The happiest of my days then, and perhaps of my life, were spent at Mr. Ellice's Highland Lodge, at Glenquoich. For sport of all kinds it was and is difficult to surpass. The hills of the deer forest are amongst the highest in Scotland; the scenery of its lake and glens, especially the descent to Loch Hourne, is unequalled. Here were to be met many of the most notable men and women of the time. And as the house was twenty miles from the nearest post-town, and that in turn two days from London, visitors ceased to be strangers before they left. In the eighteen years during which this was my autumn home, I had the good fortune to meet numbers of distinguished people of whom I could now record nothing interesting but their names. Still, it is a privilege to have known such men as John Lawrence, Guizot, Thiers, Landseer, Merimee, Comte de Flahault, Doyle, Lords Elgin and Dalhousie, Duc de Broglie, Pelissier, Panizzi, Motley, Delane, Dufferin; and of gifted women, the three Sheridans, Lady Seymour - the Queen of Beauty, afterwards Duchess of Somerset - Mrs. Norton, and Lady Dufferin. Amongst those who have a retrospective interest were Mr. and Lady Blanche Balfour, parents of Mr. Arthur Balfour, who came there on their wedding tour in 1843.
Mr. Arthur Balfour's father was Mrs. Ellice's first cousin.
It would be easy to lengthen the list; but I mention only those who repeated their visits, and who fill up my mental picture of the place and of the life. Some amongst them impressed me quite as much for their amiability - their loveableness, I may say - as for their renown; and regard for them increased with coming years. Panizzi was one of these.
Dufferin, who was just my age, would have fascinated anyone with the singular courtesy of his manner. Dicky Doyle was necessarily a favourite with all who knew him. He was a frequent inmate of my house after I married, and was engaged to dine with me, alas! only eight days before he died.
Motley was a singularly pleasant fellow. My friendship with him began over a volume of Sir W. Hamilton's Lectures. He asked what I was reading - I handed him the book.
'A-h,' said he, 'there's no mental gymnastic like metaphysics.'
Many a battle we afterwards had over them. When I was at Cannes in 1877 I got a message from him one day saying he was ill, and asking me to come and see him. He did not say how ill, so I put off going. Two days after I heard he was dead.
Merimee's cynicism rather alarmed one. He was a capital caricaturist, though, to our astonishment, he assured us he had never drawn, or used a colour-box, till late in life. He had now learnt to use it, in a way that did not invariably give satisfaction. Landseer always struck me as sensitive and proud, a Diogenes-tempered individual who had been spoilt by the toadyism of great people. He was agreeable if made much of, or almost equally so if others were made little of.
But of all those named, surely John Lawrence was the greatest. I wish I had read his life before it ended. Yet, without knowing anything more of him than that he was Chief Commissioner of the Punjab, which did not convey much to my understanding, one felt the greatness of the man beneath his calm simplicity. One day the party went out for a deer-drive; I was instructed to place Sir John in the pass below mine. To my disquietude he wore a black overcoat. I assured him that not a stag would come within a mile of us, unless he covered himself with a grey plaid, or hid behind a large rock there was, where I assured him he would see nothing.
'Have the deer to pass me before they go on to you?' he asked.
'Certainly they have,' said I; 'I shall be up there above you.'
'Well then,' was his answer, 'I'll get behind the rock - it will be more snug out of the wind.'
One might as well have asked the deer not to see him, as try to persuade John Lawrence not to sacrifice himself for others. That he did so here was certain, for the deer came within fifty yards of him, but he never fired a shot.
