 
by the hour together, singing verses out of Taylor's 
(I think it was ) scenes in foreign lands.  One "poem" 
about"Mumbo Jumbo", and another beginning "Mont Blanc is 
the Monarch of Mountains.  They crowned him long ago," 
were special favourites.  Sometimes, instead of songs, we 
improvised stories, in which we got up deep interest.  
Marian's were usually the longest; she launched out at 
such length and with so many romantic complications, into 
one of these improvisations called "The Beautiful Estelle", 
that we never reached the end of it, and have lived in 
uncertainty of the eventful fate of the heroine.

At the end of the back building, of 
which the main room was considered to be our playroom, 
and contained the rocking horse, was a sort of light closet 
fitted up with water pumped up from below, and a basin 
with a hole and plug, for washing hands.  There was always 
a disagreeable smell in this little room, and also in the 
larger one, coming up, no doubt from the pipe in the washhand 
basin, which communicated with the pagoda in the garden 
below.  But no one worried about drains etc. in those 
days; ignorance of which we, brought up among many conditions 
that must have been very injurious, have doubtless 
paid the penalty in uncomfortable results.

But what magnificent lilac,white and 
purple , there was outside the window of that little end 
room.  We used to get at the top boughs through the little 
window, breaking off masses of flower to stick in all the 
rooms of the house.  I never saw more beautiful lilacs.  
And the very finest red hawthorn I ever saw was in that 
garden.  A large forest tree, beautifully shaped, and a 
mass of crimson flower; superb.  A very large and fine 
laburnum was considered to be Marian's property, also a 
fine sycamore.  We each had a little garden and tried hard 
to get flowers to grow in them; but it was impossible; 
the foliage was too dense.  There was a large elm, a large 
sycamore, and masses of ivy on the wall to the right, and 
up the outside staircases leading to the three stories of 
an empty house, at the bottom of the garden, which belonged 
to our premises,but of which we made no use, except the 
ground floor rooms, which Papa fitted up for making beer, 
as he did a few times, having a brewer there to manage the 
operation.  I remember how strong the must used to smell 
all over the place, while the beer making went on.  But 
the beer was excellent.

Mamma had, on first going to the Wilson 
St. house, planted a white jessamine in the court, beside 
the kitchen window, to climb up the back-front of the house; 
a passion flower in front of the scullery, to climb up round 
the window of our play-room; a Virginia creeper on the wall 
opposite.  A mason came and cut away a piece of one of the 


61

flags for each planting; holes were made and filled with 
earth, and she herself planted the three plants with her 
own hands.  She also had planted an arbor vitae, at the 
foot of the steps, that led down from the parlour floor 
into the garden, by the door that let into the street;- 
and some variegated holly bushes, in the little bed in 
front of the back parlour windows.  The court was lower 
than the garden; you went up to the latter by three 
steps.  The kitchen was underground, though open behind, 
and was not damp.  There was a pump in the scullery.  
One day when Mamma was making pastry in the front cellar 
(for coolness for the paste) as she often did, I was allowed 
to bring her water and otherwise take part in the 
operation.  I see her pretty white hands daintily rolling 
out the paste and putting the apples into the pie dish.  
I worked the pump with such zeal that I shook down a 
large sauce pan that had been stupidly perched on the top 
of it; the great heavy thing came down plump on the top 
of my head, cutting it so that my face was covered with 
blood in an instant.  It is a wonder it did not kill me; 
I have the scar to this day and attribute my incessant, 1 
life-long headache, in part, to the violent concussion of 
this blow.  The sight of blood in my childhood always 
terrified me beyond expression, drove me wild with fright 
and horror.  The pouring down of blood was more terrible 
t o me than the blow and the cut.  My head was bound up 
and the pain went off in a few days.  But nothing could 
induce me to have it touched.  It was only when the matted 
hair began to smell that I at length consented to let 
Aunt Barbara bathe my head with a sponge and warm water, 
so as to wash out the blood which had made a cake in the 
hair and was become offensive and dangerous.

I see Mamma making the superlative 
custards we always had when there was a dinner party; 
stirring the mixture in a broad shallow brass preserving 
kettle, with a dozen new marbles(that we had been charged 
to buy for the purpose at the great toy shop in Barton) 
to keep it from sticking.  Her custards were a rare perfection; 
her trifle, ditto.  If things ever go well with 
me, I mean to have custards and trifle made exactly as 
she made them, quite sure that they will cause rapture 
to all creatures favoured with their acquaintance!

The " Best bed-room ," first floor front 
was a good large room, but contained a very handsome and 
elaborate four-post bed (mahogany with chintz hangings, 
matching the curtains at the two windows) so enormous that 
it took up a good part of the room.  There was a little 
set of steps, mahogany and green baize, that stood beside 
this bed, for its occupant to get up and down by!  The 
feather bed was a mountain; it cost Lb 20 !  you sunk into 
it as into a bath; we delighted in climbing up and letting 
ourselves fall plump into the ocean of softness.  Whenever 
Elizabeth Lane was visiting us she had that room and I 
generally slept in the big bed with her.  When Cousin Maria 
was the visitor, one or other of us had to sleep there with 
her as she was terribly afraid of being alone.  During one 
of her visits we took it into our heads to want leave to 
sleep all together in the big bed, which would have held 62

half a regiment; so we drew up a petition to that effect, 
signed it, and took it into Mamma's room and gave it to 
Papa, who was seated at his wash-hand-stand,shaving.  He 
read the little paper through with a smile, laid down 
his razor, took a pencil from his waistcoat pocket, and 
wrote on the back of our precious petition as follows:

            "If you four little girls were together to lie, 
            "I fear you'd resemble the pigs in their sty!
            "Such groaning!  Such grunting!! such sprawling about!!!
            "I could not allow such confusion and rout!!!!!
            "So this is my judgment; - 'tis wisdom you'll own,
             "Two beds for four girls are far better than one! "

We were dreadfully disappointed, but there was no help for it; 
and the fun of bundling ourselves,all together,in the big bed, 
was a dream doomed to remain a dream, and very wisely so, as 
the project if carried out would doubtless have led to kicks 
and quarrels.

We tried the dodge of another"petition" for 
the furtherance of another project,and with similar result.

I had, after long entreatings, succeeded in 
getting Mamma to let me sleep by myself in the garret- room 
next the head of the stairs, looking out on the garden.  
I took immense pleasure in having this room all to myself, 
and used to get out through the window upon the leads, behind 
the parapet; the view was very pretty and extensive; 
Dundry Tower showing on the hills to the right, and the 
Duke of Beaufort's woods showing across many field and well 
known walks to the left.  I had invested half a crown at Weston, 
in a little spy-glass, that we tried to believe made 
things look clearer; and I sometimes let Marian and Elizabeth 
come out on "My leads" and have the satisfaction of 
peering through"my spy-glass."  Unluckily the elders got 
wind of our visits to the leads, thanks to a characteristic 
enterprise of "Miss Marian"; "Monkey Polly" as Papa had 
named her for her endless teasings and original undertakings.  
At first when I admitted the two to my sky-parlour, we all 
sat perfectly still and quiet, reading, after we had done st 
staring through the little spy-glass.  But one unlucky day, 
Miss Marian bethought her of extending her movements, and 
was preparing to walk along the whole length of the leads, 
when one of the servants came into my room,  looked out of 
the window and reported [my] our being on the leads and the adventurous 
doings of Miss Marian.  We had had an uncomfortable 
consciousness of doing what would be forbidden if known; 
and consequently were more vexed than surprised when we were 
summarily ordered in and forbidden to put our feet on the 
leads in future.  But it was so very nice to be up there, all 
by ourselves, with only the sky overhead and the beautiful 
view all around us, that we could not resign ourselves [from 
the pleasure] to be debarred from the pleasure without an effort 
to obtain its continuance.  So we made a petition and 
signed it, promising to sit perfectly still and not lean over 
the parapet.  As before I carried in our petition and handed 
it 


63

it to Papa as he sat shaving at his washhand-stand, which 
stood in the window opposite the door of the bedroom.  As 
on the former occasion, Papa took his pencil, turned the 
petition and wrote his answer on the back of the little 
sheet of paper:-

                                "Anna, Bessie, and Polly!
                                 Your request is mere folly.
                                 The leads are too high
                                  For those who can't fly!
                                  If I let you go there,
                                  I suppose your next prayer
                                  Would be for a hop
                                  To the chimney-top!
                                  So I charge you three misses
                                  Not to show your phizzes
                                  On the parapet wall,
                                  Or the chimney so tall;
                                  But to stay on the earth,
                                  The place of your birth.
                                  So writes Papa!
                                  "Amen!" says Mamma!!
                                  "Even so!" says Aunt Ba!!! "

I don't remember ever again attempting a"petition."

Aunt Blackwell was a sister of a Mr. Holden 
who lived in the house next to ours.  As they were "Broadmead 
people" there was not much social intercourse between 
the heads of the two families, though the children often 
played together, or rather, the Holden children used to 
come to our parties and were sometimes invited to play 
with us in "the front garden:" across the street.  I don't 
think they ever gave parties.  I used to go in sometimes 
of an evening,to read some of their books, and they constantly 
borrowed ours; our children's library that had 
been begun with the proceeds of the gold watch-case picked 
up by Marian on the sands of the little bay beyond Knightstone 
(now built over) having been constantly added to 
until it had come to be known and regarded as remarkable.  
How we used to pore over those stories of an evening; 
"Father Clement", "Sandford and Merton", Miss Edgeworth's 
stories, Mrs. Sherwood's,Mrs. Barbauld's, and quantities 
whose very names are now forgotten, that we read, over and 
over again,with unfailing delight.  Adam Holden once lent 
me one of his best books, a large edition of "Robinson 
Crusoe",in two or three volumes, that he prized immensely. 
I took the greatest care of it, had put paper covers to 
the volumes, and hardly dared turn the leaves,so anxious 
was I that no harm should come to it; but alas,as I was 
deep in its perusal, one evening, just after tea,the baby 
of the period (probably Ellen) who was on Mamma's lap, 
close by, made a sudden grab at the book as it lay on the 
table ann tore off a great piece from the bottom of the 
page.  I have never forgotten the consternation of that 
moment!  All my money would not have sufficed to buy a 
new copy of the precious book; and all the bitter tears 
I shed over the torn page could not make it whole again.  64

Mamma, to tide over the accident, cut a narrow band 
of thin paper, exactly to the shape of the tear, and 
having laid the torn edges together, pasted the band 
of paper upon them.   A second band was laid on the 
other side; and the page was thus restored to its entirety.  
It was very neatly and ingeniously done; and 
when the mending was perfectly dry, she took me and 
the book to Mrs. Holden, explained how the accident 
had occurred and assured her of the sorrow and regret 
it had caused me.  Mrs. Holden kindly accepted the apologies, 
and even went the length of declaring the mending 
to be "quite an ornament".  Adam Holden also took 
it very amiably, but it was long before I got over my 
remorseful regret for the injury done to a favorite 
book.  Adam Holden was one of the very whitest faced 
boys I ever saw, and his face was a mass of freckles.  
Whenever Maria was with us we had the three younger 
Holden children with us every day; Maria Holden was 
a charming little creature, her father's idol; Jemima 
was just the reverse, much such an ill-tempered nuisance 
as Maria Blackwell.  The rest of them were grown 
up young men, probably dating from a previous marriage.  
We had nothing to do with them.  When Maria Holden 
died, the poor Father's grief nearly turned his head, 
and the people of Bridge St., and those of Broadmead , 
were equally shocked and scandalized by his denunciations 
of the cruelty and injustice of the Almighty in 
taking Maria, when he might just as well have taken 
Jemima instead!

 Before Maria H. died I had a child's 
party; K. and S. had just walked down from Worcester, 
and were to spend a few days with us, being quartered 
at night at Aunt Mary's.  Uncle Charley was there also; 
Aunt and Uncle Browne, all the Goddards and a lot of 
others, had tea in the front parlour; we children 
had our tea in the "best bedroom", given up to us for 
the occasion.  We had tea in a set of little tea things 
with tray, tea-pot, tea-kettle, etc.; a new acquisition 
of which I was very proud.  When it came to filling the 
tea-pot again, Cousin Sam insisted on taking the tea-kettle 
from Harriet Bryan, who was detailed to look 
after us, and pouring the water into the tea-pot himself.  
The little tea-pot was soon filled; but Master 
Sam went on pouring, flooding the tray and the table 
and exciting the shrieks and objurgations of all the 
young ones, and of Harriet, to all o f which he remained 
deaf, pouring the dreadful hot water over everything, 
down to the floor.  The hubbub brought a rush of the e 
elders up to see what was the matter; Uncle Charley and 
Mr. Goddard got the kettle out of Sam's hands and gave 
him a scolding.  The water was wiped up; and quiet having 
been restored, and Sam having promised "not to do it again", 
we finished our tea with great satisfaction.  I 
can't imagine what could have been the occasion of that 
party; it must have been something special, as at nine 
o'clock there was to be a grand affair of fireworks, let 
off in the front garden, under the auspices of UncleCharley and 
Mr. Goddard, with Kenyon (who looked down on us 


65

"little ones") to help.  Unluckily the fire-works 
would not go off well, ,but hung fire.  All the elders 
had come up to us, from down stairs to see the sight 
from our windows.  The Roman candles did the best; I 
see the shining moons going up, one after the other, 
to our great delight; but the other pieces did more 
sputtering than fire.

