William Nelson A Memoir 12

William Nelson A Memoir 12

The following characteristic reminiscences are derived from notes

furnished by Mr. John Miller, whose business transactions with Mr.

Nelson, as a large paper manufacturer, brought them into frequent

intercourse: “Mr. Nelson had an immense aptitude for the despatch of

business, and great promptness of decision, never wasting any time

talking over bargains. When a paper-maker called and showed him a

sample, if it was not to his mind, or the price too high, he would in

the most courteous manner thank him for the sample, but he would in no

way depreciate the paper. If the paper was right, he would say, ‘Well,

it is just the price we are paying;’ or if the price were better, he

would frankly say, ‘It is a little better than the price we are buying

at. I shall give you an order; and if you can maintain the quality at

the price, we shall continue to order from you.’ There was never any

second bargain at settlement. If the paper sent was not according to

sample, it would be paid for without remark, and no further orders

given. Mr. Nelson had no time and no disposition to haggle over a

bargain, and no man could better appreciate value. He was in every

respect a very capable man of business. After his marriage he began to

take business a little more leisurely; at all events, he seemed to take

more time for the little courtesies of life, which were so greatly

developed in his after years.”

 

He had proved himself a true captain of industry; organized his

extensive business on the most systematic basis; gathered around him a

body of skilled and trusty workmen, on whose loyal co-operation he could

rely; and having thus, with prudent foresight, surmounted the many

impediments that had inevitably beset his way, he turned aside from the

anxieties of business to make for himself a home, in which all the

congenial elements of a singularly emotional and sensitive nature should

thenceforth find free scope for development. He retained to the close of

his life his interest in the multitudinous details of the printing and

publishing works; but he found time for the gratification of many

refined tastes, and for a practical sympathy in public questions, as

well as in the exercise of an open-handed beneficence, the full extent

of which has only been revealed since his death.

 

The new life of which marriage is the source began for William Nelson

when he was in his thirty-sixth year. On the 24th of July 1851,

Catherine Inglis, the daughter of Robert Inglis, Esquire of Kirkmay,

Fifeshire, a descendant of Sir James Inglis, Bart., of Cramond, gave her

hand, with her heart in it, to William Nelson. The marriage took place

at the old mansion of Kirkmay, acquired by her father, with the estates

of Sypsis and Kirkmay, on his return from a highly successful career in

India. The maternal grandfather of the bride had seen long service

there; and letters preserved by the family show that he was held in high

esteem by Lord Cornwallis, and was the trusted and confidential friend

of Warren Hastings. One of them, addressed to him while he was Resident

at the Court of Scindia, is an amusing example of epistolary conciseness

in preferring an unusual request; and as such was peculiarly germane to

William Nelson’s tastes, as well as to his sense of humour. His fondness

for animals manifested itself at times in odd ways, and had he received

any encouragement the pleasure grounds at Salisbury Green would have

been apt to assume the character of a zoological garden. When travelling

in California in 1870, along with Mrs. Nelson, he was reluctantly

dissuaded from bringing off with him as a novel pet a “gofer,” or

beautifully striped species of lizard, which an Indian offered for sale.

Here was a still more unmanageable pet in request by the old Indian

viceroy in his letter to the grandfather of the bride:--

 

BENARES, _14th March, 1784_.

 

 

“DEAR SIR,--If you can possibly contrive to procure for me a young

lion of a size which may be carried over rocky and mountainous

roads, I shall be much obliged to you. I want to gratify the eager

desire which has been expressed by the ruler of Tibet to have one

in his possession; the people of this country having a religious

veneration for a lion, of which they know nothing but in the

doubtful and fabulous relations of their own books.--I am, dear

sir, yours affectionately,

 

“WARREN HASTINGS.

 

“To Lieutenant James Anderson.”

 

But this ancestral reminiscence carries us far afield from the

wedding-party at Kirkmay House, where the bride was given away by her

brother, who had then succeeded to the estate; and so the old home was

exchanged for one which she gladdened through all the happy years till

that inevitable parting which every wedded union involves. Thenceforth

life had for William Nelson a deeper meaning, and was passed in the

quiet centre of a sunlight all his own, till he reached beyond the limit

of the threescore years and ten.

 

The biographer must ever feel that he executes a delicate trust in

drawing aside the curtain that veils the sanctities of home life. But

here there was nothing to conceal. A friend who met Mr. and Mrs. Nelson

at a German spa twenty years later thus writes: “I was greatly

interested in watching him as he, with all the attention and devotion of

a lover, refilled and carried the glass of water to his wife, and tended

on her, then an invalid, with untiring care.” And so it continued to be

to the close. Thirty-six years of happy wedded union glided by.

