When we began our walk there was a fine soft wind that felt as if it would lift one up to the clouds, but before we got back to the little house it had quite fallen, and all was as still as in a desert, except now and then the wild cry of the grouse and black-cock. Bob'm mad with spirits, and talked nonsense all the way home. Not too dark to see the beautiful outline of the country all the way."
Such tired, happy home-comings stay in the memory; drives back at the end of long days, when scraps of talk and laughter and the pleasure of being together mingle so kindly with the solemnity of the darkening country; drives which end in a sudden blaze of welcome, in fire-light and candles, tea and a hubbub of talk, when everything, though familiar, seems to confess to a new happiness.
Here is another entry a few days later:
Page 6.
"Beautiful day, but a very high, warm real Minto wind. We wandered out very late and sat under the lime, playing at being at sea, feeling the stem rock above us as we lent against it and hearing the roaring of the waves in the trees. No summer's day can be better than such a day and evening as this--there was a cloudy moon, too, above the branches. I wish I could express, but I never can, the sort of feeling I have at times--now more than I ever had before--which would sound like affectation if one talked of it. A fine day, or beautiful country, or very often nothing but the sky or earth or the singing of a bird gives it. One feels too much love and gratitude and admiration, and something swells my heart so that I do not know how to look or listen enough."
There was another kind of romance, too, in her young life, destined in future to be at times a source of pain and anxiety, though also of keen gratification and permanent pride. What can equal the romance of politics when we are quite young, when "politics" mean nothing but "serving one's country" and have no other associations but that one, when politicians seem necessarily great men? The love-dreams of adolescence have often been celebrated; but among young creatures whose lives give plenty of play to their affections in a spontaneous way, such dreams seldom vie in intensity with the mysterious call of religion or with the emotion of patriotism. It stands for an emotion which seems as large as the love of mankind, and its service calls for enthusiasm and self-devotion. The Mintos were in the thick of politics and the times were stirring times. "Throughout the last two centuries of our history," says Sir George Trevelyan in his Life of Macaulay, "there never was a period when a man, conscious of power, impatient of public wrongs, and still young enough to love a fight for its own sake, could have entered Parliament with a fairer prospect of leading a life worth living and doing work that would requite the pains, than at the commencement of the year 1830." Her father was not only the most genial and kindest of fathers, but he was to her something of a hero too. His political career had not begun during these days at Minto; still he was in the counsel of the leaders of the day--Lord Grey, Lord John Russell, Lords Melbourne and Althorp--great names indeed to her. And the new Cabinet was soon to appoint him Minister at Berlin.
Page 7.
The country was under the personal rule of the Duke of Wellington, who had sorted out from his Cabinet any who were tainted with sympathy for reform; but, as the election of July which resulted in his resignation showed, the country, however one-sided its representation might have been in the House of Commons, had been long in a state of political ferment. This state of affairs, the gradual breaking up of the Tory party dating from the passing of the Catholic Emancipation Bill, the brewing social troubles, and the prospect of power crossing to the party which was determined on meeting them with reform, made politics everywhere the most absorbing of themes.
In a country house like Minto, which was in close communication with the statesmen of the time, discussions were of course frequent and keen. The guests were often important politicians; and long before Lady Fanny saw her future husband, she frequently heard his name as one whom those she admired looked up to as a leader. In a girl by nature very susceptible to the appeal of great causes, whose active brain made her delight in the arguments of her elders, these surroundings were likely to foster a passionate interest in public affairs; while other influences round her were tending to increase in her a natural sense of the delicacy and preciousness of personal relations. In the course of telling her story occasions may come for remarking again on what was one of the chief graces of her character; but in a book of this kind the sooner the reader becomes acquainted with the subject of it, the more he is likely to see in what follows. So let it be said of her at once that in all relations in which affection was complicated on one side by gratitude, or on her side by superiority in education or social position, she was perfect. She could be employer and benefactress without letting such circumstances deflect in the slightest degree the stream of confidence and affection between her and another. She had the faculty of removing a sense of obligation and of forgetting it herself. Such a faculty is only found in its perfection where the mind is sensitive in perceiving the delicacy of the relations between people; and it must be added that like most people who possess that sensitiveness, she missed it acutely in those who markedly did not.
Page 8.
The life at Minto, with its many contacts, was a life in which such a faculty could grow to perfection. The daughters, while sharing much of the boys' lives at Minto, saw a great deal of the people upon the estate.
The intercourse between the family at the House and the people of Minto village was of an intimate and affectionate nature. Joys and sorrows were shared in unvarying friendliness and sympathy, and to the end of her life "Lady Fanny" remembered with warm affection the old village friends of her youth. Kindly, true-hearted folk they were, with a sturdy and independent spirit which she valued and respected.
She only remembered seeing Sir Walter Scott on one occasion--when he came to visit her parents. She was quite a child, and it was the day on which her old nurse left Minto. She had wept bitterly, and when Sir Walter Scott came she hardly dared even look at him with her tearful countenance. She always remembered regretfully her indifference about the great man, whose visit was ever after connected in her mind with one of the first sorrows of her childhood. She regretted still more that in those days political differences unhappily prevented the close and friendly intercourse which would otherwise have undoubtedly existed between the Minto family and Sir Walter Scott.
A word or two must be said upon the religion in which she was brought up, for from her childhood she was deeply religious. Like her love for those nearest to her, it entered into everything that interested or delighted her profoundly; into her interest in politics and social questions and into her enjoyment of nature.
Page 9.
The Mintos belonged to the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. The doctrines of this Church are not of significance here, but an indication of the attitude towards dogma, history, and conduct which harmonizes with these tenets is necessary to the understanding of her life. For this purpose it is only necessary to say that this Church belongs to that half of Protestantism which does not lay peculiar stress upon an inner conviction of salvation. It differs from the evangelical persuasions in this respect, and again from the Church of England in finding less significance in ecclesiastical symbols, in setting less store by traditional usages, and in a more constant and uncompromising disapproval of any doctrine which regards the clergy as having spiritual functions or privileges different from those of other men. In the latter half of her life she came gradually to a Unitarian faith, which she held with earnestness to the last; and the name "Free Church" became more significant to her through the suggestion it carried of a religion detached from creeds and articles. Many entries occur in her diaries protesting against what she felt as mischievous narrowness in the books she read and in the sermons she heard. She sympathized heartily with Lord John Russell's dislike of the Oxford movement. There are many prayers in her diaries and many religious reflections in her letters, and in all two emotions predominate; a trust in God and an earnest conviction that a life of love--love to God and man--is the heart of religion. Her religion was contemplative as well as practical; but it was a religion of the conscience rather than one of mystical emotions.