An old friend of Mamma's, a 
certain Mr. Winter Harris, held the office of Town 
Clerk.  He embezzled the public funds and would have 
been in terrible trouble, disgraced and transported, 
if Papa, always imprudently generous, had not lent 
him Lb 400 to  make good the deficit; and moreover, 
instead of taking a proper receipt, in regular legal 
form, with date for payment, etc. he had contented 
himself with a mere"I O U", of no legal value.   Harris 
of course, promised to pay promptly; but he never repaid 
a penny, and when after poor Papa's death, Mamma 
applied to him, over and over again, for the repayment 
of the aid so generously given, and which had saved him 
from utter and irremediable ruin, he never even answered 
her letters.  But while we remained in Bristol, Harris 
kept up a show of gratitude; and, one day, he got an 
invitation from some friends of his, for Papa to take 
all his family to Something Hall,the friend's place in 
the country, to see the new fangled great strawberries 
that had just been invented, with leave to gather and 
eat any quantity of the same.  So a couple of flys 
were had, and the whole family went off with the exception 
of poor me,who, having committed some great 
misdemeanor (I think it was obstinately refusing to 
drink some tea into which sugar had been put by mistake;- 
we children had been so harrowed by the statements about 
West Indian Slavery that we had givenup taking sugar 
in our tea, by way of protest) was left at home for 
punishment.  I dare say the others may remember that 
excursion; for they were all filled with amazement and 
delight at the size of the strawberries and the quantity 
they had eaten.

 Every summer we had a "strawberry 
feast", going off to the Ashton strawberry gardens; an 
immense plantation of that fruit, with tents and arbors, 
where parties sat and devoured quart after quart of the 
lovely fragrant fruit, with powdered sugar and cream, 
if called for, but the fruit was so luscious that sugar 
was not needed.  It was the beautiful original strawberry, 
not large, pale on one side,red on the other, 
that scented the whole house; far superior to the "Improved" 
varieties that have taken its place.  I came across 
some of that old kind a few years ago; and was able 
to certify myself that this superiority is real, and 
that my memory has served me faithfully.

I remember the Counterslip Sugarhouse 
being burned down, but can't fix the date of the 66

fire.  We were then living in Wilson St., and I can see 
the whole household, children, servants, Mamma, Aunts,all 
huddled against the railings at the top of"Bridge St. 
Back ", a slip of a street above the river, leading down 
to Bristol Bridge, feeling the heat of the railings, and 
watching the great feathers of flame, and the volumes 
of sparks, rushing up into the sky.  I suppose it must 
have been as atemporary substitute for the burned building 
that Papa took the Lewin's Mead Sugarhouse; after 
which he took the Nelson St. premises, and by way of economizing 
house rent, gave up Wilson St. and moved into the 
two dwelling houses which formed part of those premises; 
an unfortunate move as far as hygiene is concerned, for 
Nelson St. is in the very heart of one of the dirtiest 
and unhealthiest parts of the town; but as previously 
remarked people thought little of such considerations in 
those days.  A few week's stay by the sea in the summer, 
was looked upon as squaring up all accounts on the score 
of health.  And we must have taken the Olveston place soon 
after we moved to Nelson St.

I see Mr. Lowell (we ought to have 
called him"Uncle Lowell", he having married Mamma's only 
sister, Aunt Sarah, but we did not) coming into the Nelson 
St. front parlour (rarely used) and Mamma meeting him 
at the door as he came in; a tall,portly man, with a round 
face, white hair and easy, comfortable manner, quite a man 
of the world.  He had come down from London on business, 
and probably dined at our house, but this I don't remember.  
He took Mamma's hand and kissed her exclaiming with a 
smile, "Well Hannah! the same lovely creature as ever!" 
and Mamma's laughing as she brought him into the room.  
When he was gone I anxiously inquired,"Mamma, was Mr. Lowell 
in earnest when he called you a 'lovely creature'?  Never 
having chanced to consider her from that point of view, I 
had an uneasy suspicion that he had been quizzing her, and 
I did not like it.  "Oh, he said it as a joke", replied 
Mamma, who, at that time was remarkably pretty, and who 
probably thought her brother-in-law not far from the truth.  
We were so stupidly brought up, so absurdly held in, and 
so constantly put out of the way when people came to the 
house, that we were extremely shy of strangers, and used 
to slip out of sight the moment any visitor came in.  We no 
doubt did so on this occasion for I remember no more of 
Mr. Lowell's visit.  (On looking over the mention of Mr. 
Lowell's visit, I see I have got it wrong.  Mamma's reply 
to my query was, "Well, I dare say he meant it! " with a 
half pleased, half ashamed little laugh; in our heavy, 
commonplace set, nobody ever dreamed of making any little 
compliment.  It was after my insisting that he was not in 
earnest that she said"It was a joke".

Mr. Lowell had had other views for 
his son, and was extremely averse to the idea of his marrying 
Cousin Elizabeth.  These two always quarreled like 
cat and dog when they were together; but they made up 
their quarrels at last and married to their mutual grief 
and misery.  I fancy the fault was mostly hers; but they



67

got on well enough for some years.  It was after they went to 
Palermo that the separation began.  Mr. Lowell had finished 
by giving a reluctant consent or rather acceptation of the 
fait accompli, and they went to London where Sam was given a 
share in his father's great fruit importing house.  They lived 
in Pudding Lane, and thought themselves particularly lucky 
in having got a house "with such a nice opening in front", 
the "opening" being a densely crowded old churcg yard!  But 
there were trees and they thought it delightful to look out 
on the" nice open church-yard"!  They had several children, 
all of whom died in infancy.  Just after we left old Mr. Lowell 
sent his son to Palermo to act as Agent for the house in shipping 
oranges, lemons, figs, and raisins to them in London.  
They must have had some more children while living there, as 
Elizabeth, when she returned to England had a family.  It was 
not until some years after the scandal had occurred, that I 
learned the sequel of their doings in Palermo.  It seems that 
Sam Lowell had to go to England on business, and was detained 
longer than he expected.  When he returned he was astounded 
to find that his place of business appeared to have vanished! 
but he presently discovered his name with that of his head 
clerk, on the opposite side of the street.  Elizabeth had taken 
possession of this clerk, moved the establishment across the 
way, and set up with this fellow as partner and deputy husband.  
She had also taken the opportunity of Sam's absence to enter 
the Catholic Church.  The affair was so barefacedly bad in all 
respects, that Sam, backed by the Earl of Shaftsbury( whose anti-Catholic 
zeal led him to furnish Sam with the funds for obtaining 
a divorce) immediately sued his wife and the head clerk.  
The affair made a considerable noise; Elizabeth, I believe, did 
not attempt any denial or explanation or attenuation; she 
braved it out, saying everything she could against her husband, 
in court.  Of course Sam gained, they were divorced, and she 
then came back to England with several children, and took a 
house in Cave St. Bristol,either the one Aunt Mary once occupied 
or close by it.  When Elizabeth learned that I was come back to 
England, she wrote me, expressing her wish to renew intercourse; 
but I took no notice of her letter, desiring to have nothing to 
do with her.  As to Sam, I have never heard what became of him.

My pen has run ahead of events; I ought to have 
gone on with Elizabeth's history before her marriage.  And in 
order to do that I must go back to Uncle William's pleasant place 
at Theale, a village near Wells, where he lived for many years, 
leaving it at last to live at Olbeston.  I can't imagine why, or 
how he came to discover that very uninteresting and ugly village.  
I think Uncle Lane had lived at Theale from the time of his marriage.  
His wife was the daughter of Dr. Davis, a Dissenting minister 
at Wells; I almost think the Chapel he preached in every 
Sunday in Wells, must have been the one formerly preached in by 
his father-in-law.  The Theale house was a gentleman's place.  
Fronting the road was a low thatched, creeper-covered old building, 
looking cottage-like, but gay and pleasant, with old windows 
of small panes.  The carriage entrance was to the right of 
this part of the house, as you came in.  A broad graveled drive 
took you round the house to the handsomer new part, with a portico 
at the hall-door; the drive went round a pear shaped grass plat; 
a bed of tall shrubbery closed the ground to the left, as you 
stood under the portico; in front the orchard and fields and the 68

Cheddar Hills in the distance; to the right more shrubbery 
and beyond a wall, and beyond it the kitchen garden,stabling 
etc., out of sight.  The house was handsome but scantily 
furnished and rather cold looking.  The parlours looked on 
the little pear-shaped lawn; the breakfast room and the 
splendid great oldfashioned kitchen, pantries,store roometc. 
were in the old part, fronting the road.  All the year round 
a glowing peat fire burned on the great open hearth in the 
kitchen, giving to the house a peculiar smell that I used 
to be very fond of.  The tyrant of the house was a married 
servant, Sally, who had lived and reigned there for ages; 
the most honest, faithful, capable and devoted creature, 
but a frightful tyrant, ruling poor Elizabeth with a rod 
of iron, and making Uncle Lane see, decide, and do, exactly 
according to her say so.  She was a capital cook.  What lovely 
brown bread and perfect butter she turned out every week!  What 
nice dishes she always sent to table; and how perfectly she 
cooked the large mushrooms that abounded in the region and 
were Uncle Lane's favourite dainty!  She was so fabulously 
neat and clean that you might have eaten off the kitchen 
floor; and everything about her was in its place as though it 
grew there.  Her husband was the male factotum of the establishment, 
gardener, groom, valet, etc.  Her sister Hetty, 
much younger and a sworn crony of Elizabeth's, was house and 
parlour maid.  I was only twice there.  The first time was 
when our Elizabeth was about two years old; the whitest little 
round bundle of a child to be found anywhere.  I think Sam 
must have been the (inevitable ) baby of the epoch.   We were 
all there with a couple of servants; I fancy we stayed there 
some weeks.  Cousin Elizabeth was delighted to have us there, 
as Hatty was usually here sole companion.  I remember our 
going (children and servants) to a beautiful country-seat in 
the neighborhood, a Capt.  Somebody's, with whose housekeeper 
Sally was on friendly terms.  We brought back great quantities 
of flowers, after having tea and cake in the housekeeper's 
room.  We were to have gone to see the famous Cheddar Cliffs 
and grottoes, Cheddar Caves I think they were called; but we 
did not go.  In the principal parlour was an ostrich-egg, 
Chinese screens, and a fine china jar of that delicious potpourri 
that we were always sniffing at, and that Uncle Lane 
finally gave to Mamma.  In the hall was an upright clock, also 
a large barometer.  A bedroom in the old part over the breakfast 
room was supposed to be haunted, and no one liked to go 
up or down the handsome broad stairs at night, alone.  Sally 
had a dreadful little son, a horrid squalling boy of three or 
four; a pest, spoiled by his Mother.  I remember nothing of 
our going there or coming away.  After the ridiculous episode 
of Elizabeth's being sent to Aunt Ann's ridiculous boarding-school, 
from which she was taken, thanks to her mother's 
angry objections (perfectly founded), she was sent to a fashionable 
"finishing-school" in Wells, expensive but considered 
excellent, where her vanity flourished, and she laid in an 
extensive stock of airs and graces, and made several rather 
grand acquaintances.  She also became dreadfully affected.  
She had a most beautiful voice, one that would have made her 
fortune on the stage.  She went naturally and without effort 
up to C above the lines.  The singing master at her school 


69

(Mr. Bishop, since Knighted, but then only beginning his 
career, which has been a brilliant one) was most urgent 
to have her trained for a public singer; but the narrow 
prejudices of our set precluded the adoption of the plan; 
and her exquisite voice was simply thrown away.  Among 
other acquaintances she formed at school, and which she 
was not allowed to keep up, Uncle Lane narrow-mindedly 
thinking them too grand and fashionable, was a charming 
and very honorable family named Irving, people of fortune 
and position.  The son fell in love with Elizabeth, who 
also fell in love with him.  When she left the school, 
where she had been very intimate with his sisters, he 
rode over to Theale to make Uncle Lane's acquaintance 
and offer himself as a suitor.  I think he had previously 
brought his sisters to call on her.  The match would have 
been a most excellent on e in every respect, and poor 
Elizabeth would probably have turned out very differently 
with such a husband and such a family.  Unhappily, the 
mother of another family of her school-fellows had set her 
heart on getting young Irving for one of her daughters;and 
she contrived to send some one to see Uncle Lane, to stuff 
him with falsehoods about the young man and his intentions, 
and to set him against all further intercourse.  The treacherous 
plan was but too successful;and when Mr. Irving went 
there on purpose to offer himself, Uncle Lane met him with 
the grossest insults, unbraided him with coming with dishonourable 
intentions, refused to listen to his visitor's statements, 
and rudely ordered him to "begone, if he would not be 
turned out".  A more preposterous piece of ill-mannered folly 
was never perpetrated; and poor Elizabeth, who was much in 
love with young Irving, thus lost a most excellent alliance, 
offering every prospect of happiness and prosperity.  Uncle 
William found out the trick when too late and had every reason 
to regret the stupid blindness with which he had ruined his 
daughter's prospects.  Elizabeth was a very handsome showy 
girl,much admired.

