The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1874-08-07
1t. W. Higginson IN Woman's Journal. ]
The Late Lady Amberley.

/ ihere came to Newport, some wears since
III Tue neight OF "the season, young mar
/ ried iady tWenty-three years old or therea-
| Douts, Wno attracted good deal of attention.
She could not be directly described as haaut;'
Jul, though her face was fair and thoughtful. :.
stor as elegant, though her manners were
'rank and winning; nor as brilliant, though
sne was full of thought and observation.
Ihere was so much of the inconvenient quail
lty OF "earnestness" about her: she seemed
so much like an intelligent school-teacher or
normal schoolgirl, that she would have been
very easily passed by in the circles of fashion
nad she been au American. But she being
vlscountess Amberley, the daughter of Lord
Stanley OF Alderley, and The daughter-in-law
OF Earl Russell, it was not easy or agreeable
| to overlook her. There is a fixed impression
at our waterlng-paces that visiting-cards
which begin with "Lady" instead of Mrs
have an ornamental look On card-plate : and
indeed they are very apt. like the larger
Jumps OF sugar, to lie always near the ton.
at any rate, those who had least sympathy
with the expressed opinions of Lady Amber
ley were still glad to atteud her; and those
who sought her in spite of her social position.
rather than because of it, were amused in
watching the uneasy efforts of society to fix
the right place of one who was at once for
elgner, lady OF rank and a radical
She had too much of tue honest and almost
brusque quality of English manners to know
or care much Tor all this. Sometimes. indeed
her indifference went almost too far: and a
few genuine Instances of pre-occupaton or
dlscourtesy, made her the object of occasional
attack and OF absurd exaggeration, many
things being attributed to her which she new.
er did or would have done. Those with
whom she had spent an hour were sometimes
offended at her; but those in whose houses
she had stayed were almost always her best
friends; and this shows that any faults of
manner were superficial, and that the noble
qualities were the real ones. Indeed. if
seemed to me that good deal of the criti-
clsm made upon her was simply piece of
self-deiense on the part of those to whom res
olute courage and her unceasing activity Of
fered constant rebuke Sidney Smith said of
his clerical brethren in England, that they
ielt much in this way about Mrs. Elizabeth
Fry, the Quaker retOrmer: ''She disturbs
their repose and gives rise to distressing COM
parsons; they long to burn her alive" There
was visible something Of this emotion, in some
quarters, about Lady Amberley.
1t happened, also, that she was very fear
less in demanding of people very different
standard from that which they were wont to
recognize. She asked languid Young men
what they thought of Stuart Mills late ad-
dress before the University of Glasgow She
asked fashionable young ladies whether they
nad been at college, and if not, why not.
Ihere was nothing especially censorious in
her way OF putting these things; she really
wished to understand about them. Then she
thought our young ladies' ill-educated, and
she could not at first understand what we
trled 10 explaln-lhat the well-educated girls
IN America were not usually to be found at
waterlng-places, nor, indeed. in Society it
sell, put were more commonly the daughters
OF ministers and mechanics in small country
towns. AfterTard, when she had visited
Vassar College and the public schools, she
understood this for herself, and admitted that
it would have been unfair to judge of the gen.
eral education of American girls by that of
watering-place bellies.
She was keen, quick, and eagerly observ-
ing. AT the flrst ball she attended in Ameri-
ca, sne SAID to me: Never before did l
nave tne sllSntest conception what Haw-
tnofne meant by his descriptions OF English
women. NOW understand them, for see
that American women after middle life grow
thin instead OF stout; and English women
must look coarse as they grow older, to an
American eye." Thus quick and frank-and
sometimes, no doubt, hasty-were all her OBJ
servations and conclusions, She came dis
posed to like America, and did like it, l
think. very much. The Boston radical cir
cles especially interested her, and she wrote
me that she had never. on the whole, been in
any society she liked so WELL
Yet she had met from childhood at her
ther's house the most cultivated men in Eng
land. Mr.. Mill, especially, had been in
AAi.oS enSAS "hI SuS iS'SISu MN ocJ Jone- al