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LADY HESTER STANHOPE. 303
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Part Ii. Fiiattery Is Sometimes A Low Re...
and wild and gloomy fancies about supernatural appearances . But vanity and egotism were the real explanation of these strange
superstitions , which , a diseased state of the bodily functions probably allowed to obtain full power over her mind . It seems
that in the lifetime of Mr . Pitt , the visionary Brothers , whose absurdities had made him famous , gained permission to see Lady
Hester , and prophesied to her that her sojourn at Jerusalem should entirely change the face of the earth , and that she should pass
seven years in the desert . She never forgot this prediction , and obscure intriguers took advantage of it by persuading her that the
Saint Simonians and the Freemasons rested all their hopes in her as the regenerator of the world . No retreat but that of Mount
_iiebanon seemed to her sufficiently mysterious and solitary . Here she received visits from the Prince Puckler Muskau ; here she
tormented the lives of her servants by her vagaries and fits of passion ; here she wearied her physician by her long-winded talk and elaborate
mysticism , here she still delighted to study effects and to decorate her decrepit body in fanciful costumes ; and here at last she
determined to die alone when deprived of her pension , taking a kind of spiteful pleasure in the poverty and mortification she
endured , fancying thus to revenge herself upon the British Government for neglecting" a niece of Pitt . Her emaciated _corjDse was
interred by an American missionary , who went to Joon to bury her . Her servants plundered her before her death , and not even
her watch w _^ as to be found amongst her clothes . To the last she occupied herself with politicswriting letters to the Morning
Chro-, nicle , and fancying she exercised an important influence upon public affairs .
The sad changes of fortune which Lady Hester underwent , and the taint of hereditary insanity which was probably in her family ,
may form some apology for the faults of her character . A spoilt child from her birth , feeding upon vanity , and living in flattery as
if it were her natural element , she imagined her foolish caprices to be proofs of a superior will . She confounded force of character
with obstinacy and pride , and allowed herself to be duped by those who humoured her conceit . By the premature death of Mr . Pitt
, while she was yet in the giddiness of her power and triumphing in her successshe was precipitated at once from a height which _,
suited her ambition , to an obscurity which satisfied the revenge of her enemies . Disinterested , and generous in the days of prosperity ,
¦ when she was surrounded by sycophants , and a theme for poets and painters , she had nothing left to supply these blandishments but
the gloom of disappointment and the poignant sense of foiled ambition , when such pleasures were suddenly withdrawn . Pier
_subsequent vagaries were caused by her visionary projects for aggrandisement , and her struggles for lost power . Her resources
were and her incompetent humiliation was gr maddening atify her schemes when she found princel herself y munificence degraded
Lady Hester Stanhope. 303
LADY HESTER STANHOPE . 303
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), July 1, 1862, page 303, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01071862/page/15/
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