GARDENS OF CELEBRITIES 



It is difficult to recognize in the writer of the "Journal," the 

 Lady Holland of the Princess Lichstenstein's " Holland House," 

 of Macaulay's letters to his sisters, and of the accounts and casual 

 remarks of contemporaries. Unfortunately the " Journal " ceases 

 in 1811, and therefore does not help us as it might otherwise have 

 done, to trace the gradual hardening that undeniably took place 

 in her character. 



There were two Elizabeths, one capable of committing a felony 

 to keep her child, and yet of giving her up at last, lest she should 

 injure the man who held her heart and the brilliant, but embittered 

 woman who founded what was virtually a salon on the French 

 lines where she queened it over the wits, men of letters, and poli- 

 ticians, whom her genial and cultured husband aided no doubt 

 in the first instance by her own beauty and piquant personality 

 attracted to Holland House. I am sure she was embittered : 

 I believe that rebellion against what she probably felt to be a 

 monstrous price for a woman to pay for happiness first led 

 her to assume those " airs of Queen Elizabeth," upon which 

 Macaulay remarked ; and that she assumed them as defensive 

 armour against a world prepared to ostracize her unheard. Un- 

 happily she wore it so long that it became part and parcel of 

 herself. 



Other children gathered round her to whom she was a tender 

 mother. Her daughter, Mary Fox, afterwards Lady Lilford, 

 who died in 1891, was a charming character, greatly beloved by 

 her family though, as years went on Lady Holland's sharp tongue 

 did not spare even her. From time to time she saw the young 

 Websters secretly, at her mother's. The eldest boy went to Harrow, 

 and we learn from the " Journal " that she could see the spire of 

 Harrow Church from her window, and " sighed to be near 

 him." 



Harriet grew up and married ; she never lived in close intimacy 

 with her mother, but when Lady Holland, who survived her 

 husband, was dying, the daughter, in obedience to an urgent 

 summons, promptly crossed the Channel and came to receive her 

 last breath. 



But that was long after, and meanwhile we see her, not without 

 amusement, rapping on the table with her fan, calling first one and 

 then another of her guests to order commanding them to do 



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