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Tracks of a Rolling Stone-Part2_Henry J.Coke(1827-1916)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

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A wheezy consumptive invalid would insist on a closed one.

Everybody's legs were in their own, and in every other



body's, way. So that when the distance was great and time

precious, people avoided coaching, and remained where they



were.

For this reason, if a short holiday was given - less than a



week say - Norfolk was too far off; and I was not permitted

to spend it at Holkham. I generally went to Charles Fox's at



Addison Road, or to Holland House. Lord Holland was a great

friend of my father's; but, if Creevey is to be trusted -



which, as a rule, my recollection of him would permit me to

doubt, though perhaps not in this instance - Lord Holland did



not go to Holkham because of my father's dislike to Lady

Holland.



I speak here of my introduction to Holland House, for

although Lady Holland was then in the zenith of her



ascendency, (it was she who was the Cabinet Minister, not her

too amiable husband,) although Holland House was then the



resort of all the potentates of Whig statecraft, and Whig

literature, and Whig wit, in the persons of Lord Grey,



Brougham, Jeffrey, Macaulay, Sydney Smith, and others, it was

not till eight or ten years later that I knew, when I met



them there, who and what her Ladyship's brilliant satellites

were. I shall not return to Lady Holland, so I will say a



parting word of her forthwith.

The woman who corresponded with Buonaparte, and consoled the



prisoner of St. Helena with black currant jam, was no

ordinary personage. Most people, I fancy, were afraid of



her. Her stature, her voice, her beard, were obtrusive marks

of her masculine attributes. It is questionable whether her



amity or her enmity was most to be dreaded. She liked those

best whom she could most easily tyrannise over. Those in the



other category might possibly keep aloof. For my part I

feared her patronage. I remember when I was about seventeen



- a self-conscious hobbledehoy - Mr. Ellice took me to one of

her large receptions. She received her guests from a sort of



elevated dais. When I came up - very shy - to make my

salute, she asked me how old I was. 'Seventeen,' was the



answer. 'That means next birthday,' she grunted. 'Come and

give me a kiss, my dear.' I, a man! - a man whose voice was



(sometimes) as gruff as hers! - a man who was beginning to

shave for a moustache! Oh! the indignity of it!



But it was not Lady Holland, or her court, that concerned me

in my school days, it was Holland Park, or the extensive



grounds about Charles Fox's house (there were no other houses

at Addison Road then), that I loved to roam in. It was the



birds'-nesting; it was the golden carp I used to fish for on

the sly with a pin; the shying at the swans, the hunt for



cockchafers, the freedom of mischief generally, and the

excellent food - which I was so much in need of - that made



the holiday delightful.

Some years later, when dining at Holland House, I happened to



sit near the hostess. It was a large dinner party. Lord

Holland, in his bath-chair (he nearly always had the gout),



sat at the far end of the table a long way off. But my lady

kept an eye on him, for she had caught him drinking



champagne. She beckoned to the groom of the chambers, who

stood behind her; and in a gruff and angry voice shouted:



'Go to my Lord. Take away his wine, and tell him if he

drinks any more you have my orders to wheel him into the next



room.' If this was a joke it was certainly a practical one.

And yet affection was behind it. There's a tender place in



every heart.

Like all despots, she was subject to fits of cowardice -



especially, it was said, with regard to a future state, which

she professed to disbelieve in. Mr. Ellice told me that



once, in some country house, while a fearful storm was

raging, and the claps of thunder made the windows rattle,



Lady Holland was so terrified that she changed dresses with




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