Letters from Egypt | Page 4

German verses, has imagined and put together a fairy world,
dress, language, music, everything, and talks to them in the garden; but
she is sadly negligent of her own appearance, and is, as Sterling calls
her, Miss Orson. . . . Lucie now goes to a Dr. Biber, who has five other
pupils (boys) and his own little child. She seems to take to Greek, with
which her father is very anxious to have her thoroughly imbued. As this
scheme, even if we stay in England, cannot last many years, I am quite
willing to forego all the feminine parts of her education for the present.
The main thing is to secure her independence, both with relation to her
own mind and outward circumstances. She is handsome, striking, and
full of vigour and animation.'

From the very first Lucie Austin possessed a correct and vigorous style,
and a nice sense of language, which were hereditary rather than
implanted, and to these qualities was added a delightful strain of
humour, shedding a current of original thought all through her writings.
That her unusual gifts should have been so early developed is hardly
surprising with one of her sympathetic temperament when we
remember the throng of remarkable men and women who frequented
the Austins' house. The Mills, the Grotes, the Bullers, the Carlyles, the
Sterlings, Sydney Smith, Luttrell, Rogers, Jeremy Bentham, and Lord
Jeffrey, were among the most intimate friends of her parents, and
'Toodie,' as they called her, was a universal favourite with them. Once,
staying at a friend's house, and hearing their little girl rebuked for
asking questions, she said: 'My mamma never says "I don't know" or
"Don't ask questions."'
In 1834 Mr. Austin's health, always delicate, broke down, and with his
wife and daughter he went to Boulogne. Mrs. Austin made many
friends among the fishermen and their wives, but 'la belle Anglaise,' as
they called her, became quite a heroine on the occasion of the wreck of
the Amphitrite, a ship carrying female convicts to Botany Bay. She
stood the whole night on the beach in the howling storm, saved the
lives of three sailors who were washed up by the breakers, and dashed
into the sea and pulled one woman to shore. Lucie was with her mother,
and showed the same cool courage that distinguished her in after life. It
was during their stay at Boulogne that she first met Heinrich Heine; he
sat next her at the table d'hote, and, soon finding out that she spoke
German perfectly, told her when she returned to England she could tell
her friends she had met Heinrich Heine. He was much amused when
she said: 'And who is Heinrich Heine?' The poet and the child used to
lounge on the pier together; she sang him old English ballads, and he
told her stories in which fish, mermaids, water-sprites, and a very funny
old French fiddler with a poodle, who was diligently taking three
sea-baths a day, were mixed up in a fanciful manner, sometimes
humorous, often very pathetic, especially when the water-sprites
brought him greetings from the North Sea. He afterwards told her that
one of his most charming poems,

'Wenn ich am deinem Hause Des Morgens voruber geh', So freut's
mich, du liebe Kleine, Wenn ich dich am Fenster seh',' etc.,
was meant for her whose magnificent eyes he never forgot.
Two years later Mr. Austin was appointed Royal Commissioner to
inquire into the grievances of the Maltese. His wife accompanied him,
but so hot a climate was not considered good for a young girl, and
Lucie was sent to a school at Bromley. She must have been as great a
novelty to the school as the school-life was to her, for with a great deal
of desultory knowledge she was singularly deficient in many rudiments
of ordinary knowledge. She wrote well already at fifteen, and
corresponded often with Mrs. Grote and other friends of her parents. {4}
At sixteen she determined to be baptized and confirmed as a member of
the Church of England (her parents and relations were Unitarians).
Lord Monteagle was her sponsor and it was chiefly owing, I believe, to
the influence of himself and his family, with whom she was very
intimate in spite of her Radical ideas, that she took this step.
[Lucie Austin, aged fifteen, from a sketch by a school friend: ill4.jpg]
When the Austins returned from Malta in 1838, Lucie began to appear
in the world; all the old friends flocked round them, and many new
friends were made, among them Sir Alexander Duff Gordon whom she
first met at Lansdowne House. Left much alone, as her mother was
always hard at work translating, writing for various periodicals and
nursing her husband, the two young people were thrown much together,