Lucie Duff Gordon, born on June 24, 1821, was the only child of John and
Sarah Austin and inherited the beauty and the intellect of her parents.
The wisdom, learning, and vehement eloquence of John Austin, author of
the 'Province of Jurisprudence Determined,' were celebrated, and Lord
Brougham used to say: 'If John Austin had had health, neither Lyndhurst
nor I should have been Chancellor.' He entered the army, and was in
Sicily under Lord William Bentinck; but soon quitted an uncongenial
service, and was called to the Bar. In 1819 he married Sarah, the
youngest daughter of John Taylor of Norwich, {1} when they took a house
in Queen Square, Westminster, close to James Mill, the historian of
British India, and next door to Jeremy Bentham, whose pupil Mr. Austin
was. Here, it may be said, the Utilitarian philosophy of the nineteenth
century was born. Jeremy Bentham's garden became the playground of the
young Mills and of Lucie Austin; his coach-house was converted into a
gymnasium, and his flower-beds were intersected by tapes and threads to
represent the passages of a panopticon prison. The girl grew in vigour
and in sense, with a strong tinge of originality and independence and an
extreme love of animals. About 1826 the Austins went to Germany, Mr.
Austin having been nominated Professor of Civil Law in the new London
University, and wishing to study Roman Law under Niebuhr and Schlegel at
Bonn. 'Our dear child,' writes Mrs. Austin to Mrs. Grote, 'is a great
joy to us. She grows wonderfully, and is the happiest thing in the
world. Her German is very pretty; she interprets for her father with
great joy and naivete. God forbid that I should bring up a daughter
here! But at her present age I am most glad to have her here, and to
send her to a school where she learns--_well_, writing, arithmetic,
geography, and, as a matter of course, German.' Lucie returned to
England transformed into a little German maiden, with long braids of hair