my father's, my mother mentions Hassan el Bakkeet (a black boy): 'He is
an inch taller for our grandeur; _peu s'en faut_, he thinks me a great
lady and himself a great butler.' Hassan was a personage in the
establishment. One night, on returning from a theatrical party at
Dickens', my mother found the little boy crouching on the doorstep. His
master had turned him out of doors because he was threatened with
blindness, and having come now and then with messages to Queen Square, he
found his way, as he explained, 'to die on the threshold of the beautiful
pale lady.' His eyes were cured, and he became my mother's devoted slave
and my playmate, to the horror of Mr. Hilliard, the American author. I
perfectly recollect how angry I was when he asked how Lady Duff Gordon
could let a negro touch her child, whereupon she called us to her, and
kissed me first and Hassan afterwards. Some years ago I asked our dear
friend Kinglake about my mother and Hassan, and received the following
letter: 'Can I, my dear Janet, how can I trust myself to speak of your
dear mother's beauty in the phase it had reached when first I saw her?
The classic form of her features, the noble poise of her head and neck,
her stately height, her uncoloured yet pure complexion, caused some of
the beholders at first to call her beauty statuesque, and others to call
it majestic, some pronouncing it to be even imperious; but she was so
intellectual, so keen, so autocratic, sometimes even so impassioned in
speech, that nobody feeling her powers could go on feebly comparing her
to a statue or a mere Queen or Empress. All this touches only the
beauteous surface; the stories (which were told me by your dear mother
herself) are incidentally illustrative of her kindness to
fellow-creatures in trouble or suffering. Hassan, it is supposed, was a
Nubian, and originally, as his name implies, a Mahometan, he came into
the possession of English missionaries (who had probably delivered him
from slavery), and it resulted that he not only spoke English well and
without foreign accent, but was always ready with phrases in use amongst