The second time I visited Theale, I 
was alone.  I must have been about twelve, Elizabeth sixteen.  
She took dreadful airs of superiority on this account,and 
vexed me by introducing and speaking of me as "my little 
cousin".  She had been long begging to have me make her a 
visit, and this was at length, after much entreaty and 
many refusals, conceded.  Uncle Lane came to Bristol in his 
old gig, as usual, to fetch me; and we broke the journey,as 
he always did, by taking [blank] on the way, he being a favorite 
of the Lax ladies and always spending a night there 
on his way to and from Bristol.  A heavy rain set in and kept 
us there two or three days, which was an woful infliction for 
me as I wanted to get the Theale and I had to sleep with 
gaunt Caroline Lax, who pushed so constantly in her sleep, 
that she forced me out of bed, so that I spent these disagreeable 
nights in climbing over her and getting into bed on 
the side she had quitted, when she at once began pushing her 
way across the bed again, till she had again pushed me out of 
bed, and I had to climb over her again, in the opposite direction.  
It was long before I got over the nightmare impression 
caused me by that curious and very uncomfortable experience.  
( 21 June, '82 ) Mrs. Uniacke,née Lax,the mistress 70

of the house, was very kind, and let me help her with the 
tea; I put in the sugar and cream, and handed the cups, and 
was praised for being useful, which was some little relief 
to the monotony of those soaking days.  At last to my great 
joy the sun glistened on the wet box borders, the dripping 
shrubbery, and the soaking gravel-paths.  Uncle Lane had his 
gig made ready, and went away from a very hospitable house, 
where the cake was plentiful, but from which I was intensely 
desirous to get away.

When we reached Theale, Elizabeth in a 
pink gingham frock,and as blooming as a milk-maid, received 
me with great satisfaction.  What we did with ourselves through 
the day I have forgotten, but the evenings were delightful, 
as Elizabeth possessed three volumes of a four volume edition 
of the Arabian Nights,which I had never read, and which 
she used to lend me when she sat down to the piano to sing 
for Uncle Lane, as she did every evening after tea.  I used 
to settle myself near her , with the delightful book, which 
transported me to fairyland and kept me there until she had 
finished playing, when she shut up the piano and the book, 
and we went to bed.  She and the servants firmly believed 
that there was a ghost in the house, and we always made a 
frightened rush past the door of the room from which it was 
declared to issue.  All the servants fully believed in it, 
as Hester always protested she had seen it.  When I was 
there I slept with Elizabeth; when she had no visitor to 
keep her company, Hester always slept with her.  Neither of 
them would have slept alone for any consideration.  My 
visit was pleasant enough in the beginning.  We had a drive 
now and then in the gig; and on Sundays we went in that 
ancient vehicle to Wells, where Uncle Lane was pastor to 
an obscure congregation, his ministrations being confined 
apparently, to the preaching of two very dull sermons each 
Sunday.  We used to dine between the sermons,at the house of 
one of his deacons who had a plump and hospitable wife very 
liberal in her helpings to everything on the table.  Uncle 
W. paid them a fixed yearly sum for this reception.  We 
detested the Sundays, though going into Wells and dining 
there was a break in the monotony of Theale life.  Elizabeth 
and I were very fond of going into the orchard and 
devouring the fine apples,until Uncle W. took it into his 
head to make us useful in gathering and picking up the 
apples for the cider making.  The grass was generally wet, 
the fogs were beginning to be felt; the one male factotem 
of the establishment climbed the great trees and sent the 
apples down in showers.  Uncle W. would not let us go into 
the house until the last cold slippery apple had been picked 
out of the dripping grass and thrown into the great baskets 
to be carried to the cider mill.  It was very hard weary 
work; I was indignant at being thus forced to work so hard 
and at having to stand with draggled frock and wet feet 
all day long, until it was too dark to go on longer.  I let 
Uncle W. see that I did not like it; and Elizabeth who was 
as angry and as vexed as I was, and had expatiated to me on 
the cruelty and abomination from which we were suffering, 
most shabbily turned against me to please her Father, and, 

          
71

on my remonstrating with her on this doublefacedness, 
astounded me by saying in an injured tone, " I think, 
Anna, that you have treated Papa very badly! " This additional 
vexation filled my cup to overflowing.  I wrote 
to Mamma telling her that I was persecuted and miserable, 
and entreated so vehemently to be taken away that my 
visit was cut short at once,to my great relief and satisfaction.  
How I was taken home, I don't remember; but I 
think Papa,who was fond of driving, probably hired a gig 
and came for me himself.

I think Theale must have been a 
pleasant rural village, very poor; with good country air, 
and an all-pervading smell of peat,the only fuel used in th 
that region, which looks to my mind's eye as though it 
must be marshy.  There was a very old man, a day-labourer, 
living in a little thatched cottage, whose hands had been 
so entirely covered with great warts, that he could not 
work; His hands were unmanageable from the stiffness of 
these excresences.  Uncle W. had the reputation of being 
a"charmer of warts," and people came to him from far and 
wide to beg him to cure their warts, which he did by stroking 
them nine times with a wedding ring.  Absurd as it may 
seem, I witnessed the curing of several hands in this way 
by him.  He said he could not account for it, but somehow 
the warts always disappeared in a few days after he 
had stroked them.  He completely cured the poor old labourer 
who was able to resume his working and who always 
seemed extremely grateful to him for the cure.  I had two 
or three nasty little warts on my hands; one, especially, 
just at the end of a finger, that was always getting half 
torn off and very troublesome; Uncle W. cured them all 
by stroking them.  Elizabeth's life was anything than suitable 
for a gay pretty young girl, bent on getting married.  
She saw no one but the servants and had no amusements whatever 
excepting her occasional visits to us.  Had she been 
better trained and homed she might have turned out better.  
As it was her subsequent conduct was so scandalously bad 
that, when she came back to England, after Uncle W's death, 
Howy and I declined to renew acquaintance with her.  We 
really could not do otherwise.  I have had neither communication 
with, nor news of, her or her husband since then; 
I have no idea whether they are alive or dead.  It is certainly 
curious that we should have had so few relatives, 
and in the second place, have had so little to do with the 
few we possessed.
A
Aug. 22.    Several weeks have elapsed since I was 
able to add to this gossipy scrawl.  I've been ill, and I've 
had the very pleasant little visit from Elizabeth and Grace 
of which I wrote you.  I now, for the first time, continue 
this narrative in the cottage which I am so delighted to have 
as a quiet and peaceful little retreat from the worries and 
torments of my life in the other house.  I am writing at the 
little table which was formerly on duty [at the ca] in my 
cabin on the beach at Wimille; I prize it as a memento of 
a phase of my kaleidoscopic life which was extremely pleasant 72


to me for the short time it lasted.  This little table, like the few pieces of furniture I have had made by the village carpenter for this sunny, airy, charming room, is of deal, now painted dark brown, like the rest of them, and looks very pretty.  Before I came back from Nice I had a message, through the involuntary writing, telling me that my coming stay in Triel "would be as different from my previous life in this place as was that previous Triel life from the life that preceded it."  And this prediction has undoubtedly been fulfilled by the obtaining of this little property, which has changed my life here entirely, and will, I trust, through the getting of the other two houses and what I expect to find in their foundations, change the whole aspect of my position here and of the work I came to Triel to do.  But to return to my reminiscences.  

   The first house in which Aunt Mary set up independently, as the keeper of a school for little boys (at Papa's expense and risk of course!) was in Cave St., I think No. 11; a dull street, opening out of Portland Square, close to Wilson St., modest, with a small garden behind, and in that garden a splendid white jessamine covering the back of the house and filling it with perfume, and a great climbing white rose tree, the most lovely snow-white roses I ever saw, exquisite and in enormous profusion.  From that house she moved into a very much handsomer one in Brunswick Square, where she took boarders, two prim ladies, in addition to  her school.  She was just beginning to get her head above water, when we left for America; and she and Aunt Lucy determined to come too.  What an unwise break-up of the whole family!  What a throwing away of furniture and general belongings, amassed slowly and with such effort, and sold off for a song!  How well I remember the Nelson St. back parlour, set out with the handsome silver and lots of other things, with the prices marked for each lot, and all the "friends" and connexions coming to paw them over, trying hard to buy them for less than the prices marked, which were greatly under their value.  Both Papa and Mamma were not a little surprised at this vulgar selfishness on the part of people whom they had so long looked on as "friends" and this proof of their want of justice and kindness was not without its influence in strengthening their determination to go away.  All the rooms in the house were thus turned into sales rooms; for everything worth keeping was sacrificed to the need of turning all saleable things into cash. The beautiful front parlour furniture was sacrificed like everything else; but I cannot recall what had become of the very handsome furniture of the Wilson St. "best bedroom," It never went to Nelson St., where the visitor's room was fitted up with other furniture; I remember an ancient bedstead there, the posts of which, mahogany black with age, were covered with beautiful carvings, as were those of Mamma's bedroom.  We gave up Olveston for the great move.  Uncle Blackwell married his second wife about that time and brought her to Bristol, and we had them at Olveston on their wedding


73

jaunt.  We all went over to Chepstow in a little sailing boat, much to my terror; we went thence to see some lovely scenery on the river Wye, and I think we went to see the famous ruins of Tintern Abbey. ( We were to have gone but had not time for going to Tintern Abbey). On our return Uncle Blackwell perpetrated a rhyming account of the excursion, and presented the same to me.  After that, Marian and I were sent with them to London, after which we accompanied them for a visit to them in Worcester.  They lived in a pleasant cottage sort of a place, with a garden standing in the grounds of a handsome house, inhabited by the owner of the whole in whose grounds we were allowed to walk.  The visit was not especially agreeable though they were both very kind; Papa was too busy with the preparations for going away to come for us as he was to do; and our stay dragged on til we were tired and longing to get off.  I only remember cousin Sam in  nankeen (Kenyon was in Bristol with Papa), a lovely honeysuckle that covered half the cottage, and the very nice stewed beef and plain cake on making which Aunt Blackwell No. 2 prided herself, not without reason.  She was tall with a frightful squint; anything than handsome but particularly kind, though very prim and slow in manner.  She had been the leading dress maker and milliner in Worcester and had put by some money.  She took me in hand, and opened my eyes generally in regard to attire, giving me an idea of dress which was very useful to me, taught me how to make bonnets and caps, and did me much good in the department of clothes and the wearing of them.

May 3 '84:  Much vexed, two days ago, on suddenly remembering your coming birthday, to see that I was too late for my meditated finishing, and sending off these jottings for your birthday.  To return to our "muttons".

    Uncle Blackwell and his new wife, whom his sons never took to, though she was very kind to them, came to Bristol for their wedding-tour; thence they went on to London, and as Papa and Mamma thought that Marian and I were too big to leave England without having seen the metropolis, and Cousin Elizabeth begged to have us for a little visit, we accompanied them to London, on the top of the coach, as cheaper and better for seeing the country.  M and I had just had black silk veils allowed us; we were excessively proud of them, thinking it made us look "womanly" a disagreeable man on top of the coach, who had a cold spit violently just as the wind was blowing hard, and the wind carried the horror into my veil, the disgust thereby occasioned never having entirely left me! What horrid creatures there are in the world!  And what vile little adventures!!! 

   We stayed a fortnight in London; Cousin Sam joined us and we "did" the leading "lions" not very intelligently, I fancy, for we only took away with us very vague and evanescent impressions.  I suppose we were in lodgings, through the menagerie part of our stay;74

and I fancy the newly wedded couple went somewhere on 
a visit of pleasure or of business, for the few days we 
then spent with Sam and Elizabeth Lowell.  They were 
very kind but we did not much enjoy the visit, their 
ways of going on and talking being so different to those 
to which we were accustomed, so that we had a constant 
sense of being in a sinful sort of atmosphere, with 
whiffs of prospective brimstone now and then.  Elizabeth 
only just twenty, had thought it incumbent on her to 
take to caps, as being matronly, and wore dreadful things 
mounted on wires and carrying gay ribands, which she 
thought the perfection of elegance.  She had a young 
baby and a wet nurse called "Cow".  We were all so absurdly 
brought up, so held in, so thoroughly accustomed 
to rush off and hide ourselves if any visitor came to the 
house, that we were always choking with timidity and 
mauvaise honte if ever caught by a stranger.  We were 
always so shabbily dressed that we were always painfully 
conscious of not looking like other people and of not 
knowing what to do with our hands and our arms.  To these 
awkwardnesses was added the embarrassment caused us by 
having been strictly enjoined by Papa, before leaving 
Bristol, not to say a word to anyone of our approaching 
exodus, and to say nothing, or turn it off as well as 
we could, if anyone alluded in our presence, to the existence 
of any such intention, or questioned us in regard 
to any rumor of the same.  As Sam Lowell had heard 
that such a project existed, he very naturally questioned 
us about it; the necessity imposed on us of dodging his 
enquiries added perceptibly to the uneasiness of our sensations.  
Besides instead of having had a neat travelling-dress 
[for wearing] and some pretty dress for wearing indoors, 
we had been given nothing whatever but a plain,ugly little 
pelisse of black silk, which had to do duty for all toilet 
purposes from the time we got away from home til we got 
back again.  So we felt shabby and unlike other girls, and 
accordingly when Mr. Lowell senior came with his second 
wife to call on Mamma's two young daughters and invite us 
to dinner, we obstinately and utterly refused to go down t
to the drawing-room, and they had to go away without seeing 
us!  As to going to their handsome house to dine, carts 
and horses would not have dragged us into doing it!!!  
What must they have thought of girls 16 and 14 proving to 
be such ridiculous little savages?  We had also been compelled 
before obtaining the parental permission to go to 
London, to give our solemn promise not to go to a theater; 
so when Sam L. came in one day, to announce triumphantly 
that he had tickets for Drury Lane, to see the last appearance 
of the leading tragedian of the day (I suppose Kean) 
in Hamlet, he could not believe his ears when we declined 
to go.  We were obliged to plead the absurd interdiction 
and the impossibility of breaking our word.  So he and 
Elizabeth went without us,having given huge delight to 
two of their friends by giving them the previous tickets 
we were debarred from using, and which it had been all but 
impossible to get, as it was the great actors last appearance 
before leaving the stage.


