LADY ARTHUR RUSSELL.
• pro THE EDITOR 07 THE " SPECTATOR:1 ;Sin,—There must be a very considerable number of your readers to whom the sudden, and in a very real sense untimely, death of Lady Arthur Russell has come as a personal loss. Her circle of friends was a large one. During the life of her husband, Lord Arthur Russell, who died some eighteen years ago, it would be hardly too much to say that Lady Arthur was known to all persons of social, political, and intellectual -eminence, not only in England and France, but also, though perhaps in a lesser degree, in Germany. The family -connexions of herself and her husband brought her into contact with persons of distinction in London, Paris, and Berlin, though undoubtedly the personal gifts of husband and wife would, even without those family connexions, have made them remarkable figures. Lady Arthur's mother, _Madame de Peyronnet, an Englishwoman married to a Flenchman, was a woman of strong intellectual gifts,—gifts inherited by her three daughters, Lady Arthur Russell, Lady Sligo, and Mlle. de Peyronnet, the last two of whom are happily still alive. Lord and Lady Arthur Russell were fond of, and understood the very best side of, social life. The talk about " keeping a salon" has become so hackneyed and so vulgarised that one is loath to use -the phrase, or even to come within reach of it ; but it may be truly said that the Arthur Russells' house in Audley Square was, not only during Lord Arthur's life, but afterwards and up to the present time, the focus for some of the best talk and pleasantest evenings that the London world had to offer. Lady Arthur, like her husband, possessed what Gibbon calls "the perfection of that ines- timable art which softens and refines our social intercourse." But Lady Arthur Russell, like Lord Arthur, possessed a great deal more than the social art. Both were in the best sense true friends, and never lost strength and independence
of character and outlook in the refinements of society. This is not the place to speak of the family life of Lady Arthur Russell, but those who knew her in her family will realise the blow that has fallen upon her sons and daughters,—men and women worthy of the best traditions of their house.—I
Previous page
