RUSSELL

On October 26th they left home for Italy, travelling across France in deep snow.  They reached the Villa Garbarino, at San Remo, on November 3rd, and remained there till April, 1870.  “The five months,” Lady Russell writes, “were among the very happiest of our lives, and we reckon it among the three earthly paradises to which our wanderings have taken us—­La Roche, St. Fillans, and San Remo.  It was a very quiet life, but with a pleasant amount of society, many people we much liked passing through, or staying awhile, or, like ourselves, all the winter.”

They also became friendly with several of the Italians of San Remo, whom they welcomed at little evening gatherings at their villa.  Their landlord, the Marchese Garbarino, was an ardent patriot.  He it was who had decorated the ceiling of his drawing-room with the four portraits:  Cavour, Garibaldi, Mazzini, and Lord John Russell, so it was to him a delightful surprise to have Lord John as his tenant.

    Lord Russell to Lady Minto

    SAN REMO, November 23, 1869

I am very sorry that headache and neuralgia should have been added to illness and dislike of writing, as your reason for not inquiring how we were going on.  We sit here in the receipt of news without any means of reciprocity, but we can speculate on France, Italy, and Ireland.  Of those, the country which most interests and most concerns me, is Ireland....  I have heard much of Lady and Lord Byron, and from good sources.  I can only conclude that he was half mad and loved to frighten her, and that she believed in the stories she circulated. [73] The Duke of Wellington said of George IV’s story that he was at the Battle of Waterloo, “At first it was a lie, than a strong delusion, and at last downright madness.”

Brougham’s conversation with William IV on the dissolution was another delusion, and so on in perverse, wicked, contradictory human nature.  Those who like to probe such systems may do so—­the only wise conclusion is Swift’s, “If you want to confute a lie, tell another in the opposite direction.”  Madame de Sevigne tells of a curate who put up a clock on his church.  His parishioners collected stones to break it, saying it was the Gabelle.  “No, my friends,” he said, “it was the Jubilee,” on which they all hurrahed and went away.  If he had said it was a machine to mark the hour, his clock would have been broken and himself pelted.

I hope your second volume is coming out soon. [74] There are no lies in it, and therefore you must not expect a great sale.  I must stop or you will think me grown a misanthrope.  Fanny and Agatha are well.  If the day had been fine the Crown Princess and her sister would have come here to tea, and you would have had no letter from me.  Do send me a return, when your mankind is gone a-hunting.

[73] The publication of “Astarte,” by the late Lord Lovelace, containing the documents and letters relating to Byron’s separation from his wife, has now made it quite clear that the grounds for separation were real.