   75
"
   " Poor children! " was Mamma's not 
very wise exclamation, I really wish you had ventured 
to go! " when, on our return, we recounted the incident.  
Being honest creatures we were rather scandalized at this, 
as a dereliction from principle; it is certain that the 
mere thought of breaking our word had not entered either 
Marian's mind or mine.

From London we went with Uncle and 
Aunt B. to Worcester, and stayed there very much too 
long.  Papa being too busy to come for us.  We became extremely 
weary of the enforced visit, which was very dull.  
Cousin Sam was often pugnacious, had joined a debating 
society, and often insisted on practicing his speeches on 
M. and me, whether we would or no.  My pleasantest remembrance 
of that visit is our dining with"Uncle James Stokes" 
and "Aunt Powell", brother and sister of Grandmamma Blackwell.  
"Aunt Powell " was tall, rather stately, and well 
dressed; an old widow without weeds, wearing delicate 
gray silk and delicate white muslin; quiet, but very kind.  
"Uncle James Stokes" over 70, so small that he had to be 
set on a stool upon the chair from which, a napkin tied under 
his chin, and a great carving knife and fork in his 
hands, he carved the magnificent great joint of roast 
veal, the savoury fumes of which I seem to smell as I recall 
the scene, and which with the exception of the salad, is all 
that I can remember of this middle day dinner, which from 
the splendour and excellence of the roast,doubtless included 
many other nice things.  "Uncle James Powell(?)" was the ve 
very merriest grig I ever saw in the whole course of my life.  
He had just about three long gray hairs on his head, a round 
beardless face, absolutely toothless mouth, beaming blue eyes; 
incessantly laughing, telling funny stories, making funny 
remarks, shaking from top to toe with merriment.  Very hospitable, 
dispensing the lovely roast veal with immense satisfaction 
and delight.  He had been in France, and prided himself 
greatly on his skill in making a French salad.  I can see him 
diving his implements into the salad bowl, full of beautiful 
lettuce, crisp, yellow, fresh, juicy, mixing the salt and 
pepper, the vinegar and the oil, talking and laughing all the 
time, and telling us what a triumph the salad was going to be; 
Marian and I, who had never seen lettuce or any other salad 
otherwise than in a state of Nature, who had never tasted 
salad oil in our lives, and regarded everything oily with 
horror (thinking of castor oil) were on thorns, during this 
preparation!  It was to our minds, impossible to decline 
what our host regarded as the triumph of the repast; but 
the agonies we suffered in getting it down, and our terror 
lest we should fail, despite our efforts,in keeping it down, 
was a social trial, whose difficulties I have never forgotten!!!

When at length, Papa managed to come 
for us and take us back to what was so soon to cease being 
our "home", we found the preparations for our flitting far 
advanced.  Olveston was given up, the Nelson St. rooms were 
half dismantled; and the last fortnight of our stay was 
passed in lodgings at the Hot Wells, near the basin in which 76

lay the vile, stinking, dirty little "Cosmo" in which berths 
for our caravan had been engaged.  Papa had thought of sailing 
from Harvre; then, of sailing from London or Liverpool; 
considerations of lessened cost decided him at last, to go 
from Bristol and in the dreadful tub aforesaid.

It is difficult, without admitting 
the action of something in the nature of fatality, to comprehend 
how so monstrous a piece of folly as this uprooting 
could ever have been planned, and perpetrated by a sensible 
man.  Papa was held in such high and universal esteem, was 
regarded as such a useful, honorable, valuable citizen, 
that the leaking out of his intention to quit England was 
deprecated throughout the town.  It was known that through 
the failure of two of the great sugar-importers, (or probably 
commission agents), Bevan & Co., and another whose 
name has escaped me, he had been a very heavy loser (I have 
since heard Papa say that the amounte thus lost were close 
on Lb 70,000); and it was naturally inferred that pecuniary 
difficulties had induced this move.  A sort of  private-public-meeting 
was therefore convened by some of the leading business 
men of the town, who met in the exchange and drew up a set 
of Resolutions, which were unanimously voted and of which a 
copy was at once transmitted to Papa.  These Resolutions stated 
that the undersigned had heard with the deepest regret that 
it was Mr. Blackwell's intention to remove, with his family, 
to the United States; that they regarded the loss of such a 
citizen as a public calamity to the town; that it was impossible 
to attribute such an intention to any other motive than 
to the heavy pecuniary losses which Mr. B was believed to 
have undergone through recent events not under his control 
(Controul); and that they consequently pledged themselves, 
individually and collectively, to furnish him with any amount 
of capital he should consent to name, as a loan, for 
any number of years at one and a half per cent, in order to 
avoid the threatened loss to the town of so highly respected 
and useful a member of the community.

I do not think that I saw the document; 
but I was present when Mamma and Aunt Mary were discussing 
the offer in the Nelson St. parlour, and regretting the refusal 
which Papa's pride had caused him instantly to return 
to the overture, which was a most rare and splendid testimony 
to the great respect he had inspired in the minds of the leading 
people of the town, as honourable to him to whom it was 
addressed as to those from whom it emanated, ((emanted)) and 
that he might have accepted without the slightest feeling of 
reluctance or humiliation.  It is useless to regret the past; 
but it is impossible not to see what a very different life 
would have been his own and that of all of us, had he accepted 
the capital so honourably offered.  Bristol was then in fact, 
"the second city of the Empire", and its leading interest was 
the sugar trade.  All those who were engaged in it at that 
time made magnificent fortunes; had Papa remined, he could 
hardly have managed to do anything else.  The Miles family 
became millionaires, bought Redland Court when its ancestral 
owner, Sir Henry Vaughn, went to the dogs, and reside there 


   77

still, having long represented the town in Parliament.  All 
the others made splendid fortunes; the career of the elder 
Finzel, who began life in England as sugar-boiler under Papa, 
at Counterslip, was a romance of money-making; - that his 
sons foolishly threw away the enormous fortune made by their 
father detracts nothing from the fact that the business, and 
the very premises that Papa so unwisely abandoned just when 
the proffered help would have enabled him to enlarge and solidify 
his business to any extent, made old Finzel a millionaire; 
and porves nothing against the certainty that, by thus 
refusing help which he would have been one of the first to 
join in rendering to another, he voluntarily cut himself off 
from the certainty of a splendid fortune and the securing of 
a large useful, honourable career.  He had already been spoken 
of for Mayor; he would undoubtedly been elected had he remained.  
And with a local standing such as he had only to will 
to have acquired, he might, had he wished it, have been in 
Parliament before long.  Unhappily the same unwise desire of 
standing alone, the same horror of owing anything to others, 
that prompted his first fatal decision to leave the [firm of] 
old and wealthy firm of Harwood & Co.,of which he would soon 
have become the junior partner and free to win in the firm 
any place he might have chosen to occupy (for the head of the 
firm was growing old, and the son was his fast and affectionate 
friend) determined him to reject the proffered capital, 
to sacrifice his excellent standing and all its great advantages, 
to throw away the considerable amount of property put 
into the furniture and belongings so pitiably sacrificed, and 
to plunge with his numerous young family, into the world of 
loss, ruin, anxiety, and misery which shortened his own life 
and has so nearly destroyed the peace and usefulness of ours, 
harassed as we have all been by finding ourselves left to 
battle with the world without money, connexions, or any of 
the aids, the lack of which makes life little else but a wearing 
and wasting struggle.  With one of most generous of temperaments, 
a most retentive and well stored memory which had 
enabled him, by reading, to largely compensate for the want 
of training and instruction in his youth (so that he was really 
an authority on almost any subject broached in conversation) 
a high sense of honour and of principle, his life was ruined 
by two weaknesses; one of these was the pride that insisted 
on standing alone, instead of fortifying his financial weakness, 
on beginning life without capital or connexions of his 
own, by an alliance with those who had an abundance of both:- 
the second was the singular blending of a boldness, almost 
amounting to audacity and imprudence, in pursuing his own 
plans and designs (which his great business talent enabled 
him to do with signal success as long as the current of affairs 
went with him) with an utter inability to brace himself 
up against unexpected difficulties, to which he succumbed 
on the instant, instead of nerving himself to meet them, 
from a conviction that it is just when difficulties arise 
that one must put forth all one's strength, pluck and ingenuity 
to meet them.

One of the strangest things about the 
life of our excellent, most generous and affectionate Father, 
whose coldness of manner and austerity of ideas I see, on looking 77

back, had begun rapidly to soften in the latter years 
of his life, was the unaccountable and unfortunate influence 
exercised on his mind and action, by Mr. Howells.  That influence 
was, undoubtedly, the one which at the last, turned 
the scale and led to our expatriation and all the hardships 
and disappointments of our lives.  The perpetual worry inflicted 
on himby Grandpapa's perversity and cantankerousness - 
the death of Grandmamma, whom he was extremely fond of - the 
removal of Dr. Leifchild to London, all these things undoubtedly 
loosened the hold of Bristol on his mind;- but it was 
the absurdly glowing descriptions sent him concerning the 
New World, by Howells, and his persistent urging of him to 
bring his family to a country, where he declared there was 
room for everyone, and a certainty of every sort of success, 
that finally turned the scale in favor of the move.  Mr. 
Leifchild had a great and sincere affection for Papa; he abhorred 
Bristol which he called a "dirty vulagr place", and 
"filthy hole", which it was and is, though the surrounding 
country is so lovely as to compensate for the shortcomings 
of the town itself.  He did his utmost to induce Papa to come 
to London, which would have been unwise, Bristol being the 
center and  the circumference of  the sugar trade, to which of 
course Papa's [ideas] activities and interests were necessarially wedded.  
He used to urge his bringing his children away from "Bristol 
vulgarity", to the"polish of London."  To which I remember 
Papa's replying "But my dear friend, you must remember you 
can't bring up a large family on polish! "  Which is very 
true, but had he persevered instead of allowing  himself to be 
discouraged and to run away from difficulties instead of 
meeting and vanquishing them with the ample aid that was 
ready to his hand, he might perfectly well have brought up 
the large family in England, without sacrificing"the polish" 
of life,as inflicted by our violent uprooting.

What on earth could have taken Uncle 
Lane from so pleasant and respectable a residence at his 
place at Theale to the altogether Inferior house at Olveston.  
I fancy he desired a change and also to be nearer to us.  I 
have a vague notion that he tried Horfield,did not like it, 
and meandered about in the neighborhood of Bristol, until 
he fixed on just about the ugliest, least interesting village 
of the region.  His going there coincided with our unwholesome 
move from Wilson St. to the dirt and bad air of Nelson 
St.; and as he discovered the house we took, then vacant, and 
did his utmost to get us there, we took it and liked it on 
account of its beautiful fruit.  We must have taken it just 
after Elizabeth's marriage, for she was never there after we 
had set up our tent in the ugly little place.

The Quaker lady who had married her 
coachman, John Beard, the owner of the place, but rarely 
paid us any attention; I think the one time I dined there 
with Papa and Mamma, must have been the only occasion of the 
kind;- we may have taken tea there, once or twice, but I 
don't remember.  Mrs. Beard's special parlour, very pleasant, 
had a great bow window, forming nearly one side of the room, 
opening out upon her own small but lovely flower garden.special  
A


78

As there was no house, no wall anywhere near.  I suppose 
it must have been shrubbery that hemmed it in, and gave 
it the cosy feeling of solitude and privacy that was an 
additional charm.  It was a mosaic of color and redolent 
of sweetness.

Haymaking season was already eagerly 
anticipated by all of us.  Every child has his or her 
wooden rake, and we went haymaking wherever we might be.  
As we turned over the hay diligently and thoroughly we 
were always welcome.  We had a splendid time haymaking 
in the Beard's meadows; and greatly enjoyed the 
home-made brown bread and the new cheese, sent out for 
the hay-makers in the middle of the day.  Before going 
to Olveston, on sunny afternoons when we went out for 
a long walk or stay out of doors, we carried our little 
rakes and turned into the first promising hayfield, setting 
to work at once, without, so far as I can remember, 
anything like a request to be allowed to toss the hay; 
though,as Aunt Barbara or Mamma, or one or more nursemaids, 
had us in charge, it is possible that permission 
may have been civilly asked on our behalf.

