LORD AND LADY ABERDEEN'S REMINISCENCES
We Twa. By Lord and Lady Aberdeen. (Collins. 36s. net.)
THE little doings of the great if simply recounted will always find a large audience. That is why the reminiscences of Lord and Lady Aberdeen cannot fail to give much pleasure to many people. How do those men and women really feel who have houses and lands and money and power, who have always seen the world from the top of the tree ? More of us are keenly interested in that question than would like to confess it. It is not for its political chapters that this book will be read. They throw very little new light upon the personalities of the great Victorian statesmen, nor upon the affairs of Ireland or Canada during Lord Aberdeen's reign in either place. What fascinates the reader is the details of daily life among the good rich during the middle and end of last century.
We know when we have turned over its pages exactly how both authors were brought up and how when they grew up they managed to pack the hours with personal pleasure and public service. Lady Aberdeen is the more interesting writer of the two. Her account of her childhood is a bit of real social history. The houses that she lived in as Ishbel Marjoribanks were so large, the tutors and governesses so many, that though a large family lived under one roof they may almost be said to have had separate establishments according to their age and sex, and Lady Aberdeen writes almost as though she were an only child. Of the elder children she seems to have seen little, the brother nearest her own age died. " There were two more boys, Coutts and Archie, three or four years younger than me, who seemed to occupy a separate division of the family in early years, having their own nursery governess and separate schoolroom till they went to school, and afterwards their own tutor during the holidays." Friendship with other children was deprecated both in Brook Street and in Scotkuld, but every possible means of enjoyment which money can provide was spread out before the children. Ponies and grooms and pets and books ministered to their pleasure under the eyes •of their preceptors. No whole
holidays were allowed. Holiday governesses and tutors came to relieve the vigilance of the permanent staff.
In Scotland the family lived in patriarchal fashion twenty- three miles from church, doctor or railway, eighteen from the nearest country house. " My mother- prevailed upon her doctor in London to teach her the elements of first-aid and simple doctoring and pharmacy, and she became the family adviser in matters of health for the whole glen," ,closing her tenants and retainers out of " a deep cupboard " in her " boudoir." This mother gave considerable time and thought, however, to the government of her children and
was an active head of the various nursery and schoolroom departments. She was an absolute monarch, and so far as her daughters -were concerned did not abdicate till they married. Though they `` came out " at seventeen, no novel reading was permitted. Permission to teach in a Sunday. school was a piece of freedom to be begged for. After seventeen the seeking of pleasure was so ordered and regu- lated that Lady Aberdeen speaks of her first year of social life as " a discipline." She describes the -regime of country house parties in those days in drab colours, but with no teminis' cence of rebellion. Indeed, we feel that the life she was brought up to she went on living in a softer rather than a freer form—redeeming its severities by something we can only describe as a passion for kindness which showed itself in solid good works whose worth and beauty a few rather conspicuous fads in no way destroyed. The delights of social entertainment she writes of as people write of their work, and of the organizing of good-doing as a kind of dissipa- tion in which her husband took an eager part. " A. was looked upon as a sort of assistant and successor to the great Lord Shaftesbury, and was in great demand at all kinds of Charitable and philanthropic meetings. " Our engagement- book for the summer months in London during the 'eighties looks like a list of the principal charitable and philanthropic Societies, among which are sandwiched dinner, evening and garden parties innumerable." We hear a great deal about beautiful houses and devoted tenants and servants, of the building of a chapel to be a joy and pride to the family and its dependents, and of " spacious bright nurseries with their sunny aspect, bow windows and their near proximity to my boudoir."
Such a life will seem alinost heaven to thousands, more especially if they have seen nothing like it at first hand. The troubles described—a good many deaths and funerals -are chronicled—do but suggest the shedding of a few natural tears such as make the whole world kin, soon to be dried beside the glowing fires of love, friendship and good fortune.
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