Daughters in time followed their mother’s example, and left the old home

to make new centres of happiness. Eveline, the eldest, was married in

1874 to Professor Annandale, Professor of Surgery in the University of

Edinburgh; and in 1886 her sister Florence became the wife of S. Fraser

MacLeod, Esquire, barrister, London, a friend of the family from early

boyhood. By-and-by the little grandchildren presented themselves to

claim their mothers’ places in the hearts of those who had found it hard

to reconcile themselves to the blanks round the old hearth, where Meta

and Alice still remained, with their brother Frederick, to play the new

_rôle_ of uncle and aunts. The home of the Nelsons at Salisbury Green

was familiar to many through all those years as a rare centre of genial

hospitality, with some unique features of its own worthy of further

note.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VIII.

 

_SALISBURY GREEN._

 

 

The unique site of the Scottish capital, embosomed in hills and looking

out upon the sea, furnishes many charming nooks for suburban residence

to its denizens; but among such the Nelsons’ home stood in some respects

unrivalled. Salisbury Green, a jointure house of the Prestonfield

family, when purchased in 1770 by Lady Dick Cunningham, had, according

to the traditions of the family, a ghost as its sole tenant; and

notwithstanding the genial hospitalities, and all the brightness and

beauty of its home-life in later years, the venerable ghost, a lady of

grim visage, in antique coif and farthingale, continued to flit at rare

intervals about her old haunts, and drew the curtains of fair young

dreamers who had invaded her precincts. It was a plain old-fashioned

house, though already graced with some of the undesigned picturesqueness

due to additions of various dates, when William Nelson acquired the

property in 1860. But, with his keen eye for beauty, he discerned at

once the capabilities of the place, embosomed in stately trees, and

commanding a view of almost unmatched grandeur and beauty.

 

Under his tasteful care, the old house was renovated, assuming

externally the picturesque features of the domestic architecture of

Scotland in the sixteenth century; and in accordance with the practice

of the age of the Reformation, he carved round the entablature this apt

motto, from the third chapter of Hebrews, “EVERY HOUSE IS BUILDED BY

SOME MAN; BUT HE THAT BUILT ALL THINGS IS GOD.” Internally the

drawing-room, an addition of its earlier proprietors, was a

reproduction, in style and proportions, of that of Barley Wood, the

charming abode of the amiable and gifted Hannah More. The house, so

familiar to many strangers from other lands as well as to the citizens

of Edinburgh, by reason of its hospitalities, was enriched in later

years, by the accumulated acquisitions of its owner, with choice works

of art and _virtu_, and especially with a valuable collection of bronzes

and antique ceramic ware, not displayed for purposes of show, but

scattered over the mantel-shelves and cabinets, or disposed about in

every available nook and corner of the old house, as natural and fitting

adjuncts of the tasteful owner’s home.

 

But the unique charm of Salisbury Green as a city dwelling lies in its

natural surroundings. The terraced lawn slopes to the east, and commands

a historic landscape of rare beauty. The couchant lion of Arthur Seat,

a mountain in miniature, rises on the left in a succession of bold

cliffs and grassy slopes to a height of eight hundred feet. The basaltic

columns of Samson’s Ribs form a singularly bold feature at its base. On

the right, the rich undulating landscape terminates in an insulated rock

crowned with the picturesque ruin of Craigmillar Castle, famous in

Scottish history in the days of the Jameses and Mary Stuart. Right

below, Duddingston Loch forms the central feature, with the old village

churchyard beyond. Under its mouldering heaps the rude forefathers of

many a generation lie around the venerable parish church. Though defaced

by tasteless modern additions, the church still retains the

richly-moulded Norman chancel arch and south doorway, the work of the

same builders who reared the Abbey of Holyrood in the time of David I.;

while away in the distant landscape are North Berwick Law, Aberlady Bay,

the Bass Rock, and beyond the Firth of Forth the Fifeshire hills. The

sudden transition from the dust and bustle of the Dalkeith Road to the

garden terrace and the unique landscape beyond, never failed to excite

admiring wonder in the visitor who saw it for the first time. It

includes such a variety of attractive features, and differs so greatly

from anything usually visible from the windows or garden-terrace of a

city dwelling, that even the most unimpressible yielded to some sense

of surprise. Many a hearty tribute has accordingly been paid to its

beauty. The French artist, Gustave Doré, was charmed with the

magnificent panorama; J. J. Hayes, the Arctic explorer, and Bayard

Taylor, familiar as a traveller with the beauties of many lands, owned

its attractions as exceptionally rare; and the __EXPRESSION__ of quiet

delight with which Augustus Hare--fortunate in an unusually warm, bright

day of early summer--lingered over every detail of the historic

landscape, has left a vivid impression on the minds of those who recall

the incidents of his visit. It was no show-place for strangers, for few

men shrank with more instinctive reserve than William Nelson from

anything savouring of display; but to friends and friends’ friends it

was ever accessible. An American visitor, who, like so many others from