A very lovely walk, which, from 
doing it too often, we hardly rated at its true value, 
was in the large private property, generously thrown 
open to the public, called Tyndall's Park, owned by the 
family of which Professor Tyndall, now so eminent in 
Natural Science, is a member.  I specially remember 
one afternoon there with Mamma, when the lilacs, laburnums, 
white and pink may, and all the other lovely 
creatures that come out in their floral glory at the 
same time, were in their fullest splendour.  We went 
to this Park sometimes across College Green, up Park 
St., and so on to the entrance, sometimes from Redland, 
taking the road which goes to the left, as you emerge 
from the noble avenue of slms leading down from what 
was"Mother Pugsley's Field", according to the point 
from which we set out.  Being private property, Tyndall's 
Park may probably have escaped the building over which 
has already covered so many of our old haunts with houses.  
It is too bad that the famous "Well" in Mother Pugsley's 
Field -(two springs of totally different water 
streaming out, close together, into a pair of little 
stone basins, with lips, the water constantly falling 
into reservoirs beneath, and carried to houses in the 
neighborhood by pipes) should be absorbed in the garden 
of one of the houses.  This"Well" was an ancient landmark, 
and ought to have been kept public.  One of the 
streams was drawn upon from far and wide, as of perfect 
purity and softness for making tea, for which purpose 
it was supposed to be of unique excellence; the other 
stream was in equal demand as an eye-water.  Both were 
constantly drawn upon by people with pails and pitchers, 
from every part of the town.

"The Brook" was one of our favourite 79

places; how many hours we have spent there, trying 
to catch the minnows in tin or other cups we took 
with us for that purpose!  I do not think any minnow 
allowed itself to be taken.  The banks were 
fringed with alsers and various growths that frequently 
showed flowers; it was crossed by a single 
plank, the crossing of which always gave us something 
of a sense of adventure and danger, as it would have b 
been very easy to slip off, which would have given 
the faller a thorough sousing, though the water was 
hardly deep enough for drowning.  I think"the Brook" 
came from a mill in the vicinity, and I think Ashley 
Barn must be a rising ground overlooking this little 
stream.

Our walks on this side of the 
town were altogether more rural, than those to which 
we were restricted in the Counterslip days.  Then, 
we had only the black streets of that side of the 
town, with as "termini","Sea-banks" (the nature of 
which I cannot imagine) but where we clambered among 
and over a great quantity of planks, that seemed to 
be more or less in the river, and where I think we 
must have been in danger of drowning;- the comparatively 
open ground beyond the " New Cut ", on the 
banks of a canal; and, when bound for a longer outing, 
round the town, by the Docks and " Basins " to 
the [Hozwells?].

The open terrace about the 
fine old church of St. Mary Redcliffe, was also 
an occasional place of trotting for the many pairs 
of little feet turned out, twice a day, for exercise.  
The " Ben Palmer " grocer's shop was just 
under the pinnacles and buttresses of the old fane; 
and we generally contrived to have some errand there 
as they always gave us a large paper of almonds and 
raisins, or figs, or something of the kind; just as 
we always contrived to have to go in to Mr. Bancroft's 
if we went through College Green, as we were equally 
sure of a similar benefaction.

"The Philosophical Institute" (of 
which Papa was a member) and which I think he had something 
to do with setting on foot) was at the foot of 
Park St., just out of College [G] Green; he presented 
the Institute with the greater part of the curiosities 
from India and Madagascar, and I think also from New 
Zealand, brought home by Uncle Charley;- among other 
things, the head of a New Zealander, wonderfully tatooed, 
which the chief of the country insisted on presenting 
to him, much to his disgust, but which, from 
prudence, he was obliged to accept.  The chief pointed 
to a crowd, and told him to select the individual 
whose head he would prefer to have; as Uncle Charley 
was reluctant to do this, he chose the victim himself, 
sent his people to catch and kill him, and forthwith 


80

had his head prepared and baked in the pleasant style 
of his country,and presented it to the English officer 
who would have risked unpleasant consequences if he had 
declined to accept the compliment.  The horrid thing is 
doubtless still preserved in the Museum of the Institute.

The occasional parties given by our 
parents were rigidly confined to the people who frequented 
Bridge St. Chapel; a few of the people of Broad Mead 
were sometimes invited, but no others.  The utter horror 
infused into our minds of the Church, its services, liturgy, 
festivals, etc., is most curious to look back upon.  
I must have been twelve or thirteen before I ever crossed 
the threshold of a Curch, excepting the plain little 
church at Bourton.  Cousin Elizabeth, who fully believed 
the"Church" to be"the only religion for a Gentleman" (as 
Uncle Charley was fond of saying) or for a lady, hated 
Bridge St., Broadmead, and all other Dissenting Bethels, 
would have given anything to get her father to go into the 
Church, and one Sunday, as she and I came away from Bridge 
St. before the elders (who stayed for "Communion"), she 
persuaded me to come with her into (name forgotten) the 
Church under which is a passage from Clare St. to Nelson 
St.  I felt dreadfully guilty and alarmed, but curiosity 
got the better of my terrors, and in we went.  It was 
Christmas-tide; the old Church was beautifully decorated 
with holly and other evergreens; as we went in everyone 
was standing, the organ was pealing, and a gorgeous beadle 
came up to us and ceremoniously gave us seats.  Elizabeth 
got hold of a prayer book, looked out the places and showed 
herself to be quite at home in the mysteries of the service, 
which seemed to me equally grand, imposing, and incomprehensible.  
When the service was over we went home; Eliz. 
in a state of admiration for " Church " and intense contempt 
for " chapel ; I, feeling that I had done a very noteworthy 
thing, but not sure whether I had been tempting 
both Providence and the Devil.  However, I made a clean 
breast of it to Mamma, as soon as she came in; and was let 
off with a little mild blame and an injunction "Not to do 
it again."

I wonder, dear old Harry, if you remember 
the horrid reading of chapters, and getting down on knees, 
of "Family Prayers "!  How I detested it all!  I think the 
infliction was made before breakfast.  All the Dissenters 
did it!  Some extemporized the prayers, others read them, 
mostly from a dreadful compilation by a Mr. (or Dr. ) Jay.  
Uncle Charley when with us, of course put up civilly with 

NB.  Grandma (Hanna Lane) Blackwell says that at family 
prayers,both before and after her marriage, Uncle Charley 
used to kneel by her and try to catch her eye if she looked 
up for a moment: when he would make grimaces to try to make 
her laugh.  (Kitty Barrie-Blackwell)81

with the infliction, but we knew he did not like it, 
which consoled us under our repugnance.  What he not 
only did not like, but came out in disapprobation of, 
was the sudden turning of a social party into a prayer-meeting, 
if, about half past nine or so, a minister 
happened to come in, and, after making a small bit of a 
speech, or exhortation, uttered the magic words "Let 
us pray! "on which everybody turned to the wall all around 
the room, either standing or plumping down on their knees, 
according to the degree of flexibility possessed by their 
neither limbs.  I remember only one party at Mr. Leifchild's, 
at least only one at which I was allowed to be.  He had a 
large garden consisting of lawn and flower beds; I remember 
the, to me, wonderful profusion of lilies of the valley.  
I, who had been vainly devoting pocket money (we had two-pence 
a week) effort, and ingenuity, to the endeavour to 
persuade half a dozen of these lilies to blossom, in the 
little bed in front of the back parlour window, under the 
variegated holly with which Mamma had filled it, was perfectly 
astounded to see these precious little plants, that 
had seemed to me to be such great rarities, blossoming away 
like weeds, by the score and the hundred!  All the children 
of the gathering spent the visit mostly in the garden, very 
quietly, as it being the minister's house and party, they 
did not feel exactly free to scamper about the place as 
they would have like to do.  I fancy we had cake, gooseberry-fool, 
and tea & coffee; but I do not remember going 
into the house.  What I mainly remember is the sudden appearance 
of our host, followed by Mrs. Leifchild and the 
elder guests, his taking up a solemn stand in the middle of 
the grass-plat, and the utterance, after a few words of 
pious admonition, of the well known damper "Let us pray!"  
This being the wind-up of every such affair, everybody got 
into devout "position ", according to rule, and on finishing 
up with the usual ministerial blessing,put on cloaks, shawls, 
hats and bonnets, and took themselves off and homwards.  
Uncle Charley, who had been flirting with all the unmarried 
ladies, and was in full enjoyment of the fun with a pretty 
widow, (name forgotten) who made a desperate attack on him, 
taking him for a bachelor, - daughter of Mrs. Ingram,(one 
of the pillars of our church and our tea-dealer)  (what lovely 
tea we always had from her shop,just behind the Chaple, 
"8 p black & 10 p green", our perennial mixture!), was much 
put out by this summary stoppage of their little game.  He 
took it politely, but set forth to Papa, as we went home, 
how inconsistent he thought such a sudden lugging in of things 
sacred on the toes of things profane, and how he agreed with 
Solomon that there was "a time for everything", and that a 
lively party was not the time for"pulling people up on their 
haunches, for preachments, and praying".  And the next time 
he saw Mr. Leifchild (whom he greatly liked in general, and 
who greatly liked him) he gave him the benefit of the same 
train of reflections, which Mr. Leifchild combated amiably, f 
from his point of view.  It is curious how living those early 
years and scenes and the actors therein, seem to me after the 
lapse of a good bit over half a century!  While the scenes, 
incidents of the odious years passed in America seem to have


  82

faded out of my memory past the power of recalling!  As 
those years were filled with physical illness, anxiety, 
uphill work and worry, I rejoice in the fading out of the 
reminiscences of that period of my life.  Not that I take 
any special pleasure in the vivid remembrance of the things of 
my childhood; for with the exception of the visits to Weston, 
Salt-house, and Bourton, the glimpses of flowers and certain 
lovely bits of scenery, I utterly detest everything connected 
with my constrained, held in, undeveloped girlhood!

I often wonder as I jot down these 
glimpses, how much of them you may remember, Harry dear.  
I find it impossible to class "the children" in connexion 
therewith.  I doubt if you were ever in Bourton; it seems to 
me that Sam was the last of the lot before the smash that 
drove poor Aunt and Uncle Browne from their handsome, hospitable 
home,to the two dull rooms in Corn St.  I doubt if 
you can remember anything at Weston, though I think you must 
have been there.  Of Clifton and Durdham Downs, of St. 
Vincent's Rocks, of Brandon Hill, perhaps of"The Brook" 
and the rambles on that side of town, and of Olveston, you 
doubtless have a set of memories of your own.  I wonder if 
you remember the splendid pyrus japonica on the front of the 
Olveston Cottage, and the jolly hay-makings in John Beard's 
meadows?  And the renowned "Black Rose" at the bottom of the 
back garden?  And the enormous gooseberries, the size of a 
hen's egg, on the wall of the orchard, and the one fig that 
came to perfection along-side of the great gooseberry plant 
trained against that sheltered wall?  And your falling into 
the brook that runs through the garden (or Ellen,I forget 
which) in gathering the water-cresses that lined that mighty 
stream?

Do you remember our admirable old 
cook, who kept the house in Nelson St., cooking for Papa, 
and for Kenyon and young Palmer, who remained there until 
we left, "Old Margaret" of admirably savoury memory!  What 
a perfection of a servant she was!  Papa had finished by 
buying the little yellow carriage and gray pony that the 
musical carriage builder used to drive the various amateur 
preachers down to Clevedon in; he called the horse "Bessie 
* Gray" in honour of"Little Shy "of whom he was particularly 
fond; he went to town every morning, coming out at night, 
along that solitary seven-mile lane, after Aimesbury, in 
which it is a marvel he was never attacked.  More than one 
crime has been perpetrated in that lonely lane, which had not 
a single dwelling of any kind through its whole length.  And 
he never possessed any arms; he would have been absolutely 
without any available defense, had he been set upon by 
scoundrels, as it is a wonder he was not.  Twice a week, 
Marian, Elizabeth and I, went in with him,to take lessons 
of the masters who were supposed to instruct us; but of 
whom the only one to be called a trainer was excellent Mr. 

NB.  "Little Shy" - Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell83

Hartnell, Principal of a highly-reputed Boy's School, in the 
Fort, at the top of St. Michael's Hill.  If I had but been in 
his hands, instead of those of the trumpery creatures, paid 
to do what they were incapable of doing, it would have been 
a very different affair!  Our drawing-master, in his way, was 
skilful and painstaking and had the great merit of showing 
us, on another paper, just what we ought to do, without ever 
touching with pencil or paint our performances, which were 
therefore entirely our own.  It was on coming in one morning, 
all four crammed into the little carriage ( from which the 
back seat had been taken off for lightness, the little horse 
not being equal to any very heavy load,), that we were horrified 
by learning from the [toll-] keeper of the toll-gate at 
the top of Stokes' Croft, on the Gloucester Road, by which 
we entered the town from " Olston ", that the famous riots, 
provoked by the popular hatred of the Recorder, Sir Charles 
Wetherell, were in full swing, that great alarm prevailed, 
and that Papa would do well to reach Nelson St. by a circuitous 
rout, and get us under cover as quickly as possible.  We girls 
were horribly frightened.  I forget how we reached the house; 
but I remember the strange appearance of the streets, entirely 
deserted, shops and shutters shut, nobody visible.  As soon as 
we were housed, Papa went off to the Guildhall to help consult 
on the measures to be taken.  The rioters were threatening to 
break into Bridenwell, the jail, close by the Nelson St. house, 
and were in possession of all the adjoining streets.  I forget 
the incidents of the affair; but I remember that Papa took a 
leading part in saving the town, and that he and Mr. Goodwin 
extinguished with their own hands, the fire which the miscreants 
had commenced for burning down the grand old Cathedral, for 
which Papa was publicly thanked when the riot was quelled.

I do not remember whether it was 
during the Wilson St., or the Nelson St. period that I accomplished 
my feat of collecting one guinea in pennies, in aid 
of a charity.  The Countess of Carmarthen, I think it was, 
published in the newspapers, her offer to give one half of the 
sum (several thousand pounds) for founding a "Lying - in Hospital", 
on condition that the other half should be raised, by 
the public, in gifts of one penny, no larger sum to be given by 
any one donor.  The idea took immensely, and committees of ladies 
were formed all over the country for enlisting individual 
collectors and getting up the vast numbers of pennies required 
to make up the amount for securing the Countesses offer, in 
which all the more interest was felt from the fact that she was 
a very beautiful woman, and had figured as such in a recent 
"Keep-sake" Annual.  Bristol, of course, set up its committees 
with a zeal and promptitude befitting the "Second City of the 
Empire"; each committee had its"sub committees", and these 
again, enlisted the "collectors" - Mrs. Ingram (our tea) being 
very busy in the matter, and the affair was speedily brought 
to our knowledge, and the idea of helping such a novel and 
curious business so fired my imagination that I at once determined 
to collect the sum of one guinea, which I notified Mrs. 
Ingram should be brought to her as soon as collected.  So I 
went to work at once with a little blank book for the names, 
to show that no one had paid more than a penny.  Papa, Marian, 
all the children, the servants, everybody about the house, were 


84

speedily inscribed, and their pennies deposited in a box.  
Then I went to the various Aunts and their households, Grandpapa 
and Grandmamma, to Aunt and Uncle Browne; the Goddards 
and all the people we knew; and as I was still a good way short 
of the 252 pennies required to make up [y] guinea, I set to work 
again going from house to house in the most respectable of 
the neighboring streets, rang the bell and presented my request 
for pennies, from all in the house, to whoever opened the 
door.  I met with only one refusal; a decent looking old dame 
who flatly refused, saying "My dear, if the Countess wishes to 
found a hospital, she is, no doubt, quite rich enough to do it 
her self.  People who are not Countesses generally need to 
keep the money for themselves!"  "But, Ma'am, it is only one 
penny that can be given by each person!  nobody can give more, 
so it is necessary that a great number of people should join to 
make up the sum, since no one is allowed to give more than a 
penny! " - "Oh, very well my dear, since it is only a penny, I 
give it willingly! " and fishing into her pocket, she produced 
the coin, which I dropped into my bag, and then wrote her name 
in the little book.  The colloqy  took place at the door; I did 
not venture into anybody's house; and the undertaking was looked 
on by any one as an imprudent thing for a young girl to do; why 
Marian or one of the nursemaids did not go with me I cannot 
imagine;  Probably I preferred doing the thing "all alone in my 
 glory." But it was certainly not a very wise thing to let a 
little girl go about by herself, and in all manner of strange 
places, in that style, with the risk of encountering disagreeables 
to which she might have found herself exposed, although, happily 
nothing of the sort occurred.

When my 252 pennies were collected 
with the 252 names and addresses duly inscribed in the little 
book according to the rules laid down for the collection, I informed 
Mrs. Ingram of the success of my undertaking, and proposed 
to make over the book and the sum to her.  But she was so 
much pleased with my doings that she declared I must come with 
her to the house of the Lady-Collector (name forgotten) to whom 
she was about to turn over her own collection, and pay in my 
guinea and book in propria persona.  She was to take tea at the 
lady's house on the occasion, and at her request, I was invited 
to come along with her.  It was a large, handsome house, standing 
in a garden, in, or just out of the Barton, to your left 
hand as you come down Northumberland St. to Broad St.  I remember 
that we were very graciously received, that I was much complimented 
on my doings, regarded as "spirited", that we had tea in 
a handsome, large room, and that the tea-table was of so brilliantly 
polished a mahogany, that I have retained a gleam of its 
shininess to this day.  At that time no cloth was ever put on 
the table for the universal evening meal, "tea"; finger napkins 
were unknown, the only things used being the little colored 
squares called "d'oyleys ", served with fruit.  Two pronged 
forks were still in general use; the more elegant and convenient 
three-prongs were only coming into use.  Silver forks were 
almost unknown.

Our meals followed a stereotyped 
order.   Hot joint, potatoes (usually mashed), and some other 
vegetable, cheese and often celery; ale for the grown upsand85

toast water for us children.  After the cloth was taken away , 
decanters of red and white wine put on the table, and sometimes 
nuts,(of which Papa was particularly fond) or other fruit; 
but this was not regular.  Mamma had a wine-glass of sherry; 
papa a wine glass of port, changed during our last years in 
England, for "claret".  Next day cold meat, pickles, potatoes, 
a second vegetable, and pudding or pie.   Everything that came on 
table was of excellent quality; sometimes, but rarely, fish or 
poultry took the place of meat.  Excepting on high-days and 
holidays, we never had a hot meat and pie or pudding together.  
We often had a meat-pie, or a meat-pudding, or Yorkshire pudding 
under roast beef; roly poly, apple-pudding, fizzy-pudding, 
sometimes rice-pudding, were the usual dishes; great 
plenty, liberal helpings, but very little variety, and but 
slight attempts at the artistic, unless there was company, 
when everything was done on a very handsome scale, and each dish 
most handsomely prepared according to the perfect old cookery-book 
which seemed to be a part of the family.  The cooking 
arrangements in the Nelson St. house were admirable; Papa 
spent a large sum (over Lb 100) in fitting up a steam-apparatus 
by which everything was cooked with perfect cleanliness and 
ease;the steam was generated in a great water reservoir heated 
by the mountainous kitchen fire, which burned night and day in 
the enormous grate.  On the left hand side of the fire was a 
splendid oven, under the oven a recepticle for warming crockery 
and keeping food warm.  A phenomenal copper tea-kettle spent its 
existence on one of the many little stands, turning on swivels, 
that could be brought out from the back of the chimney and fixed 
above the fire, so that half a dozen cookeries could go on 
together, besides the steam apparatus at the right of the fireplace, 
the oven and the jack for roasting in front of the fire.  
It was thus easy to cook a great many things at the same time; 
and as the fire was never let out from one end of the year to 
the other, cooking was possible, and hot water procurable, at 
any and every moment.  What a prodigious waste of coal was 
formerly going on all over the land!  And even now, though there 
have been efforts made to induce people to be less wasteful, 
an enormous waste of coal still goes on in England.

Our usual dinner hour was one o'clock; 
two o'clock if Aunt & Uncle Browne, or Grandpapa and Grandmamma, 
came to dine with us.  Five o'clock and afterwards six, was the 
regular tea-time; tea, bread and butter (thin for the grownups, 
thick for the little ones) and the plain bread cake old 
Margaret made in such perfection.  The very little ones were 
vittled in the nursery; but as they grew bigger they were 
gradually admitted to the family-table.  Buttered toast, 
or cold meat, or more often merely bread and cheese and beer- 
at about 9; but the children were all in bed before that hour.

Breakfast was at eight; cold meat, or 
ham, and dry toast; beautiful tea.  None of us had anything 
but thick bread and butter or perhaps some toast; the little 
ones in the nursery had milk and water, slightly sweetened; 
and the choice of"bread and butter ", " bread and treacle," or 
"bread and scrape."  The tinies had a basin of bread and milk; 
the baby of the period, arrowroot or lovely stuff made of 


  86

Norwich biscuits, a delicious "pap" that I should devour 
with pleasure if I could get at any.

What an uncomfortable remembrance 
I have of the horrid reading of chapters and getting down 
on knees for prayers, a lot of cold little creatures longing 
to toast their toes and noses, and to devour their 
morning prog!  The servants had  to come also, sitting 
demurely on chairs near the door.  How thoroughly I detested 
it all and yet with the latent uneasiness as to 
whether it was not very wicked in me to hate it!

The Sundays were utterly vile and 
horrid; more  especially under that odious Miss Taylor.  
The dreadful trudging to and from chapel; the extra holding 
in; the learning of hymns and chapters, and committing 
to memory of the absurd Jew-genealogies, and other useless 
stuff in that omnium-gatherum of mischievous imbecilities, 
smothering a few glorious truths of paramount value, the 
Bible of the West!  Dear old Harry, how can you look back 
with such regretful longing to the days of our childhood?  
I would no more consent to live again any portion of that, 
to me, utterly unsympathetic routine, than I would live in 
a coal-mine!!  I have pleasant glimpses of sunsets, flowers, 
sunbeams through trees, delighting in some new book, or, 
but rarely, some pleasant walk; pleasant glimpses of Weston, 
Clevedon, and Bourton, and memories of the brown bread and 
peat fire at Theale; but the entire situation was, for me, 
so entirely that of the round creature in the square hole, 
that I think of those old times simply with repugnance and 
weariness and can't imagine how you can do anything else!

Papa was very fond of chess; he and 
John Harwood often played together.  I beat him a few times, 
but I found chess too serious a business to be amusing, and 
my enthusiasm was only short-lived.  Uncle Browne and Papa 
often played together.  Aunt Browne played back gammon and 
draughts.  None of the other side of the house ever dreamed 
of playing any game.  Cards were tabooed as being tools of 
the Devil.

I have almost no remembrance of the 
first two little brothers, both very pretty children.  Of 
the lovely little darling, the first little Howard, I cannot 
write, even at this distance of so much over half a 
century.  No mother ever loved,or could love,a child, more 
entirely, more intensely, than I loved that most beautiful, 
most charming little creature, who loved me with all his 
baby heart and soul, as I loved him.  The lapse of a thousand 
years could not deaden the anguish of the sudden announcement 
by Mamma, as I lay in my bed, not yet awakened, 
that "it had pleased God to take our dear little Howard in 
the night! "  of the stealthy visits to the room where the 
beautiful little body of my pet, my little idol, was awaiting 
the terrible day when it was to be put into a coffin and 
carried away out of my sight forever, - of my passionate 
prayers that the beloved soul might be sent back into its 
body, as we were constantly told in Chapel Christ had done 87

for Lazarus, and the appalling sense of the discrepance 
between all that we were told of the goodness of God and 
his infinite power, the power of prayer etc., etc.and the 
crushing misery of the gradual decomposition of the dear 
little body going on before my eyes, and seeming to prove the 
falsity of all that was so constantly dinned into us from 
pulpit and preachment.   And the placing of the little body 
in the tiny coffin - and the screwing down of its little 
lid.  Marian and I held the little coffin between us on 
our knees in a mourning coach, in which were also Mamma 
and Aunt Mary, in our black dresses and long veils of black 
gauze.  I don't remember the interment in the Brunswick 
burying-ground, I only remember the frantic grief with which 
I threw myself on the little coffin, which was taken away 
at the ground, almost by force.  I jotted down the beginning 
of this grievous remembrance some six weeks ago, when 
still very ill and in bed; and it threw me into such a 
state of sorrowful agitation that the old P. frightened and 
alarmed carried off the book and made me promise not to go 
on with the agitating remembrance until I could be out of 
bed.  I have had most beautiful messages from the lovely 
and beloved spirit whose short life appears to have ended 
the course of his existences in this planet; - one of these, 
the most important and beautiful, was when I was half way 
over the border after the terrible shock and sorrow of the 
departure of my other darling.  I am as certain of the 
reality of these tokens of presence and affection, as I 
am of my own existence, certain that the spirit of that 
most lovely baby is in a sphere much higher than that of 
this earth and proportionally happy; and yet I cannot 
think of him and the crushing sorrow of his loss - my 
first great sorrow - without being seized with a paroxysm 
of grief as unreasonable as useless.  I am equally 
certain that my other idol is happy and progressing, 
delighted to have done with the pains and troubles of this 
penitentiary, and diligently preparing for his next descent 
into the temptations of the earthly life by vanquishing 
which we advance towards our future enfranchisement from 
the horrible, punitive, puricative alternation of births 
and deaths; certainly, even if I could, I would not bring 
him back into the miseries of the earthly life; and neverthe less 
I cannot surmount the sense of loss, of loneliness, 
of shadow, which the departure of those two spirits has 
anchored in my life.

To return to my jottings.  Our evenings 
were generally very quiet. Two candles in silver (or plated) 
candlesticks, with the(solid)silver snuffers in their silver 
tray, were placed between them, on the highly polished mahogany 
table, rubbed to the lustre of a looking-glass by 
the parlour-maid of the time.  Papa sat with a book or a 
review ("Quarterly", "Edinburgh," etc) at the right hand corner 
of the fire at the table, in the Nelson St. house.  Mamma sat by 
him at his left with her back to the fire, at N.St.; at the 
right hand corner, facing the fire,in the W.St. house; usually 
mending a mass of socks and stockings, or doing some 
small matter of needle work.  We children sat around the 
table as we liked, each pouring over a story.  We were generally 


   88

as quiet as so many mice, both because it was always 
dinned into us that "children should be seen and not 
heard", and also we were fain, by keeping quiet, to keep 
off the detested moment of being packed off to bed, which 
was apt to arrive the minute we unluckily attracted attention 
to ourselves.  On the rare summer evenings when there 
was no fire ( for fires were the rule almost all the year 
round) the table was moved to the sofa side of the room; 
and there would often be great bunches of flowers visible; 
but the evenings were devoted to reading from one end of 
the year to the other.  During the short time that the 
absurd attempt at learning Latin on the "Hamiltonian system" 
was kept up (one of Mr. Howells's ridiculous inflictions), 
Papa would occasionally set me to reading a few 
verses of the Gospel of St. John; the mastery of which,as 
previously set forth, was supposed to make the student 
thereof a "Latin scholar", or a French, Spanish or Italian 
one, as the case might be.

One of Papa's favourite writers 
was Cowper; Mamma rather patronized Young's Night Thoughts.  
Most of the "poetry" that fell to the lot of the children 
was hymns and psalms; Mrs. Barbauld's were beautiful compositions, 
but we did not appreciate them, hating the 
genus "hymn" from wearisome grinding of poor little noses 
on that form of literary grindstone.  The mischief of our 
childhood was the constant repression and the utter absence 
of anything that could be called training.  There was 
no system in our lessons; all was mere mechanical routine 
or verbal stuffing; no reasoning, no elucidating of principles 
or correlating of facts; and the very little we learned 
being altogether fragmentary, came in at one ear only to go 
out by the other.  There was just as little system as little 
training in our daily lives.  It is really wonderful that 
the lot should have turned out, after all, as well as has 
been the case; but it is certain that the elder ones might 
have been very different if we had been wisely trained and 
directed, and that we should have been able, in that case, 
to give very much more effectual help, mental and physical, 
to the younger ones, by whom, in the terrible struggle of 
the years that followed Papa's death, we did the best we 
"knew how", seeing that we really had been, ourselves, very 
imperfectly prepared for such a responsibility.

On looking back upon our childhood, 
I see how important is every kind of physical development 
for children.  Dancing, walking, gymnastics, swimming, 
boating, to which may now be added bicycling, and whatever 
can tend to give firmness of nerve and command of muscle, 
should be as familiar as breathing; everything taught should 
form a part of a carefully arranged system, be taught and 
learned intelligently, opening and feeding the mind instead 
of wearying it.  And the inculcation of principles should 
lead each child to become its own Mentor, rendering it possible 
to replace the old crushing sense of restraint and 
coercion by the sense of freedom and the possibility of 
spontaneity, the child being safe-guarded by the enlightenment 89

of the wise and loving guardianship that alone 
can effect the results which mere authority not only 
fails to insure but usually brings about their opposites.

When Marian and I came back from 
our short stay in London and our long and weary stay 
in Worcester, we found the Nelson St. house dismantled; 
the best of everything had been sold off, and the things 
that could not well be sold off, packed in great cases 
ready for being put on board the horrid little "Cosmo", 
which lay in a dock at the Hotwells, and appeared to 
us very big and formidable.  The two nursemaids, Miss 
Major and the children, were all packed in furnished 
lodgings, not far from the basin in which the"Cosmo" 
was awaiting its victims.  There was a good deal of 
jessamine in flower about the windows of our rooms; 
but I cannot recall any other detail of those last 
days.  Uncle William, greatly saddened at our going, 
which he, Uncle Browne and all about us had [greatly] 
vainly deplored and deprecated, came to bid us good-bye; 
he gave to each of us a golden guinea as a parting gift.  
I suppose that Uncle Blackwell sent us his adieux by 
letter, for I remember no leave taking on that side of 
the house.   Poor Uncle Browne was overwhelmed with grief; 
he had lived most of his time with us, since the death 
of his wife.  "Your going away will shorten my life! " 
was his sorrowful declaration; but the die was cast.  We 
had our silly heads completely turned by the wonderful 
nonsense of Mr. Howell's letters; We were agog for change 
and so we went.  Poor Uncle Browne's life was completely 
clouded over by our departure, and he died in the lodgings 
in Northumberland (or Cumberland St.) into which he moved 
when we left; and in which Mamma's curious dream showed 
her his coffin, the presence of the undertaker whose 
firm had buried all our connexions for a couple of generations, 
with all the circumstances and adjuncts of his 
funeral, at the very time, when, as we afterwards learned, 
the dear, genial, kindly soul did really pass away.  This 
dream was recounted by her when she came down to breakfast, 
in the Thompson St. house, in New York, a few months 
after our arrival.

What a chorus of lamentations accompanied 
our departure!  I see poor old William White, one 
of the "sugar-house men" ( who worshipped Papa as did all 
his work-people ) crying his poor old eyes out, sobbing, 
heart-broken, saying there was now nothing left for him 
but to die!  He had cleaned the knives and forks and shoes 
for the household, every evening, from the beginning of 
Papa's married days, coming regularly after the closing 
of the sugar house; he was well paid and had many little 
presents, and was a favourite with all the children, whom 
he looked upon as belonging to him.  I think his old wife 
was already dead.  It seems to me that Uncle Charley, who 
regretted and deplored the transportation, must have been 
in England at the time, and have expressed his intention 
to sell out and come to see us; but whether this was expressed 


90

verbally or by letter, I cannot remember.

I do not recall with any 
clearness the actual going on board, where we thought we 
had been wonderfully lucky the stern state-rooms (or cabins 
I think we called them) and which were, of course, the 
very worst of all, having ten times more motion than those 
amidships, and the windows which we had gloried in beforehand, 
being hatchmented down, whenever the wind blew hard 
which it generally did, so that we were really to be pitied, 
so hideous were those horrid, stinking, filthy holes.  
The one in which I was quartered, with half a dozen others, 
had an iron pillar in its midst; and this pillar proved, to 
our utter horror, to be the drain by which the pagoda on th 
the deck communicated with the fishes;- and this hideous 
pillar leaked incessantly, despite the patchings and mendings 
of the ship- carpenter.  What a dreadful experience 
was our 7 weeks and four days of misery in that floating 
hell!

3 January 1885!!  (I mean to finish up and send quickly!) 

To go back to the old places.  We were 
among the first to take up with Clevedon, leaving Weston, 
to which we had previously been faithful, and which was in 
all respects, a far better place to go to.  The sands were 
splendid and the great 4 mile beach, and the lovely Worle 
Hill, something worth walking over!  But the ridiculous 
Chapel and preachings perverted Papa's mind, and so we went 
to Clevedon instead of going to Weston.  Who remembers the 
desperate attempts to float tubs on the ponds left by the 
tide, and the frequent duckings experienced by the adventurous 
sailors in [the] these unpropitious"boats"?  And the 
slippery grass on the hill behind Salt-House, which it was 
a wonder we did not roll[d] down, and on to the rocks below!  
There was literally nothing to see at Clevedon; whereas, 
Weston was lively and often had something of interest going 
on;- plenty of "jaunting-cars", donkeys, raffles, people 
bathing or promenading.  The original "Esplanade" was erected 
the last time we were there; since then it has been greatly 
lengthened, and I saw in a newspaper, that it is being still 
farther extended.

I remember a gipsy-camp being set up at 
the entrance to the Uphill road.  We went to see them and 
Uncle Charley had a talk with "the King of the Gipsies", an 
old rascal in a ragamuffin cloak.

We always longed to get onto Brean Down, 
the long promontory that hems in the farthest end of the 
sands; it is an island when the tide is up; I believe there 
is now an hotel there, as also on "The Steep Holmes", where 
the air must be splendid.

The lighthouse on "The Flat Holmes" was 
a favourite twinkle of ours, at night; all of us tried our 
hands and incompetence at sketching this island, then a 
desert, now fortified.91

On the other side of Bristol, near 
the muddy but picturesque tidal Avon, was the lovely 
country-seat of Sir Henry Lippincott, which I think 
must have been in view from Durdham Down, as I remember 
My frequent gazings and longings in view of 
the lovely lawn and its diversifying beds of roses 
and gum-cistus, and the honeysuckles, clematis, etc., 
hanging in flower clouds from the large trees dotted 
about the turf.  I was certainly never there but see 
it all with curious plainness.  Grandmamma Lane was 
an intimate friend of "old Lady Lippincott", the 
owner's mother, who was extremely pious, so the two 
old ladies got on very well together and the former 
was a frequent visitor at the place, staying there 
sometimes for a fortnight at a time.

Another very handsome and pleasant 
place on the Counterslip side of the city, was 
called, I think, The Firs; it belonged to a Mr. Hare, 
an old friend of the Brown connexion, and of ours, 
through Mamma.  Mr. Hare invented oil-cloth for 
floors, made a great fortune thereby, and got knighted; 
whether for the invention or for some other reason 
I can't remember.  I went there once with Mamma, to 
a Dorcas-meeting; the husbands, fathers, etc. of the 
ladies came out to tea, and all wandered about the 
grounds.  The fruit was splendid.  On a wall was one 
particular cherry tree, hung with such gorgeous great 
black, or garnet colored, cherries.  I was all alone 
and the temptation was terrible.  And I took one of 
the great, lovely cherries, which caused me intense 
remorse after I had eaten it.  No doubt, when the 
guests were invited into the gardens, it was intended 
that they should gather a fruit or two, but 
that did not occur to me and it seemed to me that I 
had stolen the luscious cherry and done a very 
wicked thing.  I feel rather [in] guilty in recalling 
the deed and the cherry!

I remember being taken to the rehearsal 
of a concert that was coming off, with a family 
party, under the wing of Aunt and Uncle Browne.  
Madame Sontag sang; what a wonderful singer!  I must 
have gone to some other rehearsal or musical flareup; 
don't remember what.  The noise of the orchestra 
frightened me so much that I suppose I must have 
been very young.  We never set foot in a theater or 
other place of amusement.  The artistic element was 
almost entirely lacking inour lives.

I don't think, dear old Harry, that I can 
remember anything more of our lives in Old England; so 
I intend to pack up and send you these two rambling 
gatherums without farther delay.  I have suggested to 
Marian to add some jottings from her remembrances; but 
she has a settled horror of our uncomfortable childhood 
and girlhood and declines my invitation to fill 


   92

the rest of the m.s. book.

So with affectionate good wishes for 
you and yours, this rambling gossip, (going on at times, 
through more years than I fancied, when I looked over 
its beginning yesterday) is now brought to an ending 
by, dear old Harry,

Your affectionate schwester
Anna

Triel, January 3, 1885.

   Since I wiped my pen last night, with 
the satisfied conviction that I had jotted down "something 
of everything" connected with our Bristol days, 
it had occurred to me that I have not mentioned the 
fete-days of those ancient years:- Christmas, New Year's 
Day, and the family birthdays.

Of the wonderful pudding that marked the 
return of the Winter Festivals, little need be said here 
for you know all about its excellence.  I have never seen 
Xmas puddings equal to ours, made after the famous family 
recipe.  What work it was getting ready for he four puddings 
made in our kitchen every season!  The whole household 
picked and stoned for ten days beforehand; the chopping 
of suet was something tremendous; the grating of bread 
and nut megs, ditto; the mixing of the accumulated materials, 
formidable!  And the putting up of holly and mistletoe!

All the households dined on Christmas-Day 
at Grandpapa's; Grandmamma had a pudding recipe which 
she stuck to, to the last; good, but not equal to ours.  
Of course the dinner, like all the Grandparental expenses 
came out of Papa's pocket.  I only remember one dinner (at 
Christmas - tide) at Aunt Ann's.  It gave her great agonies, 
but she pulled through nicely.  I think she must 
have had a boiled turkey, as 1 st dish; for I remember 
there was oyster-sauce, about which I dubiated long before 
I ventured to taste it, being afraid of oysters, which I 
fancied remained alive until swallowed.  It must have been 
my first experience of oysters.  In her garden was a pear 
tree, bearing heavenly pears; I mean to get grafts from 
it if "Pot" should, at length, carry the doom it has so 
long stuck on my shoulders!  Also a magnum bonum plum 
tree, great lumps of luscious gold; splendid.  Also a 
Siberian Crab, delicious, though usually bitter.  There was 
a chilly [arbor] arbour at the top of the long, narrow slip 
of garden, with a waved path between the two beds, 
so that you were some time getting up into it.  The arbour 
was a mass of yews and other sad colored foliage, and being 
lined with ivy,always had a damp, dank, mysterious, churchyard 
kind of a smell.

New Year's Day was our field-day!  At four 
A.M. the great clothes-boiler having been scoured to the 
brightness of gold, filled, and the fire lighted 93

the regulation four puddings were committed to that 
"vasty deep" and kept boiling until the three o'clock 
dinner.  One was in a great round basin, the next in 
a great white pan, with an immense K on it (stood for 
"kitchen") the shape of a great sugar loaf with the 
top knocked off; the other two were round, of smaller 
dimensions.  The first was the one devoured on New 
Year's Day, amply sufficient for all demands, and a 
good deal left for the two following days, even after 
the servants had had their fill.  The great K - pudding 
was eaten on Twelfth-Night, at dinner;- the other two 
were kept some months, but always got finished within 
the year.  On Xmas Day, N. Year's Day, Good Friday, 
Easter Monday, Papa used to go out with the lot of us 
for a long walk before dinner.

Our N.Year dinner was always 
a turbot boiled; then a turkey roasted and deliciously 
stuffed, perfuming the house; then a splendid 
roast beef; mashed potatoes and the orthodox sauces, and 
usually cauliflower or broccoli.  Then, the sensation!  
the magnificent pudding with wine-sauce; mince-pies in 
two dishes.  Then a beautiful dessert; oranges, medlars, 
almonds & raisins, & filberts, also figs.  The table 
cloth was taken off, the green baize ditto, and the fruit 
was symmetrically placed all the length of the long,dark, 
highly polished mahogany dining-table, Grandpapa's handiwork.  
Wine, and the cruet stand of spirits, occupied 
their specified places amidst the fruit.  One winter 
there were grapes also; Papa having bought an immense jar 
of fleshy Spanish grapes, put up in sawdust, which injured 
their flavour [or].

After dinner they talked, got 
round the fire, and so passed the time until the table 
was set for tea, with buttered toast, toasted muffins, 
Sally Lunns, and picklets, and home-made bread-cake.

Papa's gift to the family 
was always a chest of oranges and a drum of figs.  We 
Children gave "Christmas - boxes " to one another; but 
I never knew of a single little gift given to us by 
either parent, grand-parents, aunts or uncles (excepting 
Uncle Browne and Uncle Charley)!  Never surely, was a 
family of children less petted than we were!

I had a few children's parties, 
and went to a few, but so ridiculously ill-dressed 
that we were always ashamed to show ourselves.  
At these parties, after an abundance of tea, coffee 
and cake, we had all manner of children's games; "Snap 
the tongs", "Puss in the Corner", "Forfeits", "Blind 
Man's Buff" etc; no dances, dancing being tabooed in 
our set, as a smoothing of the "broad road"to hell.  
There were a dozen other games, but I don't remember 
them.  Then a supper of tarts, cakes etc., and negus .

NB.  K.B.B says:  Yes, Grandma Blackwell (Hanna Lane) 
knew how to dance very well, and, like Aunt Elizabeth, 
was very light upon her feet.  On this side of the ocean.


    94

We used to give each other little presents 
on birthdays, but we never got any from the grownups, 
excepting Aunt Browne.  I have a little note in the dear 
old souls handwriting, accompanying the birthday gift of 
a handsome red morocco case for needles, cotton, thimble, 
scissors, bodkin, pins etc. to be kept constantly in my 
pocket, it being taught as the first duty of little girls 
to be ready with fingers and sewing tackle, to make or to 
mend at any moment.

This time, Harry dear, I think I have 
really emptied my bag, and I wind up with a word of remembrance 
of the last Xmas dinner at Olveston, with, among plenty 
of other things, grapes kept on the vines (2 bags) 
for the great day, and a beautiful nosegay of monthly 
roses, pyrus japonica, laurustina, etc., out of the garden 
for the center of the table.

Anna.

P.P.S.!  I had packed up the books and sent the package to 
the post-office, which has sent it back to me saying it 
must go to the railway and be sent as "colis-postal"; a 
ridiculous term, seeing that the post has nothing to do 
with [it] the mode of transmission so named.  As, just now, 
I bethought me of some omissions, I add, once more, to 
this long scrawl, the following particulars.

All the children, one after the other, 
were very fond of the"bricks" of which Grandpapa had made 
us a splendid lot, of various forms, for building, and all 
made magnificent edifices.  On reflection I think we must 
have had other "bricks", as we had a book of architectural 
designs, which we copied with the "bricks"

We had maps of Great Britain on thin 
sheets of wood, the various counties cut out into separate 
pieces; these were jumbled up, and we were supposed to 
perfect ourselves in geography by putting them together.  
I think we had a map of Europe divided in the same way 
and for the same purpose.

At Counterslip there lived a master-carpenter 
and builder, whose premises adjoined ours.  His 
place ran down to the horrid little inky river, and ended 
in a sort of dock running out into that filthy stream.  
The top of this  sort of projection had been turned into 
a little flower-garden by the wife; and I so greatly admired 
this ingenious homage to Flora, that I frequently 

NB (continued) both at our15th.St. house, and at the N.Y. 
Infirmary, Grandma insisted on having family dances, and 
she led them - quadrilles, Sir Roger de Coverly, the Virginia 
Reel etc., at the Infirmary, and some of the students 
sometimes took part.  Grandma made everybody dance whether 
they knew how or not.  They could "hop around to the music", 
generally played by Aunt Elizabeth."  (Kitty remembers Grandma 
directing Uncle Sam how to dance, and the sheepish, rather 
deprecating way in which he did it.)  A.S.B.95

pestered Mamma to take me in there, to see the flowers.  
As there was no railing, wall, or other protection (so 
that if one had the ill-luck to slip over the edge, one 
would have fallen plump into the river) she did not 
much like to take me in; but as the man worked for Papa, 
and as the wife was proud of my admiration [for] of her gardening, 
she did so occasionally.  There were quantities of 
mignonnette, nasturtiums, gillyflowers of all hues then known, 
sweet peas, marigolds, and all the common flowers that are 
so gay, pretty, and fragrant, and that I dearly love for 
"auld lang syne", as being pretty much all that that period 
has left me as anything agreeable in the way of souvenirs.

I wonder who among the family 
group remembers the battledore & shuttle-cock that Papa 
at one time played with us often?  And the little boxes 
of dreadfully bad paints that we used in the production 
of chefs d'oeuvres?  and the little wax dolls, the size 
of a little finger, that we all of both sexes, bought so 
constantly at the great toy shop in the Bourton?  and the 
amulets and the little bottles of scent, that the feminines 
bought at the same shop, and thought so delicious?

Who remembers the great Yorkshire 
puddings under the vast joints of roast beef?  The raspberry 
and currant pies?  The fragrance of occasional hares, 
cooked to perfection by "Old Margaret"?  and eaten with 
wine-sauce that we all considered to be something heavenly?  
And the yearnings of admiration and desire with which all 
the children looked forward to the dinner hour, when it had 
become known through the house, that there was to be lamb 
for dinner, with mint sauce and green peas?  And the general 
worship paid to "young potatoes", when they first began 
to appear on the table?  And the steady affection kept up 
for "Nags Head Cake."  for which Bristol was famous, and 
that was sold in a little shop, squeezed into the wall of 
the market, left hand side as you go in from the entrance 
nearest Bridge St.?  And the delight in "Milk Cakes", now 
improved into "Sally Lunns") and in picklets and in buttered 
toast?  The latter buttered hot on both sides so as 
to be well saturated with butter in a state of oil, must 
have been as unwholesome an eatable as could well be imagined, 
but everybody devoured it thinking it lovely.  
Dry toast was also regarded as one of the necessary elements 
of existence.

Who remembers trundling hoops and 
trying vainly to fly kites, that would not fly, on Mother 
Pugsley's Field?  and the "peg-tops" of those days, and the 
wonder excited by the first "humming-top"?  And the cork-soled 
shoes, pattens, clogs,and "snow boots" of which each 
child had a pair?  And the "fleecy-hosiery" gloves (little 
bags with a thumb) that did not prevent the damp cold of 
those odious winters from nipping the poor little fingers 
shut up in them?

It is beginning to snow for the 
first time this winter; so I am going to do up my parcel 


      96

once more, and march it off to the station; there has 
been such heavy snow in all the regions round about, that 
we are no doubt going to pay for our exemption, and so I 
am off while the road remains open!

[*[*A more recent view of Bristol is given 
in the following letter, written by Aunt Elizabeth to Uncle 
Sam, August 15, 1885.  It is dated "Durdham Down, Clifton, 
Bristol." A.S.B.*]*]

   "As I think you will like a letter 
from our native place, where Marian, Kitty and I are spending 
the last week of our holiday, I shall send this, written 
from the airy heights to which Bristol has now climbed, to 
you.

From my bedroom window on the third 
floor, I command all the well-known hills we used to roam 
over - from Kingsdown Parade, and twelve fine elms (all 
that remain of Redland Avenue) - Redland Park, - Tindall's 
Park - Brandon Hill - Clifton Down, observatory - all below 
me from east to west - rising out of a mass of houses, 
stretching uninteruptedly up to and around this great 
Durdham Down; whilst the ridge of the above points hides the 
great mass of business and manufacturing Bristol stretching 
our indefinitely below.

But I must explain why we came here; for 
after our trip to Tenby and St. David's Head (of which I 
have sent notices) and to Milford Haven (of which more anon), 
we only meant to spend one night in Bristol, to break the 
long journey home and give Marian a peep at her native town.  
We went, however, at sunset to the banks of the Avon, when 
the tide was high, all the steamboats coming out of Cumberland 
Basin, Nightingale Valley and Leigh Woods in full fresh greenery 
- and looking up to the magnificent St. Vincent's Rocks.  
Marian pronounced them more striking than any cliffs on the 
Riviera.  Next morning Marian seemed loath to leave Bristol, 
and gladly accepted my suggestion that we should take a week's 
lodgings in the fine air of this Down.

I must tell you how wonderfully improved the 
facilities for getting about in Bristol are (for poor people) 
by the construction of two kinds of tramways starting east 
and west from the drawbridge on St. Augistine 's Back.  As I 
sat on top of the tram car waiting for it to start, vessels 
just like the Cosmo were lying before me; and I looked directly 
down Nelson St. with our old home full in view at the bend 
of the street with the square gray sugar house peering above 
them; the houses have been made very conspicuous by enormous 97

glass windows, with cream-coloured shutters. The
whole place is to let and has a rather delapidated
look, but the old memories cling about it. Some
sugar loaves stood in one of the doorways, the 
archways into Wine St. are as of yore, and a charming
old oriel window still stands above the water
basin in the old wall. But my tram car with four
horses started up the Colston road in front of the 
Colston Almshouses with Salvation Army barracks opposite;
made sharp bend along upper Park Road, then
up the Whiteladies Road, and finally deposited me
within five minutes steep walk up to Durdham Down.
I engaged lodgings in a row of houses facing the
Down, and our party was speedily established in them,
and has ever since been enjoying the really fine
air, and wonderful space, within a two-penny drive
of the heart of the big city. Marian is particularly
struck by the place; has told me more than once
that she has seen no place which seems to present su
such advantages; that if all her family died, she
should come and live here, etc. All which I am 
very glad of, for I had felt doubtful how far she
had enjoyed her summer; and I am almost inclined
to think her native air suits her.
To day we walked over the 
fine suspension bridge, and rested under a magnificent 
old oak, which overlooked Nightingale Valley.
It was Saturday and parties of young people with
papas or mamas passed by with their lunch baskets,
evidently going to make holiday in the beautiful 
woods which looked as fine and fresh as they did
fifty years ago.
In the afternoon Durdham
Down was gay with the white tents of cricket parties,
and any number of bat-ballers, donkey-riders, and
family groups. One good thing about these highlands
is that they are so extensive notwithstanding business
encroachments, or rather residence-building,
that one is not annoyed by the mass that so often
defaces public resorts. Hawthorn trees are scattered
about the short turf, and an occasional fine oak.
Many of the residences that skirt theses Downs have
lovely wooded peeps of wood or glen or bold cliff,
rural wooded
and all the gardens flourish luxuriently.
If only this wonderful
extension of town over these common lands had been
properly and economically managed for the benefit
of all, Bristol should be without taxes. But alas
for the dull perception of human society, at present!
Wherever these fine Improvements are found, taxes
rise, the poor sink Into paupers, and the mass of
the people are more and more crowded into dense unhuman 
surroundings. When shall we learn that earth,
air and water are not fit subjects for selfish speculation! 
But a truce to Christian Socialism.


98

What has most struck me in
revisiting our old town is the way in which Marian 
takes to it; and I really think that if not
affectionately bound to Frances she would drift
back and cast anchor here.
I must tell you of the
very pleasant week we spent at old Milford, the
veritable Milford Haven of Cosmo days. We were
in clover at the Lord Nelson Hotel and revelled
in the strong ocean breeze which blew straight
up the Haven. Unfortunately it blew and rained
a gale during most of the time we were there.
But two exquisite days showed us how charming
the fields and woods rolling down to the green
waters could be. Castle Hall Place, where the
Hamiltons and Lord Nelson lived, looked lovely
across the inlet; and although the deserted
docks built by the Anglo-American Company that
did not count the cost, looked rather desolate,
and have temporarily injured the place, yet its
advantages for a summer resort are so great that
it must rise up again. "

December 28, 1923

Kitty says that Grandma
Blackwell (Hanna Lane) was very pretty - much
prettier, Aunt Elizabeth said, than any of her
daughters. In after years Aunt Elizabeth met in
society some gentlemen who in their youth had
been employed in the sugar house, or its office;
and they said that they were always delighted
when Grandma had occasion to come down to the
sugar house to speak to Grandpa about anything, 
she was so exquisitely pretty.
A. S. B.